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Category: 
Online > Podcast > Mid Atlantic

Title of entry: 
As Public Skepticism of College Grows, Students Become Savvier Customers

Issue or Publication date:
2/20/2024

Publication name: 
EdSurge

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edsurge.com

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https://www.edsurge.com/news/2024-02-20-as-public-skepticism-of-college-grows-students-become-savvier-customers

Entry Essay: 
The public opinion surveys are clear: public skepticism of higher education is at an all-time high. But I was curious to get a better sense of what that actually means for high school students who are actually making decisions about their futures. Are high school seniors putting off college, or skipping it altogether for other options?

To try to find out, I decided to visit a high school in St. Paul, Minnesota, where I’m based, and to talk with students, guidance counselors and teachers about their views on the question of whether or not to go to college. After plenty of leg-work, I was able to secure permission to spend time at Central High School — a diverse school with a strong track record of sending kids to college who want to go.

What I found by having long conversations with students and counselors, was that attitudes toward college-going are shifting. But it’s more subtle than those public opinion surveys might suggest. What I learned is that students and parents are becoming savvier customers when it comes to college. More students seem to be asking, “college for what?” rather than just taking it as a given that they will head to campus right after high school graduation.

That was the case with Jamal Williams, a Central High School senior who dreams of making a living composing music for video games. When I met him he was thinking of applying to the Berkeley College of Music, but he was also talking with people on Discord servers who found a way to make a living coding without going to college. “I’ve been researching cases of people my age doing [college], and then they get out and they use their degree and they still struggle to make a living for themselves,” he told me. “If that’s going to happen anyway, I don’t want to waste four years of time and effort just for that to happen.”

The episode is part of a 6-episode podcast series called Doubting College. It was popular with our listeners, making our top 10 list of the most popular episodes of the year. And it got some acclaim, too. Bestselling author Jeff Selingo said on LinkedIn that the series was “terrific,” and noted how rare it is to hear directly from high school students about how they’re thinking through their education choices. And I was interviewed by a reporter from Town and Country magazine about my findings from the podcast series, as part of a feature that the magazine ran this summer on “What If College is Not Right For You?”