American higher education is in crisis.
Two recent Supreme Court’s decisions have added to the crisis. In Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College the Court struck down the use of affirmative action in college admission decisions. In Biden v. Nebraska it struck down the president’s executive order to forgive some student loan debt. Both decisions add to a growing list of problems that threaten the future of many colleges and universities, including in Minnesota.
Higher education in America is a business. Colleges and universities are corporations. They sell education as their products to students who are their customers. They have to compete against other schools for students by offering a variety of majors and amenities. They need revenue streams such as tuition, grants, or donations to finance their costs. Yet the business plans that have defined higher education for the last fifty or more years are collapsing.
Prior to WWII colleges and universities were elite institutions for the wealthy few. Many schools excluded women and people of color. But after WWII, it was the GI Bill that encouraged returning veterans to go to college. The Cold War also pushed many into college as the race for technological superiority with the USSR heated up. States such as Minnesota created or vastly expanded inexpensive tuition to serve an exploding Baby Boom generation. Altogether, the U.S. in 1960 7.7% of the U.S. population had a college degree – by 2020 it was 37.5%. Much of American economic growth and global supremacy was fueled by college degrees where we had a dramatic lead over most of the world. The business plan of higher education was public dollars and an expanding student population eager to attend college.
Yet starting in the 1980s the business plan changed. States began cutting back on public support for higher education and previous grants now turned into loans as college increasingly came to be seen as a private benefit financed individually and not a public good financed by taxpayer dollars. The large Baby Boom population passed beyond college age, replaced by a much smaller Gen X population. Higher education became more heavily dependent on tuition, especially pricy professional education programs. So long as it looked like a college degree was worth it, students were willing to shell out tens of thousands of dollars and go into massive debt. Additionally, because of its quality, higher education benefited from large enrollments from international students willing to pay top dollar for a U.S. degree.
The financial crash of 2008 was a breaking point for college and universities and this new business plan. A college degree looked less attractive as tuition continued to increase. Moreover, students were tapped out. In 2010 for the first time ever, student loan debt exceeded credit card debt, and by law it was not dischargeable under bankruptcy. It has grown now to where it is $1.78 trillion, nearly twice the $986 billion in current credit card debt. For many, a college degree is a lifetime loan, impacting their ability to buy a house or raise a family.
But the 2008 crash created another problem – the enrollment cliff. Birth rates crashed in 2008 and continue to go down. Approximately 18 years later in 2025-2026 colleges are estimated to lose more than 575,000 students, or 15% of their students, with no immediate reversal from a large Millennial and Gen Z population. In part this is because these generations were among the most racially diverse in American history, yet the racial achievement gap in the U.S. and Minnesota means many of these students just will not be prepared or interested in college. Finally, International student enrollment is down both due to COVID and anti-immigration policies.
As a result states such as Minnesota were facing a higher education crisis. Between 2013 and 2022 MNSCU enrollment was down nearly 28%, with schools such as St. Cloud State down by more than 40%. And in case anyone thinks the crisis is simply for four-year schools, in Minnesota and nationwide less expensive two-year community colleges such as Minneapolis Community and Technical College have seen 40%-plus enrollment declines. The statewide educational racial achievement gap, among the worst in the nation, has hurt college and university enrollment in Minnesota too. And despite record 2023 legislative funding for higher education, the University of Minnesota has raised tuition again. Private colleges too in Minnesota are not immune from all of the trends noted above. One wonders who survives after 2025.
[image_caption]David Schultz[/image_caption]
There is no immediate fix for higher education. Free college may help, but not solve some problems for affordability, but it does not fix the enrollment cliff or the crashing business plan that has structured colleges and universities in America. We are in danger of having fewer and fewer students attending fewer and fewer colleges, returning us back to the elitist days when only a few could attend.
David Schultz is a distinguished professor in the Department of Political Science, Department of Legal Studies and Department of Environmental Studies at Hamline University.
