Selling Dreams, Not Reality
Choosing a college major is a life-altering decision, made millions of times a year by 18-year-olds with little exposure to higher education or labor markets. Colleges frame programs in terms…
Posts tagged with
“college major”
Hoosier State Slash and Burn
The Indiana Commission for Higher Education, Indiana’s public-university-system leadership, has announced that the state’s public colleges are responding to a new state law by eliminating or merging more than 400…
Cosmetic Change at the University of Wyoming
On May 15, the University of Wyoming Board of Trustees voted to cancel five degree tracks, including a Ph.D. in Botany, an M.A. in Molecular Biology, and a B.A. in…
Toward Effective Program Reviews
Vision matters in bad times as well as good. When applications and enrollments are high, tuition rolling in, and student loans plentiful, colleges and universities build programs and hire personnel…
“Burned-Out” Students Have Been Lied To
One fact of life that everyone in human society has known over the millennia: Life is hard. Yet, in recent years, particularly post-Covid, American society has developed the notion that…
Higher Education and the Law of Diminishing Returns, Part II
Recently, I argued in a Martin Center article that the fourth year of study for the bachelor’s degree is probably relatively unproductive and that enormous resources could be saved by…
Higher Education and the Law of Diminishing Returns
Early in the introductory college economics course, instructors talk about the Law of Diminishing Returns. An illustration: A farmer has a 100-acre field on which he wants to harvest wheat.…
Which Majors Do Students Most Regret, and Why?
Former students regretting the choices they made during college isn’t a new phenomenon. Perhaps they wish they’d attended a different school, taken out fewer student loans, or considered their school’s…
Regional Colleges Can Compete by Emphasizing Choosing the Right Major
The wage premium attached to a bachelor’s degree largely explains why high school graduates who would have previously looked for a job now apply to college. But they need to…
Why you should think twice about majoring in women’s studies and theatre arts
Why you should think twice about majoring in women’s studies and theatre arts