Aram Zucker-Scharff

Buried in a story about how it is just as easy as it used to be to get into college is a quiet notification of the impending burst of the Higher Ed bubble:

“The number of American high school seniors is shrinking, having peaked in 2011. At the same time, according to Noodle’s data, the number of seats at competitive colleges has grown faster than the total pool of qualified applicants”

‘Going to sleep hungry, it’s kind of a lonely feeling’:

Food insecurity rises on college campuses as tuition increases and more low-income students enroll.

Our college campuses have started food assistance programs to insure that indebted students don’t… you know… starve.

I’m going to put this out there, if you have to chose between going to college and eating, chose eating. Chances are the college isn’t worth it anyway.

theatlantic:

How Higher Ed Contributes to Inequality

In 2011, Cornell political scientist Suzanne Mettler highlighted poll results showing a striking phenomenon: About half of the Americans receiving federal assistance in paying college tuition or medical bills believe they have never benefited from a government social program. The results are evidence of what Mettler has termed “the submerged state”—a series of policies, like tuition tax credits or federally-guaranteed student loans, that are practically invisible to citizens. That invisibility, she argues, erodes public support for the very idea of government playing an active role in people’s lives.

Now in a new book, Degrees of Inequality, Mettler reveals how, over the past 60 years, American higher-education policy has gone from being visible and effective (the GI Bill and the Pell grant program) to being invisible and inefficient ($32 billion in federal funding for for-profit colleges with abysmal graduation rates). Congressional polarization along party lines, it turns out, played a major role, as did plummeting federal and state support for four-year public universities.

I spoke with Mettler about why Republicans and reform-minded Democrats switched positions on for-profit colleges; why the liberal arts are underrated and MOOCs (massive open online courses) are overrated; and why corporate lobbyists are able to achieve so much influence in Washington for relatively little money.

Read more. [Image: Butch Dill/AP Photo]

These U.S. Colleges and Majors Are the Biggest Waste of Money:

You can major in art at a lower-tier public university if you want to. Just don’t expect it to make you rich.

Here’s a list of colleges where your attendance (rather than no college at all) is likely to result in a net lifetime loss of money, because sometimes higher ed just wants to screw you over. Included: 

VCU (Education degree) will lose you $107 to $169k

ODU Arts is worth a resounding -$120k

Ohio State (Education) will give you -$142k

SUNY Buffalo (Arts) grads get a whole -$122k