“Nationwide, undergraduate college enrollment dropped 8% from 2019 to 2022, with declines even after returning to in-person classes, according to data from the National Student Clearinghouse. The slide in the college-going rate since 2018 is the steepest on record, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics”. (AP News: 3/9/23; author Collin Binkley: Jaded with education, more Americans are skipping college | AP News)

I read those two sentences and started off thinking about the implications and doing some further research. What I find alarming is the fact that the above quote mentions “since 2018.” The Covid crisis did not begin affecting schoolroom attendance and participation rates until early 2020, a full two years later. So even before Covid, high school students were looking elsewhere. And when businesses began losing key employees during and after Covid, here were the beginnings of a nationwide supply crisis of employees.

Many of these students who had opted to forgo or delay college now found themselves in demand. Companies began raising minimum wage policies as they became increasingly desperate to attract labor. Suddenly, a lot of people realized they were prospects, not deadbeats. They were in demand. Good old-fashioned supply and demand.

Many young people contemplating college didn’t like the prospect of taking on a huge amount of debt for college loans when employers were suddenly dangling more attractive offers. Between jobs at Amazon, other warehouses, service/retail companies and the gig economy, people starting out their careers now had more choices. Even if the money wasn’t going to be the same, getting an earlier start on earning (by eliminating the two or four years of college) and eliminating the crushing college debt, began to make more sense for many in the US workforce.

A new $5.6 billion Ford plant (Building construction starts at Ford site in Tennessee | AP News) in Tennessee is being constructed to manufacture electric trucks and batteries. “It promises to create 5,000 jobs, and its construction is already drawing young workers,” according to AP News.

CPS Home : U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (bls.gov) Current Population Survey data reveals that the percentage of recent high school graduates, ages 16-24, enrolled in college as of October each year, peaked in 2009 at 69.7% but has dropped since then and dropped to 61.8% by 2020.

No doubt, Covid changed everything. But for many students, the focus changed from secondary education to making money – long before Covid. After 2020, the data shows enrollments falling off a cliff. But students are resourceful, not lazy, and many saw opportunities to enroll in trade schools and specialty schools to focus on a short-term but highly targeted education to specialize in one field. That is a far drop from a liberal arts education which emphasizes variety in arts and sciences rather than focusing on one trade.

I remember back in 1972 after completing my freshman year of college, that I was confused and wanted to take a year off to work to find out what I wanted to do with my life. My parents weren’t hearing any of it and they made it quite clear that I was not dropping out or taking any time off to “find myself.” So, I headed back to my sophomore year. Probably the best choice my parents ever gave me – no choice. I ended up graduating in 1975 and ended up with a successful marketing management career.

But for my son, Alex, he was lost when he went off to college – and he was majoring in something he loved: music. Yet he wanted to play music, not study music theory and history, and he ended up leaving after his freshman year. My wife and I were lost now. How do you not like majoring in music, we reasoned?

It took him a few years and some odd jobs but a few years ago, he was asked to apply for a job at Wells Fargo. He found his calling, realized he was quite good handling customers (who can get quite testy about their money, my son reports), and is now in training to be promoted to Personal Banker which will end up paying him far more than his music career ever would. As a result, he is one of those who found a successful work-around to college.

And that was key for him, not the pay. The job gives him the flexibility to remain in his band and lots of time for band practice and paid concerts. For him, it is the best of both worlds: excellent income coupled with the freedom to continue in his band.

That is just one isolated case but it is similar to other young people who are navigating a new way to establish a career on their own terms, not based on the old paradigms or the traditional college grad experience.

What worries many is where will the doctors, nurses and IT professionals come from? What about the scientists and engineers? Sure, there are still many students going to college but many are no longer seeing the value a college education brings when they are finding so many lucrative alternatives.

Is there a nursing shortage? It’s a critical question as Baby Boomers are aging and will require a higher degree of Health Care. Without providing a ton of statistics (I’ve looked at several dire charts full of stats) there is this: “4.7 million nurses are expected to retire by 2030. Thirteen million nurses are needed worldwide over the next ten years to slow the shortage.” (Nursing workforce crisis looms as expected six-million shortfall will be increased by more than four million nurses retiring by 2030 – CGFNS International, Inc.)

“The average age of the US nurse is 52. Only 14.8% of RNs in the US are under 30 years old and a lack of young nurses is becoming a huge threat to the stability of the nurse population,” according to Zippia Research 2/27/23. (25 Alarming US Nursing Shortage Statistics [2023]: How Many Nurses Are In The US? – Zippia)

According to the American Journal of Medical Quality (September/October 2019), “a shortage of RNs is projected to spread across the country through 2030.” United States Registered Nurse Workforce Report Card and Shortage Forecast – PubMed (nih.gov)

This statistic was published a full year before Covid began creating burnout and resignations among many nurses, so the problem is even worse now.

That is just one profession. Many other careers that do require a college degree will be similarly impacted. Of course, that rewards the architects, research scientists, engineers and others who will benefit from earnings that will skyrocket due to fewer fellow candidates competing for the same job openings.

Inflation anyone? Is it really a mystery why labor costs are skyrocketing and thus leading to such high inflation everywhere? Sure, there is corporate greed that accounts for some of it. But although the Supply Chain crisis is mostly fixed (which fired up inflation in the first place due to old-fashioned supply/demand curves), it is now being exacerbated by employees pursuing new career paths, thus providing fewer low-cost candidates.

Where do we go from here? We do need to replace critical jobs, from health care pros to top-tier scientists who will continue to give us the edge in US R&D. I do not doubt that the gaps will be filled by American workers. They are smart and resourceful and always find new solutions to filling in gaps in the American system.

But it is obvious that we will see and are seeing a huge time gap before this shift is smoothed over. For the next several years, we will not have the same expectations we once had that everything would just fall into place. Take away one domino, the pile is still strong but weakened. Take away too many dominoes and the pile begins to waver and it all eventually crashes down – unless there is some type of reinforcement. We do need more professionals, scientists, doctors and others to get us back to more of a leadership position in the world.

In future articles, I will continue to come back to this topic, looking at the different ways our economy is being affected by changes in American society.

Chris Ebel
3/14/23

Photo credit: @jupiterimages