Pratica di Shadowing: America is running out of teenagers. Universities are worried | BBC Global - Impara a parlare inglese con YouTube

The US is about to have far fewer teenagers.

⏸ In Pausa

Velocità:

178 frasi

Se le frasi sono troppo corte o troppo lunghe, clicca su Edit per modificarle.

The US is about to have far fewer teenagers.

And for universities in particular,

that's a really big problem.

Colleges, of course, rely on a steady flow of young people coming onto their campuses.

But right around the 2008 financial crisis,

Americans just started having fewer kids.

Now, nearly 18 years later,

there are fewer teenagers than there usually are.

And that's before you even ask them whether they think college is really still worth it.

This isn't just a one-time dip.

For the foreseeable future, year after year,

America is going to have fewer students than the year before.

By 2040, there'll be at least half a million fewer 18-year-olds than there are today.

And that shift won't just reshape campuses,

it could reshape the entire country.

Some of us can think,

well, this doesn't apply to me,

I'm not, you know, in education.

But I think it will apply to all of us.

We're anticipating somewhat fewer students entering into those college pools.

But then four or six years later,

we have fewer young people coming on the job market.

We have fewer young professionals available to support people in old age and so on.

So even if you're OK with the new normal when we get there,

the transition can be hard.

So colleges are looking at your numbers and they see the decline.

When does the real crunch hit them?

When do they have to address this?

I would say sort of yesterday.

The problem, it's not going to happen all at once.

I think the problem is not so much that there's this instantaneous drop.

It's that it's just one year after another with the tightening of the belt.

And so if you experience that and you don't make fundamental changes,

instead you just try to belt tighten on the budget,

we'll cut this program, we'll lay that person off.

That's not a very strategic way to get through this.

And doing that one year might be fine.

Doing it three years in a row might be okay doing it 18,

20 years in a row is not going to leave the

institution in a position of strength where they're actually meeting their student needs.

American colleges presumably are looking at this drop-off in their potential client base and thinking what?

How are they thinking they might plan for this?

I think unfortunately the number one answer is we're going to recruit harder

and I say unfortunately not because we shouldn't think hard about expanding access and recruiting more students.

We should for a large number of reasons.

But it's just that the numbers don't add up if that's our only response.

So the numbers of babies born since 2007 have declined by over 15%.

And so if we imagine overcoming that just by recruiting harder,

we would have to attract a ridiculously large fraction of high school graduates into higher ed.

And that just doesn't seem like it's going to happen over the next 15 years.

Another response we're seeing is that institutions are focusing on student success and retention.

We can maintain enrollments with the same number of students entering the front door

if we just have fewer students leaving the back door.

And to me, that's the most promising outcome,

that if we can do better by our students,

we're better fulfilling our missions,

we've got fewer students who are dropping out and yet being saddled with debt,

we have more students who are succeeding.

Yes, there's a financial incentive for colleges and universities to do that,

but it's also obviously a great thing for our students and for society.

So I'm assuming, okay, so all of these universities are out there and they're all competing for a smaller number of students.

I'm assuming that the colleges that are at the top level,

they're still going to be okay they can still get the kind of cream of the crop.

People are still going to want to go there.

Is it then that it's a cascading effect?

So you get more elite universities doing okay in terms of applications,

but as you go down the scale,

the more affordable and perhaps less prestigious universities and community colleges are the ones where we start to get a drop off.

Is that right?

Is that how it would work?

Yeah, I think you're absolutely right to be concerned about that.

I think for two reasons,

the more selective institutions will do fine.

First, they're only accepting one in five or one in 10 or one in 20 of their applicants currently.

So if we have fewer applicants in the pool,

they can just go deeper into their pool.

So the more elite institutions don't have a whole lot to fear directly from this.

I would say, though, that with that cascading effect you're talking about,

it's going to create a lot of hunger and some desperate moves by institutions further down the food chain.

And as they discount tuition more aggressively,

you will see greater pressure,

even on the selective institutions,

as they talk with parents whose students have applied to multiple colleges.

And they say, why should we pay

so much money to go to your school when we're getting a really great financial aid offer from this other school?

Okay, I think that is actually a very good discussion to be having.

I've had four children go through the American higher education system.

I have a daughter who's in college at the moment and it's costing me,

I mean, just like an eye popping amount of money to send her to a private university.

Anything in my mind that would put pressure on universities to bring down the costs,

actually, I mean, paradoxically, the numbers that you're talking about in the kind of supply and demand of basic economics,

if the demand is lower,

does the supply have to get cheaper?

I mean, are we looking at peak university cost in the state?

Maybe that's not a bad thing.

There are some positives.

So again, I don't think we're going to see as much of this at the truly top most prestigious institutions.

But for other institutions, we are going to see families have an easier conversation.

I think the word of caution is that the quality education

100

that the American system has provided really does cost a lot of money.

101

And so when we see this more aggressive discounting,

102

and the college board suggests that we're already seeing declining net fee income for about a decade now,

103

what that looks like on the campus is that there are fewer resources to support that high quality product.

104

And so I think parents have to be a little bit concerned that you might be getting a low sticker price,

105

you might be paying a small amount,

106

but when your students don't get the same level of support because colleges are lowering the price but cutting the support,

107

you might not be getting the education you thought you were hoping to get.

108

I mean, beyond reducing the number of universities,

109

because potentially, I assume if there are fewer people going to universities,

110

some of those universities will just fail and we'll have fewer universities.

111

Does this shrinking population also mean that universities might change their offerings?

