Scene1: An Esteemed College in the US: A high school graduate arrives on campus and is worried about whether he has taken the right decision to join a college. Indian-American community is very much focused on careers and a college degree is a must in our culture but outside the Asian communities, higher education has posed severe challenging questions.
Policymakers are grappling with what they say has become an alarming decline in the number of high school graduates willing to invest the time and money for college education. There is a backlash against higher education which is driving a never-before decline in enrollment. Experts now warn is likely to diminish people’s quality of life and the nation’s economic competitiveness, especially in places where the slide is most severe. As per the Hechinger report, there are 4 million fewer students in college now than there were 10 years ago, a falloff many observers blame on Covid-19, a dip in the number of Americans under 18, and a strong labor market that is driving young people straight into the workforce. But while the pandemic certainly made things worse, the downturn took hold well before it started. Statistics contradict the argument that recent high school graduates are getting jobs instead of going to college: Workforce participation for 16- to 24-year-olds is lower than it was before Covid hit. The reason is mainly includes widespread and fast-growing skepticism about the value of a degree, impatience with the time it takes to get one, and costs that have finally exceeded many people’s ability or willingness to pay.
Americans are increasingly dubious about the need to go to college. They don’t find college education worthy. Students’ parents just don’t value education the way they did in the past. “If you don’t go to college, you’re a bum.” This belief has changed. This is being made only worse by growing unhappiness among recent university and college graduates with the value of the education they received. More than 4 in 10 bachelor’s degree holders under 45 don’t agree that the benefits of their education exceeded the costs. That adds up to a lot of bad reviews passed down to younger siblings and classmates, for whom family and friends are the most trustworthy sources about whether to go to college. Experts say “There’s anti-elitism, anti-institutionalism, a perception that cost is out of control. The problems have been evident for years, but colleges and universities in general have done little to address them. They continue to advertise prices that few consumers actually pay but that discourage many from applying. They bury students in the red tape and make systems confusing for applicants whose parents never went to college. They often fail to make clear connections between academic disciplines and careers or keep up with the demands of the fast-moving labor market.
But in reality: A degree does, in fact, still pay off. Workers with bachelor’s degrees earn 67% more than people with only high school diplomas, according to a Labor survey. More than half of “good jobs” — those with certain minimum salary criteria based on age groups — call for bachelor’s degrees. Yet since the start of the pandemic, the proportion of 14- to 18-year-olds who think education is necessary beyond high school has dropped from 60% to 45%. Even the high school graduates, who plan to go to college, admit to doubts. The pandemic only deepened the fears of students already struggling with self-confidence and being skeptical about college. Also, the number of Americans over 24 who are going for the first time or returning to college has also steadily declined, by 12% in the five years from the spring of 2017 to the just-ended spring semester. The growing disparities in college-going could widen the fissures already polarizing American society. Experts say: “Places like Los Angeles or D.C. or Chicago, they’re going to continue to draw a lot of college graduates. For places that have a smaller share of college graduates, you’re going to have a more uncertain economic climate and lower wages.” Even before the pandemic, the nation was facing a shortage of more than 9 million college-educated workers over the next decade, affecting nearly every state and costing nearly $1.2 trillion in lost economic output. This is alarming for the US economy in order to stay competitive globally.
Scene2: An Esteemed College in India: A student enters after clearing a few competitive exams and paying significant fees and is worried about the future after four years here. His parents are worried as well. India has seen a rise in its skilled population with more and more students showing hireable skills, yet not even half of the total students are employable despite having degrees. As many as 46.2 per of students are employable in 2022 as compared to 45.9 percent in 2021, according to India Skill Report 2022. Most employable students are BTech or BE degrees. According to the report, as many as 55.15 percent of students who clear BE, and BTech are employable. Only 55.09 percent of the MBA holders are employable. Polytechnic and MCA have the least employable talent with 21.43 percent, and 29.3 percent of graduates being employable. With regard to engineering, there have been serious concerns about the employability of Indian graduates. There are alarming statistics in a NASSCOM report, which estimates that, of the 3 million joining the IT workforce, only twenty-five percent of graduates with engineering backgrounds are employable. The figures are grave in the context of graduates from sciences and humanities, which is less than fifteen percent. Only 3.84% of graduates are start-up ready and 6.56% are Design job ready and the same trend for other core engineering jobs. There is an urgent need to improve the employability of our engineering graduates. This calls for lateral thinking and out-of-the-box initiatives. This is alarming for the Indian Economy in order to stay competitive globally.
The US and India who are natural partners should collectively think about the future of these two college freshmen.
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