Growing up is something every human goes through. Whether that be taking one’s first steps, the first time attending school, or getting a first car. One of the biggest changes of growing up is being independent. For many people, the end of high school marks the end of their childhood and the start of their adulthood. After all, this is when many people decide the direction of their lives. One person wants to go to a university for four years and study how to properly animate a movie, while the next person wants to go to trade school to learn how to weld the pipes we use every day. Some people even decide to take a gap year to try and shake off the stress of school life or backpack around a foreign country. Whatever it is, everyone at least has some idea of what they would like to do after high school. However these ideas seem to include college less and less as the years go on. People are beginning to see college as a waste of time and resources. Why study for four more years and lose out on four years of income when you could go straight into the workforce?
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, colleges and universities have seen a 15% decrease in enrollment between 2010 and 2021. This means there are 2.7 million fewer students attending college in the last decade. Yet for the year of 2024-2025, college applications have been booming, according to Common App (a nonprofit that assists with college applications) statistics. For the year of 2025-2026, Common App has seen a 10% increase in college applications compared to recent years. If we examine the Alhambra High School profile for the year 2025, the percentage of graduates attending a 4-year college is 28.3%, while the percentage attending a 2-year college is 48.9%. Obviously, the number of people going for two years is a lot bigger, almost reaching half of the senior class. This leaves 22.8% of students unaccounted for. Yet we still have a large number of students pursuing higher education, even though it may cost more money and more time.
A reason for the drop off in college applicants for 2010-2021 is partly due to the Covid-19 Pandemic, but also because living in America today sucks. The cost of living continues to get higher and higher, while the minimum wage barely gets adjusted for inflation. Products continue to shrink in size while increasing in price. The largest contributor to the National GDP is real estate. As in housing. The roofs that everyone needs over their heads and the buildings small businesses start in are what make the most money for the U.S. They continue to make more and more money off of basic human necessity. Education, which is a basic human right, is locked behind a paywall. People opt to go straight into the workforce instead of going to college. It is not the individual person’s fault; it is the messed-up society we live in that makes it so we have to do huge trade-offs that will affect our future just to get by. Attending college does not guarantee you a job. People earn degrees and go on to work in a field that has nothing to do with their degrees. People sometimes do not even finish high school and end up making six figures doing their own thing. People study for four years just to end up having no job offers and having to move back in with their parents. Education does not guarantee you a job, but it could slightly increase your chance of getting one. Going to a college or university will always be a personal choice and should be respected by other people.