Markus Andrews

To make college more accessible, Sonoma State University is offering “guaranteed admission” to high school students who have completed the requisite coursework and have a minimum 2.5 high school GPA.
Other schools have tried similar moves to get more students enrolled.
But not only are fewer students interested in pursuing a degree after high school, the population of college-age students is also shrinking.

Sonoma State University
Courtesy: Sonoma State University

To help make college a reality, Sonoma State University is trying a relatively new approach: High school students who have completed the requisite coursework and have a minimum 2.5 high school GPA are now “guaranteed admission” to the Rohnert Park, California-based school.
“We really wanted to provide a more visible pathway,” said Ed Mills, vice president for strategic enrollment at Sonoma State, a member of the California State University system.

Since the school began accepting applications on Oct. 1 for the fall 2024 term, there has been an uptick in interest. “Our applicant pool is already up about 5% from last year and I expect that increase to continue to rise,” Mills said.
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“Everybody wins in this scenario,” according to Robert Franek, The Princeton Review’s editor-in-chief and author of “The Best 389 Colleges.”
Guaranteed admission is catching on.
Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia, recently announced a guaranteed admission program for first-year freshman applicants who have a GPA of 3.5 or higher and are in the top 10% of their high school graduating class. 

Other schools and school systems have launched similar initiatives to get more students enrolled. Last spring, the State University of New York sent automatic acceptance letters to 125,000 graduating high school students.

Even if acceptance is not guaranteed, “there are so many schools that have reasonable admission standards and many of them are among the best schools in the country,” Franek said.
In fact, of The Princeton Review’s list of 389 best colleges, 254 schools admit at least half of all applicants. More than a quarter admit at least 80% of those who apply. (On the flip side, only 8% of schools on the list of best colleges admit less than 10% of applicants.)
“If you attain a certain level of academic competitiveness, you will earn admission and that’s very valuable,” Franek said.

College enrollment is dropping

Sonoma State University
Courtesy: Sonoma State University

Still, fewer students are going to college.
Nationwide, enrollment has noticeably lagged since the start of the pandemic, when a significant number of students decided against a four-year degree in favor of joining the workforce or completing a certificate program without the hefty price tag or Zoom screen.
However, a downturn in enrollment was in the works long before 2020.
“The enrollment crisis didn’t start with the pandemic, it accelerated with the pandemic,” Hafeez Lakhani, founder and president of Lakhani Coaching in New York, recently told CNBC. “This is the fuel on the fire.”
In fact, undergraduate enrollment in the U.S. topped out at roughly 18 million students over a decade ago, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
Today, there are more than 2.5 million fewer students enrolled in college, Doug Shapiro, executive director of the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, estimated.

Costs keep rising

Not only are fewer students interested in pursuing any sort of degree after high school, but the population of college-age students is also shrinking, a trend referred to as the “enrollment cliff.”
“There’s a broad-based drop in belief or trust in higher education as an institution,” said Cole Clark, a managing director within Deloitte’s higher education practice and co-author of a recent trends report. “It’s as much of a threat as the demographic cliff.”

These days, only about 62% of high school seniors in the U.S. immediately go on to college, down from 68% in 2010. Low-income students who feel priced out of a postsecondary education are often those who opt out.
Steadily, college is becoming a path for only those with the means to pay for it, other reports also show.
Would-be college students are looking more closely at the return on investment as tuition costs remain high and a shortage of workers increases opportunities in the labor force — with or without a diploma.

Arrows pointing outwards

More high schoolers want career training

Most Americans still agree a college education is worthwhile when it comes to career goals and advancement. However, only half think the economic benefits outweigh the costs, according to a report by Public Agenda, USA Today and Hidden Common Ground — and young adults are particularly skeptical.
The rising cost of college and ballooning student loan balances have played a large role in changing views about the higher education system, which many think is rigged to benefit the wealthy, the report found. 
Only 45% of students from low-income, first-generation or minority backgrounds believe education after high school is necessary, according to a study by ECMC Group.
High schoolers are putting more emphasis on career training and post-college employment, the nonprofit found after polling more than 5,000 high school students six times since February 2020.

