higher ed

Bachelor’s degrees are no longer required for many jobs

This year’s legislative sessions saw a handful of governors and lawmakers proposing noteworthy reforms or other changes to their states’ institutions of higher education—from system overhauls to the expansion of tuition-free community college programs—all in efforts to align their state’s education investments with current and future workforce needs, as well as address future costs under tightening budgets.

Restructuring higher education systems

Total postsecondary enrollment is down 5% from fall 2019 to fall 2023 due to a 6% drop in undergraduate students. While undergraduates are down, graduate students have surpassed pre-pandemic enrollment numbers by 4%. Enrollments in undergraduate and graduate certificates are up significantly from pre-pandemic values (16% and 21%), while enrollment in associate degrees are down more than any other undergraduate credential (-14%).

The number of graduate students in science, engineering, and health has grown from approximately 328,000 to 760,000 from 1975 to 2021, a 132% increase, according to the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Survey of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering (GSS).

The United States is home to some of the world's most prestigious universities, each performing critical research that helps advance the country’s innovation economy. However, these universities are not evenly distributed across the country; many are concentrated within large cities in states where their spillover further impacts the local economies.

Research and Development (R&D) is an essential component of innovation and economic growth, where higher education institutions play a key role. However, with these institutions being responsible for funding just a quarter of all HERD expenditures, it is important to see the influence of outside funding sources on the fields of R&D.

Institutions of higher education spent $97.8 billion on research and development (R&D) activities in fiscal year (FY) 2022, an increase of nearly 9% over the prior year’s $89.8 billion. Over the past decade of available data, from FY 2013-2022, higher education R&D expenditures have increased 46%, from $67.1 to $97.8 billion. However, when adjusted for inflation, the growth is more modest at 17%.

Restrictions placed on registering for high-wage-potential academic majors have had an increasingly disproportionate adverse effect on students from underrepresented minority groups (URM: Black, Hispanic, and American Indian or Alaska Native), according to research from the Bookings Institution.

In Mississippi, the state auditor released a report  in September 2023 that rated academic degrees by whether the degree would lead to a well-paying job. He suggests that Mississippi invest more in programs in the subject areas leading to those high-paying, in-state jobs. Basing appropriations on immediate wage outcomes implies that near-term economic return is the only benefit that matters, and it is a theme that is recurring frequently.

Less than half of one percent of Americans attend Ivy-Plus colleges, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). Yet these twelve colleges account for more than 10% of Fortune 500 CEOs, a quarter of U.S. Senators, half of all Rhodes scholars, and three-fourths of Supreme Court justices appointed in the last half-century.