Will education demand decrease?

Harold: I've been thinking along these same lines lately. I see two different dynamics that both result in declining demand for diplomas.

1. As enrollment drops slightly due to financial pressures on families sending children to college, the tuition will be raised to cover the fixed costs of the institution. As the price goes up, more families will question the value of the college degree, the sanity of taking on so much debt (college loan balances) as well as it's affordability in the near term. This will likely induce more dropouts and further tuition increases. The colleges will feel they have no option but to raise tuition with the declining donations from alumni and drop in earnings from their endowment funds.

2. As college degree programs become more expensive, college graduates will have to demand even higher salaries to pay down their debt. Those college graduates will also have acquired an education that often lags ten years behind dramatic changes in technology, culture, business practices and the economy. Once employers have a viable option of hiring non-graduates who have taught themselves the recent changes,( tools, methods, start-ups, products, trends, etc), the demand for graduates will plummet. Except in fields of research science and professions slow to change (theater, sports, human services, etc.) employers will find graduates to be less valuable and more expensive candidates. Employers will find it to be more cost effective to pay lower wages and upskill non-graduates internally with their particular best practices in use.