More than 75% of high schoolers now say a two-year degree or technical certification is enough, and only 41% believe they must have a four-year degree to get a good job, a separate report by Junior Achievement and Citizens also found. 
“A lot of students are weighing their options,” said Connie Livingston, head of college counselors at college counseling firm Empowerly and a former admissions officer at Brown University.
“Does it make more sense to go to community college, trade school or directly into the workforce?” she said. “In this economic climate, that’s attractive.”

Earning a college degree is almost always worthwhile

And yet, earning a bachelor’s degree is almost always worthwhile, research shows.
Bachelor’s degree holders generally earn 75% more than those with a high school diploma, according to “The College Payoff,” a report from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce — and the higher the level of educational attainment, the larger the payoff.
But even while degrees deliver a strong premium in the job market, confidence in the higher education system is declining, according to Deloitte’s Clark.
“There is a lot of rhetoric about the individual with a college degree and a ton of debt and underemployed,” he said.
“You are going to continue to see this paradox,” Lakhani added. “There’s a subconscious consensus that it’s only worth going to college if you can go to a life-changing college.” 
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The U.S. Department of the Treasury proposed a rule on Friday that would make it easier for consumers to get a $7,500 tax credit for new electric vehicles and a $4,000 credit for used EVs.
The proposal would allow all eligible buyers, regardless of federal tax liability, to get a full tax break.
It would be a point-of-sale purchase discount from car dealers starting in 2024.
Currently, those whose tax liability is too low may get a reduced credit or none at all.

Maskot | Maskot | Getty Images

A new proposal by the U.S. Department of the Treasury would make it easier for consumers to get a tax credit when buying a new or used electric vehicle, according to tax and energy experts.
Its proposed rules, issued Friday, would let car dealers offer the EV tax break to consumers at the point of sale — regardless of their federal tax liability — starting Jan. 1, 2024.

What that means: All eligible EV buyers — and not just a subset of eligible, typically wealthier consumers — would get an upfront discount of up to $7,500 for new cars and $4,000 for used cars, experts said.
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“I think it is a real game-changer for all consumers to be able to get that rebate at the point of sale,” said Jamie Wickett, a partner at law firm Hogan Lovells which specializes in federal tax policy and energy. “Immediately, a $50,000 vehicle becomes $42,500.”

Big news for low- and middle-income drivers

Dealers were always supposed to offer point-of-sale discounts in 2024, as per text of the Inflation Reduction Act. However, the tax-liability issue was an open question.
As things stand, buyers only qualify for the full tax break if their federal tax liability is large enough. Otherwise, they may get a reduced credit or nothing at all. (That’s because the credit is “nonrefundable.”)

If the Treasury proposal is codified, it would expand the pool of consumers — especially lower earners, who generally have smaller tax liabilities — eligible for the full value of the EV tax credit.
“It’s great news, especially from an equity standpoint and for people who may not have as much disposable income,” said Ingrid Malmgren, policy director at nonprofit Plug In America. “It really will make [an EV purchase] more affordable for them.”

They would also be getting that tax break as an upfront discount. Right now, buyers must wait until they file their annual tax return to get the credit’s financial benefit — potentially a year or more after the purchase.
Consumers will get that point-of-sale discount by transferring their tax credit — the new clean vehicle credit ($7,500) or the used clean vehicle credit ($4,000) — to a car dealer. The car dealer can then pay the credit’s value back to the consumer. The IRS expects to issue payments back to the dealers within 72 hours, Treasury said.
Dealers must provide consumers with the full credit amount available for the vehicle, and provide written confirmation of the amount and vehicle eligibility, Treasury said. The payment doesn’t count toward a taxpayer’s gross income.
The agency’s proposal comes as it has gotten harder for many EV models to qualify for the full $7,500 credit (temporarily, at least) due to manufacturing requirements included in the Inflation Reduction Act.

