University Bubble Speculative Update


Posted On: Thursday - June 18th 2026 8:44AM MST
In Topics:   University  Economics



It's not a Peak Stupidity thing to present a big treatise with tables, numbers, and graphs on sociological phenomena. They can be helpful, but they're only as good as the polling methods (ugghhh!) and non-math-based theories are... i.e. not so helpful, IMO.

We have the graph above at least. I didn't spend much time searching, so I offer Peak Stupidity's sincerest apologies for the y-axis, which should start at 0 if not made by anyone pushing an agenda with his data* and those who use graphing programs lazily, accepting any axes provided by the software. Graphs like this have a good use, but, when axes are set to encompass the whole range of the dependent variable, they purposely make changes look drastic for the innumerate. Rant over. We have highly numerate readers here, I'm sure, but for the record, that's a 13% drop (16.2 - 14.1 million) in college enrollment over the decade ending 3 years ago.

BTW, that graph comes from an article in My Learning World with the title College Enrollment Decline Over Last Decade Could Lead to $2 Trillion Less Lifetime Income for Students Skipping Out. Thanks for the numbers, MyLearningWorld people, but your article is completely contradictory to my opinion here.

Other than that, the only number I'll mention is the 1,200 bedrooms in 2 new apartment buildings designed for yet more enrollment at the nearby university - see University Bubble Housing from a year ago. We operate often in the Edie Brickell I know what I know, if you know what I mean mode. What can't go on, won't go on.

In the case of the University Bubble, that means, parents and some (few?) wise kids will, and are starting to, realize that 4 years of tedious studying, indoctrination, and yes, lots of fun with friends of both sexes might not be worth a small mortgage sized debt at the end. For engineering, the hard sciences, and only possibly computer science, college may still be well worth it. It's not 1980 anymore, and any old major is no longer a ticket to what's left of any white-collar careers. Demographics are a factor too, as the number of 18 y/o Americans period is mildly declining. That's only part of why the U's keep importing foreigners, both as undergrad and mostly grad students. Well, they try - see 17 percent drop in new foreign students exposes universitiesโ€™ reliance on their tuition, expert says.


Glenn Reynolds, the famous Instapundit and U. of Tennessee Law Professor, has been in a good position to keep up with the University Bubble for many years. He's linked to a handful of examples of the deflation of the bubble recently - all I could find in my browser tabs just now was this one Syracuse University issues financial warning as admissions slump: Weโ€™re in the red. Other articles were on smaller colleges completely closing down.

Peak Stupidity does not shy away from blaming the large US Feral Gov't on a whole lot of ills. We've noted the moral hazard inherent in the guaranteeing, and worse, downright issuance, of big money to students by the generous taxpayers errr, the US Government. This has caused tuition to go sky high, because, why not, they can all "afford" it now, right?

Additionally, there have been sociological factors too. Everyone is supposed to be able to get through college, and it's been a 4 year inflation in credentialism. Then, that women must do the same and now are a significant majority of university students is part of it.

We'll concentrate on the economic moral hazard here. It has more effects than just on the finances of the poor graduates. Flush with money over at least this century, universities have gone on big building sprees that I'm amazed by - at least that's real - along with "building" up big departments and rosters of employees for the Woke indoctrination of all sorts. They will find it very difficult to ramp down from the latter.

I read these articles, and the plans for cutting costs do not include wiping out whole D.I.E. style departments or cutting half the administration. Those people will fight tooth and nail to stay at their highly remunerated, worthless, nay, counterproductive positions, even if the whole shebang has to slowly go under. As with cadet Mayo in An Officer and a Gentlemen, they "got nowhere else to go!" I don't foresee sane White men fairly implementing a cost-cutting program to get the U's weened off of that student loan gravy train.

I mentioned in The biggest possible University Bubble pin prick last year that State government higher education funding has dropped 40% over the period 1980 to 2011, a huge drop if that is, what I assume, in nominal dollars. Those State legislators back in the day had some say-so about whether there was going to be a 100 employee D.I.E. office. It was a different world.

To be consistent here, I should say that this situation of "the flow of the money" we have now should be a welcome change from the State funding, the worst example being the Federal Income tax, as we've bemoaned. Now, the students and parents are deciding how to spend "their" money. Is it theirs though? That's only the case if the Feds do hold the line and don't bribe voters with loan forgiveness.

If that were to be widely implemented, it would be yet one more way irresponsibility is rewarded in this country. Right now, parents and students don't have to sign on to this increasingly bad deal of 4 years of university "study" in return for a big debt. There are other options. Decide wisely, parents. The Fed Gov has caused the rot in higher Ed, but it's still up to you to participate or not.


