The future of the world is changing drastically and especially so for colleges and universities. In recent years there has been a decline in enrollment which started around the time the COVID-19 pandemic came about. The pandemic isn’t the main reason though, there are a number of reasons why kids nowadays are choosing a different route.
Opportunity. With the emergence of social media marketing, people are choosing to take a chance on themselves and self-promoting their business as opposed to going to college. There has been an increased focus on skill nowadays than formal credits. For example, I talked to Bri Budgetts, a local Kansas City Photographer. “I chose not to go to college because I can showcase my talents through social media, which is what clients will see anyway. If you are doing the work and people can see that, then the piece of paper isn’t needed in my opinion,” she said when I asked her why she chose to pursue a photography career full-time without choosing to get a degree.
The social media impact on younger generations is real. Seeing that there are so many successful youth who never attended college has definitely had an effect on other youth because it then gives others the sense that it’s possible. Whether school is worth the financial burden or not is a big question that is being debated more. I asked a coworker who attends Morningside, Nef, if he believes that attending college would be worth it for him in the end. “For what I do, which is computing, I believe that learning at a University will be worth the cost of college. I also don’t believe that college is necessary for everyone though. There are definitely people who do what I do that are self taught and I believe anyone could do it, but I want to be one of my only family members to say I graduated,” Nef explained to me. Breaking generational ‘curses’ of not graduating college is something that makes a lot of kids want to get their degree whether they believe it is necessary for them or not.
Pressure to start earning money can be a factor in not attending college. Again, going back to social media, a lot of social media is a facade and it seems as if everyone is doing better than they are. So, when people our youth sees people who look like they have money all over social media it can make you want to go do the same. Skipping college to promote yourself and your own entrepreneurial aspirations can is a way that money can begin to be made immediately as opposed to attending college for 4 years.
Another huge reason is the availability of non-traditional learning. Nowadays, with Youtube and other social media platforms, there are a number of pages and people who you can pay to teach you everything you need to know specifically for what you want to do. It makes sense though. It’s almost like trade school, but at home. My friends from back home make music, and instead of going to school to learn engineering, mixing, mastering, etc. they decided to learn on their own and figure out what works best for them in order to focus and master one area. “I learned how to engineer my own music from practice and repetition. I never thought about going to college to do this, It just started as a hobby but I do it so much much now that I feel like I have mastered my sound,” Benjamin Tokeak said when I asked him about how he learned to engineer music. “I used to watch youtube videos everyday to learn what I know now and I’ve applied what I needed to best fit the kind of music I make. I feel like school teaches you how to do what everyone else is doing or a ‘right’ way, but In this world you have to be different.”
While college is still very popular and will be around for decades to come, many kids are choosing to go their own route for multiple different reasons. Social media has a huge influence on our youth nowadays and it definitely has in impact on the decision kids make about whether to go to college or not. Having a degree will always be useful, but don’t be surprised if enrollment numbers continue to drop as we see kids choosing a different path more and more often.
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