We are already seeing it in the California State University system. Many of the universities have plummeting student enrollment. I suspect Sonoma State will be the first to be closed. More will follow them. Our local school districts have lost more than 40% of their students from the high water mark in the early 2000’s.
> A new estimate projects that 442 of the nation’s 1,700 private, nonprofit four-year colleges and universities, with a combined 670,000 students, are at risk of closing or having to merge within the next 10 years.
> Nearly a third of private, nonprofit colleges and universities nationwide posted deficits in 2024, according to research by Robert Kelchen, director of the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. More than a third of 44 comparatively small colleges in New England analyzed separately by education consultant Steven Shulman are running out of operating money, Shulman found.
The US simply has too much excess K-12 and college education capacity for too few students forwarding looking, with the caveat being there will be voracious demand for tradespeople, healthcare workers, and similar combined "physical and skill knowledge work" forward looking.
Based on a preponderance of the evidence, I don't believe this is a problem considering the issue of "elite overproduction." The US is arguably already producing too many college graduates, and those students are incurring substantial debt for unnecessary credentials. ~4 million students graduate from U.S. postsecondary/postgraduate programs each year, as of this comment, half of which don't require or otherwise cannot use those credentials for employment.
> A 2024 report by the Burning Glass Institute and Strada Institute for the Future of Work found that, a year after graduation, about half of US college grads were in jobs that “do not require a degree or make meaningful use of college-level skills.”
In a properly run society higher education would be very cheap and its utility would not be measured solely on whether or not degrees are directly used in employment.
For instance: developing citizens who demonstrate critical thinking, responsibility, organization, independence, collaboration, initiative and self-regulation.
Not all of these are easily measurable, but all contribute to a prosperous and free society.
I hope to exist in such a society one day, but that is not what we live in today, and it will take an unknown amount of time into the future for that to change. Until change occurs, the best we can do is provide educational resources that are free for consumption until we're willing to properly implement efficient, universal higher education delivery. Khan Academy, MIT OpenCourseware, Yale|Harvard open courses, etc. You won't get the credential, but you'll have the knowledge, if you want it, and mostly for free. "There's no speed limit." as a wise young man taught me once. Does the credential matter if there is robust evidence that it isn't necessary for the jobs folks are working? Or is having the knowledge sufficient as success criteria?
Tangentially, this is likely a call for more leisure time (4 day work week, broadly speaking), but that will take time for politics and structural demographic compression to achieve.
Ok, but then there's a nasty question: why do employers not choose to create high-value jobs doing high-value work? Wouldn't this indicate an economy with stagnant or declining productivity-per-hour?
It would, wouldn't it? Bullshit jobs are a component, but we can also look to China and India, and see that their youth unemployment is high and year over year, have large excess educated students coming out of their educational institutions. Is lack of will to invest in work for highly educated citizens the problem alone? I argue it's likely also a matter that there potentially isn't enough high value work for the overproduction that has occurred. What jobs would you create for the millions in some cases, tens of millions in other cases, college graduates who are not employed or are underemployed currently?
Record graduate influx lifts China’s youth jobless rate to 17.9% in July 2026 - https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3364538/r... - August 19th, 2026 ("China’s youth jobless rate climbed to 17.9 per cent in July, as a record wave of university graduates enters an already crowded labour market, prompting Beijing to step up employment support. The jobless rate for those aged 16 to 24, excluding students, rose 3 percentage points from 14.9 per cent in June – the last of three straight months of contraction – according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday. The rate last July was 17.8 per cent and it then climbed to 18.9 per cent the following month – the highest level since Beijing revised its methodology to exclude students in December 2023")
India's young are more educated than ever. So why are so many jobless? - https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c17841zez8wo | https://archive.today/sitRv - March 19th, 2026 ("Start with the headline number: 367 million young people between the ages of 15 and 29 - the largest youth population in the world, and making up a third of India's working-age population. Of them, 263 million are not in education and constitute the potential workforce.")
State of Working India 2026 - https://azimpremjiuniversity.edu.in/media/resources/SWI/SWI-... ("Nearly 40% of graduates aged 15-25 - and 20% of those aged 25-29 - are jobless, far higher than among the less educated, the report finds. Only a small share secure stable, salaried jobs within a year.")
We are already seeing it in the California State University system. Many of the universities have plummeting student enrollment. I suspect Sonoma State will be the first to be closed. More will follow them. Our local school districts have lost more than 40% of their students from the high water mark in the early 2000’s.
https://college-cuts.com/ is resource for tracking these closures across the US.
Pace of college closings picks up, with more projected - https://hechingerreport.org/pace-of-college-closings-picks-u... - August 3rd, 2026
More than a quarter of private colleges are at risk of closing, new projection shows - https://hechingerreport.org/more-than-a-quarter-of-private-c... - April 13th, 2026
> A new estimate projects that 442 of the nation’s 1,700 private, nonprofit four-year colleges and universities, with a combined 670,000 students, are at risk of closing or having to merge within the next 10 years.
