Fall of Education

Financial stress has a way of forcing us to change behavior and, well, this is a doozy: 61% of college students will forgo school this year according to our random poll of 417 incoming freshman and sophomores and more than a third of those “taking a break” report plans to try and ‘start up digital businesses’, namely apps, many partnering with fellow classmates and old friends. “I was basically told by my parents that the $45,000 a year for a few virtual classes wasn’t in the cards, which I get – so me and my friends created this app to help parents find home-school teachers this year,” says Wiley Platt, 19, who was due to be a freshman at Illinois. Educators are worried that the break will mean lower enrollment in future or a change in what college becomes. “There’s something about the social experience, the gathering, the teamwork, learning how to think and be on your own that is inevitably lost,” says Norma Saunders, an English adjunct in the New Jersey public university school system.

Read full report on our Mood Monitor.