Post-pandemic, four years of college steadily loses its appeal

Xander Miller, 18, will graduate from Hastings High School in Hastings, Minnesota, this June, and he has big plans for his future.

Rather than attend Minnesota State or get a liberal arts degree like his older brother, Miller is enrolled in Dakota County Technical College with a guaranteed job through Waste Management’s apprentice program.

“I did have plans to go to a four-year school,” he said. However, “it didn’t seem valuable enough to me to offset the cost.”

Miller will instead start as a part-time technician and then transition into a full-time employee complete with tools and a tuition reimbursement.

More than two years into the pandemic, nearly three-quarters, or 73%, of high schoolers think a direct path to a career is essential in postsecondary education, according to a survey of high school students.

The likelihood of attending a four-year school sank from 71% to 51% in the past two years, ECMC Group found. 

High schoolers are putting more emphasis on career training and post-college employment, the report said. ECMC Group, a nonprofit aimed at helping students find success, polled more than 5,300 high school students five times since February 2020.

More from Personal Finance:
More Americans living paycheck to paycheck as inflation climbs
Where consumers plan to cut spending amid record-high prices
Americans say inflation has ‘negative impact’ on goals

Now, some 42% say their ideal postsecondary plans would require three years of college or less, while 31% said it should last two years or less.

Even before the pandemic, students were starting to consider more affordable, direct-to-career alternatives to a four-year degree, said Jeremy Wheaton, ECMC Group’s president and CEO.

The rising cost of college and ballooning student loan balances have played a large role in the changing views, but “they [students] are more savvy than we give them credit for,” Wheaton said. “They are aware of the jobs that are in high demand.”

Still, most respondents said they feel pressure, mainly from their parents and society, to pursue a four-year degree — even though community college or career and technical training may make more sense for them.

During the pandemic, increases in tuition and fees were very low by historic standards, according to a report by the College Board, which tracks trends in college pricing and student aid.

For the 2021-22 academic year, average tuition and fees rose by 1.3% to $3,800 for students at two-year schools; 1.6% for in-state students at four-year public colleges, reaching $10,740; and 2.1% for students at four-year private institutions, to $38,070.

Now, some colleges are hiking tuition as much as 5%, citing inflation and other pressures.

“We have increased undergraduate tuition 4.25% for the coming academic year, our largest increase in 14 years,” Boston University’s President Robert Brown recently said in a letter to the community.

“We are caught in an inflationary vise between the institutional pressures and the impact on our students and their families,” he wrote.

“Students now have to take into account that it’s going to cost more and the wild card of loan forgiveness,” Wheaton said. “The more change that you put into the system, the more folks pull back.”

Nationwide, fewer students went back to college this year, dragging down undergraduate enrollment 3.1% from last year, according to a report by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center based on data from colleges. 

Enrollment is now down 6.6% compared to two years ago — a loss of more than 1 million students.

An additional 17% of current students said they will not go back to college next year, and 19% are unsure about their plans, according to a separate survey by Intelligent.com, which polled 1,250 undergraduates in April.

Subscribe to CNBC on YouTube.