Consumers must self-attest eligibility

There are a few caveats.
For one, the Treasury proposal is subject to a 60-day public comment period and may change in its final version, though experts don’t expect any substantial revisions.
In addition, not all dealers will necessarily participate. They must register via IRS Energy Credits Online, a new website. Wickett expects most dealers to do so, or otherwise risk being at a “real competitive disadvantage.”
Buyers also must file an income tax return for the year in which the vehicle transfer election is made.
It’s also important to note that car dealers won’t analyze consumers’ income to determine if they qualify for an EV credit, according to the Treasury proposal. Buyers must self-attest their eligibility — and making a mistake could mean paying back the credit’s full value to the IRS at tax time.

I think it is a real game changer for all consumers to be able to get that rebate at the point of sale.

Jamie Wickett
partner at law firm Hogan Lovells

They can self-attest their eligibility if they expect to be below the respective income thresholds in the year the vehicle is “placed in service,” Treasury said. They can also do so based on the prior year’s income.
“It’s probably best to know you qualified [based on income] last year or be very much assured that you qualify in the year you purchase your car,” Malmgren said.
These are the annual income limits for the $7,500 new vehicle credit: $300,000 for married couples filing a joint tax return; $225,000 for heads of household; and $150,000 for single tax filers.
These limits apply to the $4,000 used vehicle credit:  $150,000 for married couples filing a joint tax return; $112,500 for heads of household; and $75,000 for single tax filers.
These figures are based on “modified adjusted gross income.” More

Year-end Planning

With no Powerball winner Saturday night, the jackpot has climbed to an estimated $1.55 billion.
The lump sum payout amount dropped by $29.7 million between Wednesday and Friday last week. Experts say there are a few reasons for dramatic swings in the estimated jackpot value between drawings.
The next Powerball drawing is Monday at 10:59 p.m. ET.

Justin Sullivan | Getty

The Powerball jackpot has climbed to an estimated $1.55 billion after no one matched the winning numbers Saturday night — and there were some dramatic swings in the cash prize leading up to that drawing.
The winner has two payout options: a lump sum worth $679.8 million or an annuity valued at $1.55 billion. Of course, both options are pretax estimates, and other factors can shift their value.

Last week, the lump sum actually dropped by $29.7 million between Wednesday and Friday even as the headline prize held steady at an estimated $1.4 billion, according to Powerball.
There are a few reasons for that drop, according to J. Bret Toyne, executive director of the Multi-State Lottery Association, which runs Powerball. “It’s a little bit science and a little bit art,” he said.

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Here’s a look at more coverage on what to do finance-wise as the end of the year approaches:

Powerball’s estimated lump sum considers projected ticket sales and an “annuity factor,” or the cost to fund the grand prize, Toyne said.
On Fridays, the organization receives nonbinding quotes for bonds to fund prizes and they use interest rates from these quotes to determine the new annuity factor.
Typically, the higher interest rates climb, the bigger jackpot players can expect because “rising interest rates are a tailwind for a lottery annuity,” he said.

But last week, the estimated lump sum dropped from Wednesday to Friday because the weekly annuity factor changed and the amount necessary to fund the jackpot went down, Toyne said.
“As interest rates fluctuate, it changes the value of the annuity and therefore changes the value of the alternative option, which is the lump sum,” said Akshay Khanna, CEO of Jackpot.com, which sells state lottery tickets.