Excellent piece. I appreciate the background given on how education became unaffordable. Regarding the Affirmative Action case, I am disappointed in the court for striking it down, but Roberts strangely left open a different door for “adversity-based” consideration, which may, ironically enough, disadvantage the same Asian students the Students for Fair Admissions case purported to defend. My personal belief is Affirmative Action can make a huge difference in addressing systemic racism in our country, so I hope it finds a way to survive in some form.
Debt relief is a tricky one for me, because I believe our education system could be greatly improved as a whole, and because I don’t generally like treating the symptoms rather than the disease of the unaffordability of education. With that being said, I personally believe that a lot of these students deserve relief because they are essentially victims of predatory loans. Furthermore, I do not believe it is healthy for a consumer economy like we have in the US to have so many people submerged in debt. Perhaps this is not the best time for the “economic stimulus” of student loan relief, but I think there is an economic benefit to lowering the amount of interest people pay to their debts, because that spending is nonproductive, instead of using that money to stimulate the economy through more productive spending on goods and services.
Just think of the enormous boost given our country by the combination of the GI Bill and the low public university tuition costs at that time.
The GI Bill marks the rise of the white ‘Citizen Soldier’ working class chance to advance in school and in society, as you wisely point out, Mr. Markle.
What many of us didn’t know is that Black soldiers returning from duty were coming home to the Jim Crow South, where they were systematically denied GI Bill benefits.*
*cite: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/18/1129735948/black-vets-were-excluded-from-gi-bill-benefits-a-bill-in-congress-aims-to-fix-th
It’s true, and as a Baby Boomer who was in the biggest class our school ever had,
I can attest to the post-war spending on our education, immunizations, Land Grant University admissions with generous public financing, I can see my own white privilege more clearly.
Why can’t the Supreme Court see the unfairness? Why don’t these well-paid job-for-life lawyers see the steady chasm between our billionaire class and everyone else who sees themselves struggling to pay for school, get started in life and get ahead without borrowing?
I suspect they don’t understand economics (Gen X and those who follow need to be able to afford family formation, housing, food and fuel when they graduate with 6 figure debt? Maybe someone will bail them out if they are “connected” to people with means.
That’s not who the Court is helping.
I conclude they don’t give a damn.
I would have liked to hear Dr. Schultz’s take on the court’s selective application of the major questions doctrine which in this case allowed the court to disregard the plain language in the text of the HEROS act, which to me seems irreconcilable with textualism and originalism.
I would also have liked to hear his take on this court’s absurd willingness to undermine the principal of standing, not only in Nebraska (where the entity whose damages were asserted declined to join the case) and especially in the religious freedom/ lgbt wedding website case.
Dear Justin: Here you go! This is my piece on the major questions doctrine. https://themessenger.com/opinion/trump-already-wins-with-a-supreme-court-that-checks-democrats-policies
Fantastic piece which explains the total upheaval of existing precedent and arrogation of judicial power by the democratically-illegitimate Trump/McConnell activist majority. My only quibble is that the piece does not really address exactly where the “major questions” doctrine came from.
I say it was made-up out of whole cloth by the Federalist Society and the Trump Court as a way to block government by Dems. There was no actual basis in existing precedent for it; it is “conservative” judicial activism of the worst sort, and all of the illegitimate decisions relying on this baseless “doctrine” will need to be overruled in future if we are to have a functioning government.
Thanks!
The “major questions doctrine” reads and sounds a lot like the “delegation of authority” doctrine that hasn’t been previously heard from since the Court decided Panama Refining Co. v. Ryan or Schechter Poultry Co. v. United States. Translated into ordinary English, it comes down to the judicial doctrine “we can do whatever 5 of us agree we don’t like and we don”t have to say why.” It’s government by judicial oligarchy.
That has to be the supposed “precedent” behind this judicial power grab. But note that the six “conservative” activists masquerading as justices were unwilling to simply say they were resurrecting that discredited old “doctrine” of New Deal opponents; they felt the need to concoct an entirely new “name” for the 21st Century version of rule by judicial fiat, apparently.
I fear this corrupt, so-called “Supreme” court, cannot possibly deliver good judgments on the law or anything else– especially how America (and Minnesota) can successfully address the growing chasm between those with wealth and vast numbers of people for whom it just gets harder.