* I make exceptions to this rule for additional close-up graphs and also for values/units that don't start at any meaningful 0, such as Temperature in F or C.


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[UPDATED: 6/18 afternoon] Added proper archived link to article on Syracuse U's woes and a link to the College Fix about dependency on foreign students tuition. Thanks yet again, Adam.
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Comments:
Adam Smith
Friday - June 19th 2026 10:40AM MST
PS: Good afternoon, y'all...

๐‘คโ„Ž๐‘’๐‘› ๐ผ ๐‘๐‘ข๐‘™๐‘™๐‘’๐‘‘ ๐‘กโ„Ž๐‘–๐‘  ๐‘œ๐‘›๐‘’ ๐‘ข๐‘ ๐‘Ž ๐‘“๐‘’๐‘ค ๐‘‘๐‘Ž๐‘ฆ๐‘  ๐‘Ž๐‘”๐‘œ, ๐ผ ๐‘ค๐‘Ž๐‘  ๐‘Ž๐‘๐‘™๐‘’ ๐‘ก๐‘œ ๐‘Ÿ๐‘’๐‘Ž๐‘‘ ๐‘–๐‘ก ๐‘ ๐‘œ๐‘š๐‘’โ„Ž๐‘œ๐‘ค...

I pulled up the syracuse.com link in a new (clean) browser and I too could read the article. (No paywall.) So, apparently, syracuse.com uses cookies (or something) to determine how many pages you have visited and activates the paywall after it lets you read a few articles for free. (Or something like that. I suppose they could base their count on ip address but I didn't get into their code or anything like that. Too lazy to bother because I just don't care that much about the info at syracuse.com, I guess.)


Thanks for the Lydia link, Alarmist.
I'll check it out later.

Happy Friday! โ˜ฎ๏ธ

Moderator
Friday - June 19th 2026 6:28AM MST
PS: Thanks for the heads-up, Alarmist. I'll watch it tonight probably.
The Alarmist
Friday - June 19th 2026 6:22AM MST
PS

O/T, but you might be intersted โ€ฆ Lydia Brimelow discusses SPLC

https://youtu.be/QcTV2NQiW7s

๐Ÿ•‰
Moderator
Thursday - June 18th 2026 12:13PM MST
PS: "Admissions ALWAYS go up. You can't lose!"

To the moon, Alice... indeed.
The Alarmist
Thursday - June 18th 2026 11:49AM MST
PS

I saw a slide from BlackRock today talking about the interest rate sensitivity of demand of various things in the US, and tuition was shown as rising in cost and considered to not be sensitive to interest rate rises.

Reminds me of housing in 2006โ€ฆ or people borrowing to buy Bitcoin.

To the Moon.

๐Ÿ•‰

Moderator
Thursday - June 18th 2026 11:16AM MST
PS: Yes, I saw the subscribe suggestions at the top, but when I pulled this one up a few days ago, I was able to read it somehow, if only for a while...

Thanks for this one. I'll stick it into the post in a minute.
Adam Smith
Thursday - June 18th 2026 10:53AM MST
PS: Good afternoon, Mr. Moderator!

๐‘Ÿ๐‘Ž๐‘ก๐‘ , ๐‘กโ„Ž๐‘’ ๐‘†๐‘ฆ๐‘Ÿ๐‘Ž๐‘๐‘ข๐‘ ๐‘’ ๐‘œ๐‘›๐‘’ ๐‘–๐‘  ๐‘๐‘™๐‘ข๐‘Ÿ๐‘Ÿ๐‘’๐‘‘ ๐‘œ๐‘ข๐‘ก ๐‘“๐‘œ๐‘Ÿ ๐‘›๐‘œ๐‘ค...

Yeah, that's because you have to ๐‘ ๐‘ข๐‘๐‘ ๐‘๐‘Ÿ๐‘–๐‘๐‘’ if you want to read that...

Just kidding...
https://archive.ph/gsnb7

So... I didn't really read this one yet. I just noticed your ** Message and figured I'd get you that link. I'll be back in a bit. After I read your post.

One quick thing... (From a couple posts back.)

๐‘Š๐ด๐‘† ๐‘กโ„Ž๐‘Ž๐‘ก ๐‘Ž๐‘™๐‘™ ๐‘“๐‘Ÿ๐‘œ๐‘š ๐‘กโ„Ž๐‘’ ๐ด๐ผ?

Yes. That was all AI. I didn't even have to do any weird prompt injection hacks or use any of my so-called cheatcodes to coax it into generating that response. (When it said harvest, this is because one of the themes of the discussion was parasitic statism. (Or something like that.)

Cheers! โ˜ฎ๏ธ

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