“We’re in such a volatile interest rate environment right now and have been over the past 12 months,” he added.
The next Powerball drawing is Monday at 10:59 p.m. ET, and the sales cutoff is typically one to two hours before the drawing. The odds of winning the jackpot are roughly 1 in 292.2 million.
Monday’s Powerball drawing comes less than three months since a single ticket sold in California won the game’s $1.08 billion jackpot. It’s the 35th Powerball drawing in the current jackpot cycle and the first time the game has seen a back-to-back billion-dollar grand prize.
Meanwhile, the Mega Millions jackpot is back down to $20 million after a winning ticket sold in Texas scored the grand prize of $360 million on Friday. The odds of winning the Mega Millions jackpot are roughly 1 in 302 million. More

Uncertainties, including new conflict overseas, may lead to more volatility for investors.
Here’s why staying the course tends to pay off over time.

Spencer Platt | Getty Images

The new war between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas has brought more uncertainty to the markets.
While stocks shook off the conflict in Monday afternoon trading, financial experts say investors should stay the course amid elevated volatility risks.

“Stay calm, think long term and look for some bargains,” said David Rea, president of Salem Investment Counselors in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, which is No. 27 on the 2023 CNBC FA 100 list.
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Ongoing pressures from two wars, including the Russia-Ukraine conflict; rising interest rates; high inflation; a potential federal shutdown; and ongoing worker strikes may prompt yet more ups and downs.
If markets do drop, investors focused on retirement and other goals would be wise to hold on, research shows.
A $10,000 investment in the S&P 500 would have grown to $64,844 between Jan. 1, 2003, and Dec. 30, 2022 — a 9.8% return, according to research from JPMorgan Asset Management.

If investors had exited that investment to try to avoid losses, they would have sacrificed a meaningful amount of gains, according to the firm.
If an investor moved in and out of the markets and missed the 60 best days, their investment would be worth just $4,205 at the end of that time period, with a -4.2% return.

Trying to time the market doesn’t work

The reason why timing the market doesn’t work, according to JPMorgan, is that the market’s worst days tend to be followed by its best days. If investors leave to avoid the losses, they often don’t make it back in time to reap the benefit of the gains.
In the two-decade period, seven of the 10 best days happened within two weeks of the worst 10 days, JPMorgan found. Moreover, the second worst day of 2020, March 12, was immediately followed by the second best day of the year.
“It’s so hard to know when it’s going to turn and go back up,” Rea said.

In the immediate aftermath of the current Mideast conflict, some sectors are already up.
“The winners are clearly energy stocks and likely defense stocks,” said Barry Glassman, a certified financial planner and founder and president of Glassman Wealth Services in Vienna, Virginia. Glassman is a member of the CNBC FA Council.
However, the real question for the U.S. economy now is where interest rates will go from here, Glassman said.

When this kind of conflict has emerged in the past, Treasurys have jumped in value while interest rates have dropped, he noted.
“A global conflict that would cause a rush to safety might put interest rates down,” Glassman said. “On the first day of trading, we’re just not seeing that at this stage.”
Notably, due to the Columbus Day federal holiday, bond markets were closed Monday. More

Oil prices jumped more than 3% after Palestinian militants launched a surprise attack on Israel last weekend. 
However, both Gaza and Israel produce small amounts of oil, so the overall effect on prices is likely to remain limited.
American drivers have yet to see effects from the conflict reflected at the gas station level.

Drivers fill up at a Shell gas station in Alhambra, California, on Oct. 2, 2023.
Frederic J. Brown | Afp | Getty Images

Oil prices jumped more than 3% after members of the militant group Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel from the Gaza Strip last weekend. 
However, neither Gaza nor Israel produce much petroleum, so the overall effect on oil and gas prices is likely to remain limited — as long as no third parties from in or outside the region become involved, according to industry experts.

“The impact on the oil price will be limited unless we see the ‘war’ between the two sides expand quickly to a regional war where the U.S. and Iran and other supporters of the parties get directly involved,” Middle East managing director of energy consultancy Facts Global Energy, Iman Nasseri, previously told CNBC.
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As long as the violence does not spread, oil and gas prices in the U.S. are likely to be unaffected.