The rich get rich and the poor get poorer. The court shows their contempt for ordinary people who will never get a leg up or a chance to compete 0on a level playing field.
Nobody should believe anything they decide until they clean up their own filthy hands.
What about the voting rights act decision.
Oh I see, it only applies to the decisions you don’t like
That is perhaps the weakest “wuddabout” I’ve seen in years.
The student loan decision ignored the clear language of the law that allowed forgiveness, and was brought by parties whose claim to standing was tenuous, at best.
Where is the link between taxpayers paying for individuals student loans and increased college enrollment or lower cost of tuition ?
There isn’t one.
I’d like to see legislation enacted to address this, ideally at the federal level. I was a good (not great) student who had very little in the way of financial resources after high school graduation, but I was able to attend the least-expensive of the state universities where I lived at the time through a series of loans authorized by the National Defense Education Act – 1960’s-era Cold War congressional legislation intended to help us keep up with the Russians after Sputnik showed that other societies and cultures could do science, too.
What made NDEA loans especially attractive was that – for occupations deemed important to the nation (and by inference, its defense) – 10% of the accumulated loan(s) was forgiven for each year that a loan recipient spent in that occupation, up to 50% of the total loan amount. Like now, teachers were in short supplly, and I ended up as a high school history teacher, which met the law’s requirements. I spent my working life in a high school classroom, so, at 10% repayment and 10% forgiveness per year, I only had to repay half of what I’d borrowed to get my Bachelor’s degree, and there were many other occupations that qualified for similar treatment under the law.
That was more than 50 years ago, and the NDEA program is long dead, but the principle behind it ought to be revived, I think, with the numbers tweaked to fit current conditions. Forgiving a significant portion of student loans for people who go into occupations deemed socially desirable would be something of an incentive to help fill occupational gaps, and because the loan recipient was still responsible for half the loan amount, the temptation to try to skip out on the obligation was fairly minimal. At the same time, the time span of repayment (in my case, it was only 5 years) wouldn’t necessarily be the decades-long, huge obligation some current students are being forced to take on. A program like this would also be useful to steer talented people into fields that perhaps don’t get publicized, or aren’t especially glamorous, but that are just as necessary to the functioning of the society as other occupations that DO get publicity and attention, including some tech fields not widely-known to the public.
They tried to do that with PSLF but in practice they made it impossible for anyone to actually qualify for forgiveness (less than 1% of applicants). Setting up a program and then making it impossible for anyone to qualify is basically fraud committed by the federal government against borrowers.
There’s one way to “forgive” student loans. That is when the colleges write them off as losses.
Anything else is just transferring debt to people that didn’t accrue it.
It’s ridiculous SCOTUS had to be involved.
The colleges don’t own these notes. The government does. The colleges just got the funds.
But I agree there was no reason for the conservative activists in charge of the Trump Court to “get involved”, since this phony case was ginned up by a few far right Red state Attorney Generals and the conservative law brigades. Their states didn’t suffer any damage from the program, and thus had no standing to sue under existing precedent. But the six conservative activists were desperate to “get involved” in reversing this policy decision by the elective branches, and thus they issued this unconstitutional ruling.
That is an astonishing display of ignorance of how the student loan system works. The colleges are paid right away, they don’t service the loans. You clearly don’t understand enough to offer a valid opinion.
I believe the point is that colleges have no skin in the game. They get paid regardless. Zero motivation to rein in costs.
Universities aren’t banks, loan servicers or debt collection agencies. Adding such substantial administrative tasks to colleges would only increase costs and get you nowhere on tuition to boot. And private colleges commonly have quite variable rates of tuition depending on financial ability of the applicant. Large discounts on stated tuition are frequently granted.
But yes, I agree that colleges were substantially responsible for the preposterous increase in the cost of 4 year degrees, mostly through increases in levels of “administration” and needless athletics programs.
Colleges compete for students in a free market. I thought free markets were supposed to keep costs down, invisible hands and such.
