Posted On: Thursday - May 1st 2025 7:45PM MST
In Topics: University Economics
The reader may have been expecting "Housing Bubble" together, as we've written about that before. (See our old posts with my favorite Case-Schiller graphs off one particular blog I used to like: Housing Bubble 2.0 - West coast, university towns, minorities, to be hardest hit! - - Housing Bubble 2.0 - (Part 2) - Voila, an American Dream - - One year after our last post - Housing Bubble 2.0 going Bubblicious and Checking in on Housing Bubble 2.0- Bubble or just high inflation?.) I've been wrong too many times about housing prices, as you can see from the titles*, so here I discuss the University Bubble, prompted by my seeing so lots of new housing being built.
The "University Bubble" is something Instapundit Glenn Reynolds used to discuss, or actually, point out articles about, and I saw a post of his about it a couple of months back. Is this anything real?
Is it as with the manufacturers of socks I buy at Target, there's just one architect doing all of these?
There have been traffic jams as work had to be done out into the busy streets around this whole city block apartment complex being built ~ 3/4 mile from the center of the nearby University. I looked the builder up. They are a big company that builds these structures all over. Regarding this particular one near us, depending on which site you read, there will be 600-odd or 900-odd bedrooms. (Based on units, also 2 different numbers, the apartments will average to 3 bedrooms.)
These are not dorms, owned by the U., but they are mostly definitely for students. They are expecting a WHOLE LOT of university students. That would be a whole lot MORE. This is after 20 years of my seeing new housing being built all over, and it's not going anywhere.. I just found a nice web page for the University of REDACTED stats on student population. Student population attending this campus has increased 18% in the last 10 years, but unfortunately, the data doesn't go back past 11 years ago.
Interestingly, at first, I found it odd that, for all years I checked, the number of students in each academic year-category went up from Freshmen, sorry Freshpeople, through Seniors. Whaaaa? Don't students drop out anymore? (Well, now there's "grade forgiveness" and basically lower standards and all the student loan money you can use, so .. don't call us, child, we'll call you....) Freshman class sizes are about 1/2 of Senior class sizes, and Sophomore and Junior are in the middle and fairly close to each other.
Ahaa, this shows that there are plenty of students that have transferred from other schools, most probably from less expensive community/tech colleges.
I see a pie chart that says 17% of the students get Pell Grants, but no pie** about student loans held. THAT would have been more helpful. It was not easy to get consistent numbers, but for American college students in general, I get that about half of them exit (graduate?) college with student loan debt. The average amount is not as much as I'd thought, somewhere around 25 big ones. (That's only half of a new pick-up truck.)
Is this continual growth in college student population, ahem, sustainable? I see 3 factors in this possible University Bubble:
1) College student age population. I know I read something by Steve Sailer predicting lower numbers of American available to attend college, but Census Bureau data doesn't agree. this link on the CB site goes to a simple spreadsheet. There's a slight drop going on, with the population of the 20-24 y/o, 15-19 y/o (about 1/2 of these 2 of standard college age), 10-14 y/o, and 5-9 y/o (a decade before college age) groupings going from 22.3 million, to 21.6 million, to 20.7 million, then down to 19.9 million. It's not a drastic change. With some averaging of the oldest 2 groupings, we'd see a drop of 5% over 5 years and 10% over 10 years. (This is assuming President Trump keeps on doing what he's doing at the border, what with all those future Valedictorians and all...)
That reduction is not what I'd call the popping of a bubble.
2) The financial burden of student loans. We have an idea of this burden numerically. However, we don't know whether or when students, or more like their parents, will start balking at accumulating debt that may have served no purpose, depending on major. IOW, will potential students and their parents stop supporting this cycle of tuition increases***, with taxpayer support for it all? I guess this depends on the rest of the economy, the outlook of which is not rosy.
3) The point of going to college. There's a video I've seen referenced in multiple place recently by some famous (not to me!) guy who recommends not going to college for lots of young people. With automation and AI possibly wiping out lot of the rest of the white collar jobs, will it get even harder to enter one of the careers that college education is important for?
There will always be a need for engineers, doctors, scientists, etc., but most of those attending college are in other majors. Is there really a point now, when most student have no resemblance to real humanities scholars of the past? College has become a rite of passage and 4 years, sometimes 5, of good times and that's all. Your parents went, they still buy the sweatshirts and ball caps, and everyone follows the sportsball teams, so ... why not? The future of this spending of half a decade just for fun and inertial reasons depends, yet again, on the economy, the outlook of which is .... yeah...
One would think the businessmen at the large firm behind the erection of these 600-900 student housing complexes know what they're doing. I don't know about that. I think someone, somewhere is gonna lose his ass.
Next time: What one can't help noticing around campus.
* OTOH, I was right in thinking that Housing in China was going to take a dive. That's what I've been hearing about from personal sources.
** There's another very important simple pie chart in there that I'll discuss in another post.
*** And don't forget FEES either! They're not your parents' $20 lab fees anymore. They are significant... but they are not tuition. (Don't ask me how they're not.)
Comments:
Moderator
Friday - May 2nd 2025 7:34PM MST
PS: Now I've got 3 songs in my head, Alarmist, fortunately not simultaneously, "Dream On" by Aerosmith, "Dreamweaver" by Gary Wright (had to look the artist's name up), and "All I have to do is Dream" by the Everly Brothers. All the songs notwithstanding, send 'em back!
The Alarmist
Friday - May 2nd 2025 9:22AM MST
PS
Must be all those DREEEEEEEAMERZ they've imported over the past few years.
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Must be all those DREEEEEEEAMERZ they've imported over the past few years.
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Moderator
Friday - May 2nd 2025 4:35AM MST
PS: First of all, I fixed about 5 typos/grammar mistakes and added a line or two, M. The mean IS the average. Do you mean the Median? I went to a bunch of those stats sites to answer "What proportion of college students get student loans" (assuming that means government-direct, but probably government-guaranteed too, not sure about the latter).
Then I pulled up some graphs with dollar amounts - some, though, are for how much ex-students own, possibly long after college. I was going for the amount owned by your average student WITH loans. However, the median would probably be a better measure, as with housing prices.
I'll write more later. See ya'.
Then I pulled up some graphs with dollar amounts - some, though, are for how much ex-students own, possibly long after college. I was going for the amount owned by your average student WITH loans. However, the median would probably be a better measure, as with housing prices.
I'll write more later. See ya'.
M
Friday - May 2nd 2025 3:34AM MST
PS
"The average amount is not as much as I'd though, somewhere around 25 big ones."
I've read that too. The examples the reporters always choose of quarter million etc. are outliers. Generally they're perpetual graduate students.
Even "average" is likely misleading, if the reporter uses the mean. Which is probably what the reporter was given.
"The average amount is not as much as I'd though, somewhere around 25 big ones."
I've read that too. The examples the reporters always choose of quarter million etc. are outliers. Generally they're perpetual graduate students.
Even "average" is likely misleading, if the reporter uses the mean. Which is probably what the reporter was given.
I didn't know that Gary Wright re-recorded Dreamweaver for Wayne's World...
https://youtu.be/h-0XNyUFUbc
Speaking of Tia Carrere...
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-11644939/Waynes-World-star-Tia-Carrere-56-looks-youthful-velvet-sweatsuit-hat-no-makeup.html
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