Gas prices have been trending lower

Indeed, American drivers have yet to see effects from the conflict reflected at the gas station level. The average price for a gallon of regular gasoline in the U.S. on Monday was $3.70, down 11 cents from a week ago, according to AAA. 
Downward pressures such as the jobs report and the possibility of further interest rate hikes from the Federal Reserve are likely to continue softening oil prices, said Patrick DeHaan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy.

A fireball erupts during Israeli bombardment of Gaza City on Oct. 9, 2023.
Mohammed Abed | AFP | Getty Images

Additionally, the current hostilities are not “remotely close” — geographically or practically speaking — to Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, which started last year, said DeHaan.
Unlike Gaza and Israel, Russia is a primary oil and natural gas exporter. Iran, however, is “the wildcard to watch out for,” he added. Iran congratulated Hamas on its offensive against Israel but denied involvement in the initiative.

‘Diesel is going into its peak season’

Heating oil prices are expected to climb, mostly due to seasonality changes. Demand will rise as temperatures begin to drop, according to DeHaan.
“Diesel is going into its peak season because of the prominent use of heating oil in areas of the Northeast,” he said.
For now, drivers in the U.S. planning to take major road trips in the months ahead should not be too concerned, but best to keep an eye on the situation if they’re price sensitive, especially if turmoil escalates.  More

Altogether, roughly 453,000 workers have gone on strike so far in 2023 as employees across industries fight for better wages and working conditions in the wake of the pandemic.
In the last few months alone, striking or threatening to strike has led to a string of labor deals where workers have pushed for and won higher pay.
With each successful outcome, others are more likely to follow.

Employees picket and rally at Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center on Oct. 4, 2023.
Irfan Khan | Los Angeles Times | Getty Images

Just as Hollywood’s writers and studios reached a tentative deal to return to work after nearly 150 days, a new strike was brewing.
More than 75,000 health-care workers walked off the job Wednesday at Kaiser Permanente, the nation’s largest non-profit health-care organization, driven in part by demands for higher pay in the midst of staffing shortages, which left employees burned out.

At the same time, the United Auto Workers strike is ongoing, marking three weeks since the first-ever simultaneous walk out against the Detroit Three.
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Altogether, there have been 312 strikes involving roughly 453,000 workers so far in 2023, compared with 180 strikes involving 43,700 workers over the same period two years ago, according to data by Johnnie Kallas, a PhD candidate at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations, and the project director of the ILR Labor Action Tracker.
“This is a pretty considerable uptick relative to the rest of the 21st century,” Kallas said.
In the last few months alone, striking or threatening to strike has led to a string of labor deals where UPS drivers, airline pilots and aerospace manufacturing employees have pushed for and won higher pay. With each successful outcome, other labor actions are more likely to follow, Kallas said. “Strikes can often be contagious.”

‘Workers want higher pay’ amid inflation

“The strikes are an indication that workers want higher pay,” said Diana Furchtgott-Roth, an economics professor at George Washington University and former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor. “That’s because of the pressures of inflation.”
In the wake of the pandemic, higher prices have weighed on worker paychecks. Real average hourly earnings fell 2% over the last two years, according to the Labor Department.
As a result, purchasing power has declined and consumers have less left over at the end of the month for savings — “they both take a hit when you have less income,” said Tomas Philipson, a professor of public policy studies at the University of Chicago and former acting chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. “It’s concerning for people’s standard of living.”

Pandemic spurred other contract concerns

But there are other issues beyond compensation causing workers to walk out on the job, despite the potential consequences.
“Pay is a big issue but it’s not the only issue,” Kallas said. Other top concerns include staffing, retirement benefits, health care and health and safety, research shows.
“For many of these workers, especially in unionized settings, it’s the first contract they’ve negotiated since the beginning of the pandemic,” Kallas said.
In most cases, collective bargaining agreements are locked in for several years. Coming out of Covid, workers are feeling increasingly strained while watching their wages lag inflation and this is an opportunity to improve the terms, he said.
“A lot has changed.”
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