re: Higher education bubble is bursting ...

The percentage that the state and federal governments fund colleges and universities is majorly overestimated by the average person.

Every time I hear the “my tax dollars “ talking point I smile knowing that the abandonment of university and college funding by the state and federal government drove a lot of this.

As an an example, most large enrollment schools receive so little proportional direct funding that they technically qualify as private institutions according to federal designations. That means that what was used to be paid for by the state has to instead be generated in revenues. Unfortunately, it is getting worse not better.

If you cut education funding k-12 and people will scream bloody murder. If you cut university funding and people will parade around the endowment numbers of the top 50 universities and neglect to mention the other 1700 that are running on a shoestring budget now.

Right now, the “student share” ie what isn’t funded elsewhere is approximately 40% in 2025. In 1980 it was 21%, in 1950 it was closer to 8-12%. Pre-WW2 it was closer to 5%.

That means that what was used to be paid for by the state has to instead be generated in revenues. That, unfortunately, has led to academics making profit decisions instead of academic decisions, and well, let’s just say they don’t do it well. Worse, instead, you bring in business-minded individuals, and they don’t comprehend the weirdness and eclectic nature of academia and make revenue-only decisions at the cost of things needed to make academia run.

Also, please don’t conflate grant funded research with state and federal funding. Available grants (for “real” research, not the purple hair USAID lines) continue to trend upward and very simply are way more slanted towards value for the government than if this were ever done via industry. This is one sided, but still great for both sides anyway. The $$ is not equitable, but the schools and, more importantly, the students get access to these higher-level real-world opportunities and are the best real teachers to prepare students for the real world.

The worst part is that we are now, as a society, paying the price of forcing schools to change their funding models. Inflation and the cliff in available enrollment pool combined with a the need to generate revenue for survival has built the bullshite degree Ponzi scheme and now we have to find a way to cull that rot in the system while still providing education to the students to keep the modern knowledge dissemination environment moving forward.

These bullshite degrees are partly driven by the logic of “If you can’t get the money-making demographic to go to your school, you need degree paths that interest and attract other demographics”. Schools started the “blank” studies majors as a way to show differentiation in their programs to attract students and that has had much worse unintended consequences than people every thought it would.

Schools needed to attract students to offset the fixed costs that the state and federal funding cuts to balance their budgets, and never considered what those “options” would do long-term to the rest of the system.

As an example, we complain about a teacher shortage and then never ask why we incentivize our non-STEM students to look at the “blank” studies degree paths instead of education anymore?

A degree in education was the landing spot for many college students who didn’t have a driving direction early and needed a “home” at the university level. Now, between the horrific classroom experiences of the modern day gladiatorial high school environment, the pay of modern teachers, and very simply poor internal marketing of most colleges of education, you aren’t getting those students and instead many drift to the other fringe degree programs instead. It’s a zero-sum system, and education is one of the fields that is taking an enrollment hit for these “blank” study programs.

It’s no longer that I want to go to college, and then some students getting here and realizing I want to be pre-med isn’t to happen, and so you funnel yourself into the other available options and end up in education. Now, many end up in diversity studies, ethnic studies, gender studies, Asian studies, etc., instead of education. And yes, many of those students still go and get a post-bac teaching certification, but the damage is already done on how they view the system and increases the negative feedback loop in our primary and secondary education systems.

The US university system is a mess right now and both academia and the state and federal government are both to blame. And yet, it is still the best in the world.