Fabian Cotten, an admission counselor with The Pennsylvania State University, talks to students in the cafeteria at Sto-Rox High School on Monday, Oct. 16, 2023, in McKees Rocks. Cotten was there to encourage students of diverse backgrounds to come to the school’s main campus for an expenses-paid overnight visit. (Photo by Stephanie Strasburg/PublicSource)
With college costs rising and the payoff in doubt, the tried-and-true narrative that has long pushed seniors to apply has been cast into doubt.
by Emma Folts, PublicSource
Each year, Pennsylvania high schools ask their graduates if they’re going to college. Back in 2005, they overwhelmingly said yes — about 72% planned to. But in the years since, that percentage has taken a sharp fall, to just 60% among the class of 2022.
The drop comes as the American public increasingly sours on higher education, according to some surveys. The national shift is likely driven by concerns over the cost of college and doubts about the value of a degree, both real and perceived. As the class of 2024 prepares to make big decisions about their futures, with deadlines for college applications beginning this month, these factors could shape their choices.
Allegheny County has seen a similar downward trend in college-bound graduates since 2005, though there was a slight increase in 2022. The rate varies across districts, and disparities sometimes fall along racial and socioeconomic lines. While nearly all 2022 graduates in the predominantly white, wealthier Upper St. Clair School District said they plan to enroll, less than half did in the Sto-Rox School District, where nearly 30% of students are Black and more than a third of district families are low-income.
Over the last four decades, the average amount undergraduates paid in tuition, fees, room and board grew by 169% when accounting for inflation, while the average earnings of workers ages 22 to 27 grew by only 19%. Student loan debt has nearly tripled since 2007. And in Pennsylvania, declining state investment in higher education has made its public universities some of the priciest in the U.S. for local families.
“When I first started here, usually with the state aid that they would get, the state schools were affordable,” said Joe Herzing, a longtime counselor at Sto-Rox Junior-Senior High School. Now, after students receive financial aid, “they’re still several thousands of dollars short, and that they don’t have.”
The price tag of a degree has likely dampened the public’s view of the necessity of higher education. While nearly three-quarters of young adults viewed college as “very important” in 2013, only 41% did in 2019, according to Gallup. In the Pittsburgh area, about half of surveyed adults would recommend vocational or technical training over college, WESA reported in late September.
Sometimes, perception is everything
Akil Bello, senior director of advocacy and advancement at FairTest, said he wasn’t surprised by the county’s general decline in college-bound high schoolers. The public messaging around college has become increasingly grim, he said, with hyperbolic narratives taking hold about student debt and the opportunities that are available without a degree.
There are the articles about “The Richest Americans Who Never Went To College” and the woman who donated her eggs seven times and still has $50,000 in student loan debt. There’s billionaire Peter Thiel’s 2011 creation of the Thiel Fellowship, which provides young adults with $100,000 over two years to start a company – if they “skip or stop out of college.”
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