Comment by DesaiAshu
8 hours ago
It is generally understood in the industry that around half of universities are in significant debt / financial distress (started prior to Covid // the demographic peak // recent DoE cuts). Graduate underemployment is also quite high due to a lack of alignment (or perhaps slow alignment) of degree programs to career outcomes
https://www.philadelphiafed.org/-/media/frbp/assets/working-...
https://www.stlouisfed.org/open-vault/2025/aug/jobs-degrees-...
Ideas for solutions here:
Can we take a minute to consider that degrees aren't supposed to be aligned to career outcomes to begin with? That's what vocational schools are for. Somehow academia became conflated with both a job training program and an adult daycare service and (at least in the US) the result is a confused, inconsistent, expensive mess whose exact purpose isn't clear.