The real crisis in higher education is the explosion of majors that don’t prepare students for careers that provide enough of an income to justify the cost of the education. During the Sputnick days, the focus was on science and engineering. That’s what we need now, not more gender studies, etc…
I would say that this argument is a total inversion of the data. You are aware of which university departments are being shut down entirely in colleges across America, and which have been under siege for some time? Do you really imagine there were fewer college humanities programs in 1960 than 2020?
Humanities majors hit an all-time low recently. 37% are majoring in the sciences, 20% in business and management and less than 10% in the humanities.
https://www.amacad.org/humanities-indicators/higher-education/bachelors-degrees-humanities
BTW – we should all be concerned about the plummeting enrollment for education majors.
We should be concerned about the decrease in education majors. But kids aren’t dumb. They just spent 12 years in school witnessing teachers being disrespected, cursed at, threatened, and at times physically assaulted by other students. Who’s signing up for that?
You forgot the stagnating wages and the broken promises of loan repayment by the federal government. College students know that it doesn’t pay to be a teacher. Ironic that many of these institutions of higher learning started as “teacher’s colleges”.
Where does it say that going to college is the key to success in life? That is because there is none. Students in high schools are told over and over that to be successful you need to go to college. Students are graduating college with degrees that are not in demand in the real world. Where is the counseling for students to help guide them toward careers that provide financial and gratifying rewards that they are searching. the cost of a college degree has outpaced inflation for decades. With the government handling student loans there are minimal requirements to receive one. The problem is the entire education system and how it is funded. Time to address the root causes and stop with the handing out of money as that solves nothing.
Well, the entire point of the article was that the “handing out of money” in the form of the GI Bill and subsidized college tuition was a great benefit to America after WWII, at least it was to white America. So I think your conclusion is faulty.
As for you statements about what high school students are told about four year college degrees and what unremunerative subjects they desire to study these days, I have extreme doubts about the accuracy of your assertions.
The point of the article is the impact of declining enrollments on colleges and universities, the continued rising costs of tuition and the perceived value of a college degree.
Letting taxpayers pay for a certain group of individuals student loans will do nothing to increase enrollment or address the cost of attending college.
We’re confusing how to fix the actual problem with pandering to a block of voters due to a campaign promise.
“Where does it say that going to college is the key to success in life? That is because there is none.”
I help manage a 100 person tech company. Been at it for over 30 years. We have NEVER hired, or even interviewed, a fresh out of high school job candidate. We have 2 and 4 and 6 year college grads (Yes a 2 year Associates degree is a college degree). We have hired folks with previous work experience without a degree and almost all have some education beyond high school. We have hired folks with no college, but with military training that is essentially college level training and experience.
Are you essentially saying:
“The key to success in life is not going to college”?
Good luck with that…
Yes, I certainly agree with Prof. Schultz that both of these lawless decisions will harm higher education long-term, particularly if one thinks it to be a tool to address racial inequality in America. Both of the programs struck down (affirmative action, debt relief) were intended to aid non-white students from historically disadvantaged demographics. So both of these unpersuasive and results-oriented decisions are of course being celebrated by spiteful white nationalists.
But the professor also could have noted the open hostility to higher education that is now being exhibited across the board by the “conservative” movement, from coercion of educators to destruction of tenure to censorship of subject matter. All of which feature prominently in the horrible hellhole DeSantis has made of Florida, for example. And you can bet the farm that the democratically-illegitimate Trump Court will back the conservative movement in whatever phony “cases” the conservative law brigades dream up to attack universities along these lines as well.
This hostility to knowledge is certainly one of the main reasons that the Repub party long ago lost the votes of educators, and has now consistently and permanently lost the votes of most college graduates. The “conservative” movement is now a movement of the less educated. And as with most aspects of that movement, its actions are motivated by a celebration of ignorance.
Sorry, kids…
“For many, a college degree is a lifetime loan, impacting their ability to buy a house or raise a family.”
Taking out a loan you have no chance of paying back seems like a bad choice. Probably should have cut that loan in half by going the community college route, then halved it again by going to a less expensive state school.
