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In today’s issue: The latest enrollment numbers; the state of higher ed in 3 charts; and more on the calculus vs. statistics debate

⭐️ The first review of Dream School: Finding the College That’s Right for You is in…and it’s a starred review from Publishers Weekly.

Publishers Weekly is an insider’s guide to the industry but its starred reviews are influential to book buyers at libraries and bookstores. Only about 10% of books get a star.

🗯️ From the review: “Insightful…actionable advice…Selingo effectively exposes how the American ‘elite college or bust mentality’ damages students, the education system, and the professional world.”

🙏 So I’m appreciative of this review…and continue to thank all of you who’ve been on this journey with me.

👀 I know I keep reminding you that the book is available for pre-order (and will continue to do so until September 9!), but pre-orders are so important.

📈 Some 4,000+ copies of Dream School have already been ordered. The sooner you or friends buy it, the sooner you’ll get access to the bonuses we’re offering:

• An 18-page downloadable guide that’s only available now and can help you with the college search this summer.
  
  🎯 As Dan Porterfield, the CEO of the Aspen Institute and former president of F&M College and vice-president and professor at Georgetown University put it during a recent webinar: “This Dream School guide is excellent; it’s a product in its own right.”
• Dan said that on an exclusive webinar that was only open to those who pre-ordered the book. We have another one coming up…and we plan to add more goodies to the offer in the coming weeks.
• Getting all of this is simple: Order the book from any bookseller, then complete the form on my website with your order information to receive the bonuses.

🚨 And here’s one more sneak preview from the book: the Table of Contents

⚡️BREAKING: The latest college enrollment figures for this spring are out this morning from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, and while undergraduate enrollment continues to climb (up 3.5% over last spring, to 15.3 million), it still remains below pre-pandemic levels.

Some key takeaways from the report:

• While undergrad enrollment lags, grad enrollment surpasses pre-pandemic highs: Graduate programs grew 1.5% this spring to 3.1 million students and are now 7.2% higher than spring 2020 levels, showing stronger recovery than undergraduate programs.
• Trade-focused community colleges see explosive growth: The trades aren’t just getting the headlines, they’re also getting enrollment. Vocational public two-year institutions posted 11.7% enrollment gains for the third consecutive year, now comprising 19.4% of all public two-year enrollment and up nearly 20% since spring 2020.
• Affordability and ROI concerns about the degree pushing students into certificate programs: Undergraduate certificate enrollment jumped 4.8% this spring and is now 20% higher than pre-pandemic, with community colleges accounting for nearly two-thirds of the growth.
• The gap year kids are back: For the first time since 2020, students in their twenties showed year-over-year growth, with 21-24 year-olds up 3.2% and 25-29 year-olds increasing 5.9%, signaling a potential end to pandemic-era enrollment declines in this demographic.
• The South and West are gaining: Lots of stories about students going South and West for college, but those regions also have growth in high school grads compared to the Midwest and Northeast. The state leaders in growth were Utah, Oklahoma, and Mississippi.

The State of Higher Ed in 2025

☁️ Colleges and universities face a near-term future full of complexity and uncertainty. In the infamous words of Donald Rumsfeld, the former U.S. secretary of defense, they’re the “unknown unknowns.”

As trustees, college presidents, deans, leadership teams, and faculty members embark this summer on planning for next academic year they’re trying to navigate this ambiguity.

To help you do that, I recently released the State of Higher Education—more of a slide deck than a report. I took a page from Mary Meeker’s popular “Internet Trends” slide deck and designed it similarly with lots of graphics and a quick scan at what’s happening.

Here are three charts and takeaways from it…

1️⃣ As I mentioned above, grad enrollment is up, and the growth is increasingly driven by part-timers in online programs.

2️⃣ The percentage of high school graduates going right on to college has dropped from a high of 70% in 2016 to 62% in 2023.

• According to research, people who skipped college or left college, don’t see the short-term trade-offs as worth it even if they know the degree is worth it over the long-run.
• Colleges often say “higher ed needs to better tell the story of the value of the degree.” It seems people know about the value of the degree and they are still skipping out on college.

3️⃣ Division III colleges are seeing the largest growth in athletes.

• 40% of all college athletes compete in D-III, mostly at private colleges, which make up 80% of the division.
• On average a quarter of the enrollment of a D-III college is made up of athletes, but at some institutions it’s much higher.

Download the Full Deck

(With support from Amazon Web Services, AWS)

Advice for the Class of 2025

🎓 It’s graduation season. I just returned home from my alma mater, Ithaca College, where we had a board meeting before commencement last weekend.

• Thirty years after we graduated, my college roommate, ABC’s David Muir, made a surprise (really!) introduction of another Ithaca grad, Disney CEO, Bob Iger, who received an honorary doctorate on Sunday.
• It was just a fantastic moment (relived in this Instagram reel).
• I remember Iger speaking to us when we were undergraduates and he was programming chief at ABC. At that time he provided similar advice as he did in this recent interview with the New York City ABC affiliate: we all have dreams coming out of college but many times we have to pivot. Iger’s dream was to be a television anchor. A career on the air didn’t work out for him (or me), so he pivoted. It’s ok to follow other dreams, other paths. Two tours as Disney’s CEO ain’t bad.

Since it’s commencement time for both college and high school seniors, I asked Philip A. Glotzbach, the president emeritus of Skidmore College, and author of Embrace Your Freedom: Winning Strategies to Succeed in College and In Life to give some advice to them from his book.

Here are excerpts from our Q&A (and more on all of this is in his excellent book):

Q. How can new graduates apply your idea of self-directed freedom from college as they transition into the next phase of their lives?

