None of the myriad data points in “The Condition of Education 2018,” a congressionally mandated annual report from the U.S. Department of Education released on Wednesday, should come as a great surprise to close observers of the sector. Still, the report, which covers the education life cycle from child-care expenses to employment outcomes, provides a useful reminder of the many ways in which the higher-education landscape differs from popular perceptions of it. A few examples:
Most Colleges Accept a Majority of Their Applicants
Agonizing over single-digit college-acceptance rates is a national obsession, obscuring the reality that most four-year colleges aren’t selective. Just 14 percent of them accepted less than half of their applicants in 2016-17, according to the report. Around 27 percent were open access, another 27 percent accepted at least three-quarters of applicants, and 32 percent took between half and three-quarters of them.
Students Cluster in a Handful of Majors
Colleges may provide students with dozens of majors to choose from, but undergraduates are concentrated in a small slice of those options. Over half of bachelor’s degrees awarded in 2015-16 were in one of six fields of study, the report says: business, health professions and related programs, social sciences and history, psychology, biological and biomedical sciences, and engineering.
Graduate students are clustered in an even narrower selection of fields. More than half of master’s degrees awarded were in business, education, and health professions and related programs. At the doctoral level, almost two-thirds of degrees were awarded in two fields, health professions and related programs, and legal professions and studies.
Enrollment and Attainment Have Risen, but Only So Much
“College for All” is a rallying cry that remains far from a reality. The overall college-enrollment rate for young adults — the share of 18- to 24-year-olds enrolled as undergraduate or graduate students in two- or four-year colleges — grew from 35 percent in 2000 to 41 percent in 2016. Most of that age group, in other words, is not attending college.
And, of course, not everyone who does enroll graduates. Degree attainment for an older band of young adults, those age 25 to 29, “increased at all levels between 2000 and 2017,” the report says. Still, less than half of this group holds an associate degree or higher. In that time period, the share of young adults with at least an associate degree grew to 46 percent from 38 percent, the share with at least a bachelor’s grew to 36 percent from 29 percent, and the share with at least a master’s grew to 9 percent from 5 percent.
Beckie Supiano writes about teaching, learning, and the human interactions that shape them. Follow her on Twitter @becksup, or drop her a line at beckie.supiano@chronicle.com.