Well we can implement solutions but not many folks like them! Example, mandatory participation, civil or military, lets say 3 years, then you have a GI Bill type program and or as Ray mentioned above, NDEA (payback) type programs. Want the higher priced schools, dig in your own pockets. I do agree with Tyler, there are/was/is a lot of predatory lending, if I were Biden that would have been the first bite at the apple I would have gone after. And of course another point, we need a lot of highly trained folks in many areas that don’t require a college degree, and of course the final point, as an example, perhaps investing a $200K in a college degree for the study of ancient Philistine Hieroglyphics where there is only 1 or 2 jobs available around the world and they pay $30K a year W/O benefits is not such a good idea! It may be your passion, but it takes more than passion to pay the bills.
I actually really like a mandatory civil and/or military service approach. Other countries have done it/still do it. Not only would it be a fair way to provide access to education beyond high school, but perhaps even improve the decency of some of the humans in this country. Heck, we might even get some infrastructure rebuilt a la the WPA and PWA in the 30’s and 40’s.
Federally backed student loans caused price of college to explode. I’m sure they will fix it though.
The Guaranteed Student Loan program was begun in 1965, a period of low inflation which persisted until the Arab Oil embargo of 1973. That was the major cause of the Great Inflation of the 70s, which substantially affected the prices of everything. If anything, student loan volume increased in the 70s due to the rise in college costs.
But I agree that government has done very little to arrest the absurd and disastrous rise in the cost of four year college degrees over the past 30 years. And perhaps student loans should have been a part of that. But the rise in costs was not primarily caused by the existence of guaranteed student loans, that’s conservative claptrap.
And the one thing we know about “conservatism” is that it can never “fix” anything…
Ronny Raygun caused the cost of higher education to explode, and he did so on purpose. “We are in danger of producing an educated proletariat. … That’s dynamite! We have to be selective on whom we allow [to go to college].” this was the reason his advisor gave as to why Reagan reduced funding for California colleges and made attending dependent on either being wealthy or taking out loans.
Conservative ideology requires a poorly educated population. The urber-wealthy who are the sole its sole beneficiaries, want an impoverished population that can pay starvation wages while their lazy selves do nothing and yet become more wealthy. Social conservatives need that poverty because it is the single most significant driver of crime and that crime gives them the ability to fearmonger and support cops who rape and murder the people conservatives find undesirable. Primarily black people. They need a scapegoat that keeps poor, uneducated white folks from understanding who the actual villains are.
But most directly, conservatives hate education in all its forms because the most reliable way to determine if a population of people will be willing to support conservatives is how little they have been educated. Education in any form tends to give people the ability to understand the absurdity of conservative ideology. That all it is, is a long-winded repackaging of the white supremacy on which this country was founded. The vile ideology includes Replacement Theory and America First fascist doctrine that conservatives believe will “Make America Great Again.”
“We are in danger of having fewer and fewer students attending fewer and fewer colleges”
I don’t see the danger, rather, I see evolution in life choices, job training, alternative education options, and financial concerns for both colleges and individuals.
But I’m not a college professor.
The Supreme Court is legislating from the bench and one problem with that is that the court can’t enforce it’s legislation. Colleges who want a diverse student body will simply draft a new set of rules that will at least temporarily avoid the Supreme Court’s ruling. There will be more litigation, of course, but that is simply part of the price that will be paid. Colleges, not courts, should make admissions decisions.
“Washington — The landmark Supreme Court decision rejecting race-conscious admissions at colleges and universities exempts military service academies”
Hmmm…
If we are to build effective leadership organizations to defend our country, the application of diversity requirements and affirmative action are allowed. Not so much for all those other avenues of preparation for occupational activity.
These 6 entitled nitwits are totally clueless to the realities of life and are the greatest practitioners of “legislating from the bench” in the last 100 years. I remember when conservatives used to think that was a bad thing. Almost as bad as running up huge deficits. Times change, people change…
What happened to all of the comments referring to the “illegitimate Supreme Court” that were here just yesterday?
I think they got tired of the ‘cut and paste’ repeated comment.
Maybe the real problems is racism, not whether the racism is conscious or unconscious.