A.Typically, doing anything worth pursuing requires discipline and structure: a detailed plan leading to a goal, and the continuing commitment to follow the steps of that path. Making this kind of commitment means saying ‘no’ to a lot of other options. But it’s the basis for any significant accomplishment.

The same is true in one’s post-college life. It’s crucial to start from your basic values: to know yourself. Then look at the situation you’re in—whether it’s a new job or the search for one—and decide on both your long-term and more immediate objectives. Then commit to following through on what it takes to accomplish those objectives. The notion of self-directed freedom encompasses all these elements.

Q. You discuss the importance of taking intellectual risks and learning from failure. What advice would you give to new graduates who are entering a world where the fear of making mistakes can be overwhelming?

A. Of course, it’s simply not possible to live a risk-free life…or a failure-free life. We human beings are imperfect, finite creatures who often get things wrong, don’t fully execute our plans, or encounter obstacles that foil our best intentions. But what’s the most useful response to all this?

It’s certainly not to withdraw from the game, placing safety above everything else, or deciding that you are a victim of circumstances. If we let it, failure can be a powerful teacher—albeit sometimes a strict one. It also helps us develop the virtue of intellectual humility, which is significantly under-appreciated these days.

And here’s a secondary value to adopting this welcoming attitude toward failure: When we recognize it as a learning opportunity, we direct our attention outward—toward the situation—as opposed to directing it inward—toward our feelings of disappointment, fear, or whatever.

Q. In Embrace Your Freedom, you highlight the value of pursuing one’s passions over choosing a path solely for job security. How can graduates balance their interests with the practicalities of the job market?

A. It helps to realize that choosing a line of work—or a college major—solely because it appears to promise job security often turns out to be a losing bet. In a professional world that is changing so rapidly, yesterday’s surefire road to career success can become today’s off-ramp to unemployment.

Here are four keys to leveraging these elements to land a first job:

1. Create an effective elevator speech relating what you’ve learned to the requirements of the job you’re seeking. In a recent national survey of employers, almost two-thirds reported using “skills-based hiring.” What do they say they are looking for? The ability to solve problems; strong teamwork skills; strength in written and oral communication; initiative; a strong work ethic; flexibility and adaptability; and technical skills, among others – basically, the liberal arts core of a solid college education. So, figure out how to summarize the general intellectual skills you’ve acquired.
2. Engage your creativity to encapsulate what you’ve gained from your major. For example, if you concentrated in English, you might talk about how your facility in analyzing texts gives you the ability to process complex documents (e.g., a strategic plan, a marketing study, etc.), which you might well encounter in business.
3. Consider the out-of-class experiences I trust you’ve pursued as an undergrad: e.g., internships; volunteer service; student clubs or organizations; service-learning classes that took you out into the community; any large research project(s) you completed, etc. What specific skills did you gain from these experiences?
4. Be open to pursuing additional studies or degrees leading to more detailed knowledge, which is important to the particular professional field that’s captured your interest.

Q. The book also addresses the evolving role of parents as their children gain independence. What guidance do you offer to families to support their graduates without overstepping, especially during this significant life transition?

A. First, over your child’s undergraduate years, you will have become much smarter than you were when they were a teen-ager. So, relish your new status! It increases the odds that your college grad will come to you for some life/career-advice.

Second, and most important of all, continue to give your graduate the space to make their own decisions—and, yes, their own mistakes.

Just as in the undergraduate years, your most important role is still to be an encouraging cheerleader. You might ask yourself this question: What could this young person accomplish if they know they have my absolute and unconditional love and support? It’s OK to tell them, from time to time, that they still enjoy this level of backing from you.

Finally, as you’ve no doubt already learned, you never really stop being a parent. But things now have evolved to your being more of a co-equal partner, as opposed to a manager or boss.

Next Office Hour

Math, and calculus in particular, has become a critical gatekeeper in selective college admissions. That leaves many students and families wondering: What math classes really matter for college? And how should schools think about math fluency in a changing admissions landscape?

Join me for a special live webcast:
📍Math Fluency and the Pathway to Higher Ed
🗓️ Monday, June 2 at 12:00pm ET / 9:00am PT.

I’ll be joined by Shalinee Sharma, CEO of Zearn and author of Math Mind: The Simple Path to Learning and Loving Math.

SUPPLEMENTS

🎓 AI Threatens Entry-Level Jobs for College Grads. LinkedIn’s chief economic opportunity officer warns that AI is eliminating the traditional career ladder for new graduates, with college grad unemployment rising 30% since 2022. AI tools are replacing junior-level tasks like document review and simple coding, creating a “bottom rung” problem where students can’t gain experience. The solution requires redesigning entry-level positions for higher-level work beyond AI capabilities. (The New York Times)

🧮 Calculus vs. Statistics Debate? A study of 5.2 million Texas graduates finds AP Statistics students perform just as well as AP Calculus students in long-term earnings, despite calculus students being more likely to attend selective colleges. While calculus enrollment has remained flat, statistics participation has surged, challenging traditional college admissions preferences and supporting more diverse math pathways. (Thomas B. Fordham Institute)

⚠️ Over 40% of Colleges Face Financial Risk. EY-Parthenon’s Institutional Viability Metric reveals that more than 40% of four-year U.S. institutions are at some level of financial risk, with many stuck in unsustainable “business as usual” models. Traditional strategies like endless tuition increases and administrative bloat are failing as enrollment declines and student debt soars. Universities must embrace radical transformation including alternative credentials and technology integration, or risk closure. (EY-Parthenon via LinkedIn)

Until next time, Cheers — Jeff