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Attitudes about college are changing. What should US higher ed leaders do?

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Universities under pressure

In the news

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A changing curriculum. According to the Wall Street Journal, US postsecondary institutions face a reckoning similar to the sweeping change that followed the Industrial Revolution, which transformed schools that once catered to an agrarian society. Today, postsecondary schools are struggling to meet the needs of students in the digital era, a former university leader says. Students are being wait-listed for classes in subjects like computer science, while enrollments in humanities departments are, in some cases, dwindling. [WSJ]

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Small colleges struggle. Small colleges—those with fewer than 5,000 students—in the US are struggling to cope with rising costs and declining revenues. Roughly 170 small, not-for-profit institutions of higher education meet multiple criteria for stress, including having a high rate of admission and operating at a deficit for at least three consecutive years, a Bloomberg News analysis of about 1,000 American schools has found. In 2023, about ten four-year colleges either closed or stated their intentions to shut down. [Bloomberg]

The average gap in completion rates between high- and low-performing two- and four-year institutions remains 30 percentage points.

On McKinsey.com

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Learning and earning. US higher education faces tough times. Although people clearly benefit from securing a postsecondary degree—earning more money over their lifetimes, for instance—enrollment growth is slowing, student debt is at an all-time high, and many Americans are developing a dimmer view of institutions of higher learning. In light of these challenges, the sector should still set a bold goal: to graduate ten million more students than currently projected over the next 20 years, McKinsey senior partner Jonathan Law and coauthors suggest.

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Future job requirements. A drop in the US birth rate, changing attitudes, and fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic have contributed to a decline in college and university enrollment rates across the US. Even so, demand for workers with degrees has increased. Of the new US jobs projected to be created through 2030 (in fields such as nursing, teaching, and cybersecurity), 86% will likely require postsecondary education, McKinsey analysis finds. Explore the barriers that learners are up against and five actions that US higher ed leaders can take to remedy them.

See a strategy for US higher ed

— Edited by Belinda Yu, editor, Atlanta

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Attitudes about college are changing. What should US higher ed leaders do?

Universities under pressure

In the news

The average gap in completion rates between high- and low-performing two- and four-year institutions remains 30 percentage points.

On McKinsey.com