College enrollment is almost down to pre-recession levels
College enrollment levels are down.
Enrollment peaked in 2011 and has since fallen to around pre-recession levels, which can be seen in the chart below shared by BAML's US economists Michelle Meyer and Lisa C. Berlin.
Although the positive benefits of a good education cannot be overstated, this might not be a terrible sign for the US economy. As Meyer and Berlin explain succinctly: "When there is high unemployment, people will attend school given the lack of job opportunities. In other words, the opportunity cost of school declines during recession."
Notably, although the BAML team didn't mention graduate school specifically, it's worth nothing that a similar trend happens there. When times are tough and soon-to-be-college-graduates can't find jobs, they sometimes opt to wait out the crisis while getting a master's or PhD.
In any case, Meyer and Berlin concluded that "once sufficient time has passed since the crisis, we suspect college enrollment will return to an upward trajectory."
BAML
- Average housing prices up 10% in Jan-Mar across the top eight cities
- Top visa-on-arrival picks for Indian explorers
- 451 million voters! First four phases of Lok Sabha elections witness 66.95% voter turnout so far
- Best hill stations near Delhi to escape May's heatwave
- India to surpass Japan, become world's fourth largest economy worth USD 4 trillion, in FY25: EAC-PM member