112

Would we have more of a focus on trade schools or vocational degrees,

113

for example, or is that a separate question from the sheer numbers of people being born?

114

No, I think it's very much the same question,

115

because I think when we think about recruiting harder,

116

for instance, we should try to attract more students.

117

It's very hard to do that without thinking,

118

but what are the programs that we're offering?

119

How do we make these programs the kinds of programs that students want and that future employers need?

120

Similarly, if we say we want to improve retention.

121

There are a number of factors that we know go into retention,

122

but one of them is students seeing a connection between what they're learning in their class

123

and the life that they're pursuing after college.

124

And this doesn't suggest, I'm at a liberal arts college,

125

so I'm never going to suggest that we need everybody to be in a pre-professional program,

126

but we do need to increasingly think about how we need

127

to adapt what we're doing in the classroom to make it easier for students to imagine those futures

128

and to take those next steps.

129

As a professor, can I just ask you personally living in this moment.

130

I mean, there are clearly enormous amounts of kind of turbulent,

131

an enormous amount of turbulent change that is happening in our society and in our education system at the moment.

132

But you're a professor teaching in a liberal arts college,

133

not just dealing down the track with fewer people being born and therefore fewer students,

134

and therefore potentially less demand for the services that you have to offer and your college has to offer,

135

but also a rapidly changing technology that we don't fully understand the impacts of in terms of jobs and education.

136

How are you in your kind of daily life confronting all of these changes?

137

Is it stressful?

138

Is it exciting?

139

Is it bewildering not quite knowing what's coming around the corner.

140

I'm not, you know, I'm your therapist.

141

I'm cheaper than a therapist.

142

Go ahead.

143

It's all of the above, right?

144

I mean, there are some real exciting things when we think about AI

145

and how can we think about teaching students to use this tool effectively?

146

What are its limitations?

147

What are its strengths?

148

But it is obviously just a constant load of work that comes with change and change and more change.

149

So I think it's a more turbulent time than when I started my career 25 or 30 years ago.

150

There were some things that were really great about that stability,

151

but I think there are some really great things about change as well.

152

It focuses you to really think hard about what is our primary mission and how can I live that out every day?

153

How can I connect with every student

154

that comes into my office with every conversation

155

that I have in a way that while not necessarily comfortable might lead us to be better versions of ourselves.

156

And so So I try to remind myself that we can,

157

to some degree, choose how we will adapt to these kinds of stresses.

158

Presumably we don't want to break,

159

but we can also choose instead of choosing that fragile pathway,

160

we can choose instead to be a system that gets stronger under stress.

161

I imagine your advice is in demand.

162

So what is your advice?

163

What's the advice that you give to college administrators,

164

to colleges as businesses, ensure the survival of the university education model in the States?

165

Yes, I think the bottom line is to focus on your mission.

166

And that has several parts to it.

167

There are all sorts of changes that we can make that don't align with who we are.

168

Those changes and tactics that don't align with our bigger identity usually are not successful.

169

So the first step is to figure out what is our mission and have just great clarity on that.

170

And the second reason is because I think what higher ed offers students does have great value.

171

But we have to deliver that.

172

And when we've cut corners or we haven't fulfilled the mission is where we have students walking away and saying,

173

this isn't worth it to me.

174

So our best strategy is to think very clearly about what is our mission,

175

what are we trying to do for these students,

176

and then how can I deliver on that more and more effectively every day.

177

Professor Graw, thank you very much.

178

Thank you.

TRENDING

Popolari

Cos'è la tecnica dello Shadowing?

Shadowing è una tecnica di apprendimento delle lingue supportata da studi scientifici, originariamente sviluppata per la formazione dei traduttori professionisti e resa popolare dal poliglotta Dr. Alexander Arguelles. Il metodo è semplice ma potente: ascolti un audio in inglese di madrelingua e lo ripeti immediatamente ad alta voce — come un'ombra che segue il parlante con un ritardo di solo 1–2 secondi. A differenza dell'ascolto passivo o degli esercizi di grammatica, lo shadowing costringe il tuo cervello e i muscoli della bocca a elaborare e riprodurre simultaneamente i modelli di discorso reale. La ricerca dimostra che migliora significativamente la precisione della pronuncia, l'intonazione, il ritmo, il discorso connesso, la comprensione dell'ascolto e la fluidità del parlato — rendendolo uno dei metodi più efficaci per la preparazione alla prova di speaking dell'IELTS e per la comunicazione reale in inglese.

☕ Offrici un caffè

ShadowingEnglish rimane gratuito al 100% grazie al tuo supporto. I costi del server e IA sono elevati — il tuo caffè ci aiuta ad andare avanti! 🙏

Dona via PayPal

ShadowingEnglish.com – Pratica di Shadowing in Inglese

Parla inglese fluentemente usando la tecnica dello Shadowing. Ascolta video di YouTube con madrelingua, ripeti frase per frase e costruisci una pronuncia e fluidità reale — usata da studenti IELTS in tutto il mondo.

Pratica di Shadowing: America is running out of teenagers. Universities are worried | BBC Global - Impara a parlare inglese con YouTube

Popolari

Perché esercitarsi a parlare con questo video?

Grammatica ed Espressioni nel Contesto

Trappole Comuni nella Pronuncia

Cos'è la tecnica dello Shadowing?

Pratica di Shadowing: America is running out of teenagers. Universities are worried | BBC Global - Impara a parlare inglese con YouTube

Scarica l'app

Perché esercitarsi a parlare con questo video?

Grammatica ed Espressioni nel Contesto

Trappole Comuni nella Pronuncia

Cos'è la tecnica dello Shadowing?