Lance has posted about his, and around 160 others, being laid off from IIT here.
Hence I looked into what is happening at IIT to see if there is a lesson for us all.
I) I wondered why IIT had declining enrollment. I wondered which of the two reasons below was the issue (and of course there are other reasons).
--The enrollment cliff. (See here)
--International students have declined in number. Why? (1) Having getting student visas, (2) They think they are not welcome here (3) Schools in their home country getting better. Note that I am just guessing.
Rather than speculate I asked ChatGPT for the data on both enrollment and on international enrollment from 2015 to 2025. Here is the data: here.
a) 2015 had an enrollment of 7792. It went down in 2020 (COVID?) but then came up again and it was 8838 in 2024. In all the years for which there is data international students were about half of the students.
b) 2024: 8838 students, of which 4596-International (52%), 4242-Americans
2025: 7502 students, of which 2141-International (42%), 5361-Americans
So it looks like the enrollment cliff was not a problem since more Americans came, but the decline in international students is a problem.
I think that international students pay more, so their decline creates more of a financial pinch.
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II) I wondered if other schools had massive layoffs so I asked Google AI what other schools had laid off more than 30 professors in the last two years. It had an issue with that since schools combine faculty and staff. Even so, the main fact is that (a) it is happening at other schools, and (b) 160 is more than usual.
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III) Challenges facing Universities
a) The enrollment cliff. This will be a real problem for small schools. For big schools it may be an opportunity to have smaller classes. This issue cannot be stopped.
b) Less international students means less money. This may change since this or a later administration may change the rules. However, changing the rules might not help much since other countries have fine schools and international students may feel they are not welcome here.
c) Grants are drying up. Again, this may change.
d) AI and cheating. This may make us rethink the entire point of education.
e) Does college exist to create an educated public who can make decisions and vote intelligently, or are colleges vocational? It's getting harder to do both.
f) Fads: The hot topics in CS now are Quantum, ML, and Quantum ML. What will they be in 10 years?How do we adjust? Do other fields have this problem? ML (or more broadly AI) is hot in that students want to take it because it both sounds interesting and sounds employable. Quantum is hot for grant money and some students think its going to be cool. (In this context `Hot' and `Cool' are not opposites.)
g) Tuition keeps going up. The business model may be broken.
h) A while back online education seemed like it might be an alternative for some students (MOOCS were hot). That hasn't happened yet but it might.
i) This is a far bigger subject than the points above. Maybe Lance can write a book on the topic now that he has some free time.
Yes, you do have younger readers. Yes, we know what canaries were used for in mines. In regards, In regards to section I, bullet point two, 3) yes universities not in America are getting better. Some have the contrary problem, for example, EPFL (Lausanne, Switzerland), where I will be starting a bachelor in Mathematics in September, had to limit its first year bachelor and CMS (a preparatory year) to 3000 students a few years ago to sustain its growth.
ReplyDeleteMore generally, if you want point of comparison, you should take a look into the Swiss educational system. The apprenticeship programs, almost free university, you can enter every university program with your high school diploma without selection (they don’t take into account your notes and the options you took. For example: someone who barely passed high school and specialised itself into art could start without problem a math degree).
And they have super severe punishments for cheaters, which deters students! Or at least that used to be the case 15 years ago, I don't know the current rules.
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