Medcalf: Pondering future of a college degree as employment landscape changes

Nearly 1,100 miles from the Twin Cities, Kevin Carey ponders the future of higher education in a landscape that continues to evolve in real time.

“It’s a great question,” said Carey, vice president for Education Policy and knowledge management at New America, a nonpartisan research and policy institution in Washington, D.C.

I called Carey after St. Cloud State announced in May it would eliminate nearly 100 programs and 57 faculty members in major cuts to address a $24 million deficit.

More than 20 years ago, I visited St. Cloud State as I considered a handful of Division II football scholarship offers from Minnesota schools. And now I’m the father of a 16-year-old who is assessing her own collegiate goals.

Although St. Cloud State’s financial troubles attracted scrutiny five years ago when the school announced it would cut football due to budget issues, the erasure of dozens of majors at a large institution warrants another conversation: What should we tell young people about the future of higher education?

A declining birth rate in this country has dramatically decreased the pool of prospective college students over the last decade. The cost continues to increase, too. Also, a college education’s value is less certain to ensure a stable career and fruitful retirement, prompting potential students to reconsider their post-high school options:

“If you’re the big university in the Twin Cities [University of Minnesota], you have more of a national marketplace, but you also have a lot of federal research money coming in that you can use to pay for things,” Carey said. “If you’re a regional institution, mostly an undergraduate institution, maybe you’ve got a smaller number of master’s programs, but your bread and butter is serving undergraduates, and if there are fewer students graduating from the high schools and most of your money is coming from tuition or a lot of it’s coming from tuition, that really leads to the kind of budget issues that we’re seeing. It’s not just places like St. Cloud. There are certainly examples in other states.”

In the early 2000s, I understood the significance of a college education. But the end game was more defined then. Get a degree in journalism. Get a job at a local newspaper.

That process is not as simple now. AI technology could shift or eliminate multiple occupations in the years ahead. At a recent college fair at my daughter’s school, I asked a University of Minnesota representative about the institution’s response to the emergence of AI in the American economy. He did not have an answer, but I don’t fault him. We’re all clueless about the future, but rapid shifts at institutions around the country suggest college today will not look like college tomorrow.

The only certainty is the rising cost of attending college. The average cost for a year at a public institution is $10,662 and $23,630 for out-of-state students, respectively, per U.S. News and World Report, which also reported the average cost for a private institution in 2023-24 at more than $42,000 a year.

“I still think college is worth it for kids, but you don’t have to go to college anymore,” said Sue Luse, founder of College Expert, a Minnesota-based consultant agency for prospective college students and their families. “You really don’t [have to go to college] to get a great job. It’s just not for everybody. But for some kids, it’s transformational. It’s a way for them to figure out who they are and what they want to do. Most of our students don’t know exactly what they want to do when they start, and many of them will change their mind.”

St. Cloud State’s “problem is our expenses are out of alignment with our revenue base,” said Larry Lee, the school’s acting president, as he recently announced the budget cuts, which followed a year when the school generated $122 million and spent $140 million.

But St. Cloud State is not alone in its struggles. Schools as large as Penn State University have announced cost-cutting measures this year and, per Inside Higher Ed, 14 nonprofit institutions closed their doors last year. Most of those schools were small, private schools that lacked massive endowments. Still, the evolution of higher education and its role in the future of our youth — youth with other options to earn a living — is worth addressing and evaluating in a ChatGPT era.

“Less selective institutions, they’re actually competing with the job market,” Carey said. “You might have students who are like, ‘Do I go and take out a loan to go to college if I can go and make $40 an hour at a warehouse?’ So that matters, too.”

Most studies suggest college is still the social marker that gives graduates access to our most stable and lucrative occupations. And I co-sign that belief.

That’s why I’ll continue to encourage my daughter to apply to colleges, even as institutions continue to reimagine their identities. But she also deserves the truth: I can’t tell her what’s ahead.

And, it seems, neither can anyone else.