> Nearly a third of private, nonprofit colleges and universities nationwide posted deficits in 2024, according to research by Robert Kelchen, director of the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. More than a third of 44 comparatively small colleges in New England analyzed separately by education consultant Steven Shulman are running out of operating money, Shulman found.
The US simply has too much excess K-12 and college education capacity for too few students forwarding looking, with the caveat being there will be voracious demand for tradespeople, healthcare workers, and similar combined "physical and skill knowledge work" forward looking.
HN Search: labor shortage - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
Good. These institutions are being recognized for the very little they actually are. Market repricing to near $0 in progress.
Based on a preponderance of the evidence, I don't believe this is a problem considering the issue of "elite overproduction." The US is arguably already producing too many college graduates, and those students are incurring substantial debt for unnecessary credentials. ~4 million students graduate from U.S. postsecondary/postgraduate programs each year, as of this comment, half of which don't require or otherwise cannot use those credentials for employment.
Talent Disrupted (2024) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49279800 - August 2026
> A 2024 report by the Burning Glass Institute and Strada Institute for the Future of Work found that, a year after graduation, about half of US college grads were in jobs that “do not require a degree or make meaningful use of college-level skills.”
Report: https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6777c52f82e5471a3732ea25/...
College Grads Struggle to Find Jobs. Non-Grads Are Giving Up - https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2026-08-12/colleg... | https://archive.today/ccseC - August 12th, 2026
The Elite Overproduction Hypothesis (2025) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48015504 - May 2026
Half of College Graduates Are Working High School Level Jobs - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39512160 - February 2024
In a properly run society higher education would be very cheap and its utility would not be measured solely on whether or not degrees are directly used in employment.
What would it be measured in?
That’s what the Medici asked Leonardo.
Perhaps education has an intrinsic value to society that does not need to be measured?
For instance: developing citizens who demonstrate critical thinking, responsibility, organization, independence, collaboration, initiative and self-regulation.
Not all of these are easily measurable, but all contribute to a prosperous and free society.
I hope to exist in such a society one day, but that is not what we live in today, and it will take an unknown amount of time into the future for that to change. Until change occurs, the best we can do is provide educational resources that are free for consumption until we're willing to properly implement efficient, universal higher education delivery. Khan Academy, MIT OpenCourseware, Yale|Harvard open courses, etc. You won't get the credential, but you'll have the knowledge, if you want it, and mostly for free. "There's no speed limit." as a wise young man taught me once. Does the credential matter if there is robust evidence that it isn't necessary for the jobs folks are working? Or is having the knowledge sufficient as success criteria?
Tangentially, this is likely a call for more leisure time (4 day work week, broadly speaking), but that will take time for politics and structural demographic compression to achieve.
There’s no speed limit (2009) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3761013 - March 2012 (194 comments)
https://www.openculture.com/freeonlinecourses/
https://ocw.mit.edu/
https://oyc.yale.edu/
https://pll.harvard.edu/catalog/free
Ok, but then there's a nasty question: why do employers not choose to create high-value jobs doing high-value work? Wouldn't this indicate an economy with stagnant or declining productivity-per-hour?
This is something like "how come there isn't more demand for unlicensed psychologists".
It would, wouldn't it? Bullshit jobs are a component, but we can also look to China and India, and see that their youth unemployment is high and year over year, have large excess educated students coming out of their educational institutions. Is lack of will to invest in work for highly educated citizens the problem alone? I argue it's likely also a matter that there potentially isn't enough high value work for the overproduction that has occurred. What jobs would you create for the millions in some cases, tens of millions in other cases, college graduates who are not employed or are underemployed currently?
Record graduate influx lifts China’s youth jobless rate to 17.9% in July 2026 - https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3364538/r... - August 19th, 2026 ("China’s youth jobless rate climbed to 17.9 per cent in July, as a record wave of university graduates enters an already crowded labour market, prompting Beijing to step up employment support. The jobless rate for those aged 16 to 24, excluding students, rose 3 percentage points from 14.9 per cent in June – the last of three straight months of contraction – according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday. The rate last July was 17.8 per cent and it then climbed to 18.9 per cent the following month – the highest level since Beijing revised its methodology to exclude students in December 2023")
India's young are more educated than ever. So why are so many jobless? - https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c17841zez8wo | https://archive.today/sitRv - March 19th, 2026 ("Start with the headline number: 367 million young people between the ages of 15 and 29 - the largest youth population in the world, and making up a third of India's working-age population. Of them, 263 million are not in education and constitute the potential workforce.")
State of Working India 2026 - https://azimpremjiuniversity.edu.in/media/resources/SWI/SWI-... ("Nearly 40% of graduates aged 15-25 - and 20% of those aged 25-29 - are jobless, far higher than among the less educated, the report finds. Only a small share secure stable, salaried jobs within a year.")
HN Search: bullshit jobs - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/college-admissions-dem...
Why go into debt when most knowledge worker's lifetime productivity will likely be replicable by a few dollars of compute. TFW out competed by sand.