Up & Coming Weekly

February 01, 2022

Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.

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WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM FEBRUARY 2 - 8, 2022 UCW 5 OPINION Americans have traditionally valued education in general and higher education in particular. Harvard University was founded in 1636, more than a century before the United States managed to birth itself. As our newly formed nation was gelling, North Carolina legislators chartered our country's first public university, what is now known as the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It is worth a mention here that an educa- tion-hungry young man named Hin- ton James walked close to 150 miles — you read that correctly — from his home in Wilmington to Chapel Hill to enroll as UNC's first student. He was UNC's only student for about two weeks until some others turned up, for an initial 1798 graduating glass of six. A 20th-century dormitory in Chapel Hill is named in James' honor. Since young Hinton took his long walk, millions of American families have sacrificed and saved, borrowed and sought financial aid to make higher education possible for those they love. Over the centuries, more and more of us have achieved that goal. Higher education has made us professionals of all stripes, led to successful careers in many fields and enriched countless lives the way only an understanding of the world around us can. Here comes the challenging news. e National Student Clearinghouse Research Center reports that about one million fewer undergraduate students enrolled in higher education institutions in 2021 than in 2019. e declines are seen at both the under- graduate and graduate levels, at public and private institutions, at four-year institutions, most dramatically at community colleges and for-profit institutions. e declines are more pronounced among minority students as well. While a million fewer students over two years is an eye-popping statistic, the trend is not new. College enrollment has been declin- ing for at least a decade, in part be- cause our nation's low birthrate means fewer 18-year-olds to enroll at all and because the cost of college continues to spiral. e COVID-19 pandemic, still besetting us in 2022, has merely accelerated the trend. "e reality is that the pandemic has disrupted the education of the next generation of young professionals, and that's going to have immense consequences on the career options, their livelihoods," said Doug Shapiro, executive director, Student Clearinghouse. Shapiro is correct, of course, be- cause educational attainment cor- relates with lifetime earnings. At the same time, declining higher educa- tion enrollment scares the socks off employers looking at fewer skilled workers in their immediate future. COVID-19 and high costs are ap- parent factors in the decline, but other factors may be at work as well.In 2013 70% of adult Americans told Gal- lup pollsters they believed a college education was "very important." In pre-Covid 2019, only 51% thought so. Both students and parents are debating the value of higher educa- tion compared to its price tags, but is there something more? Something more nebulous and more difficult to pin down? It is clear many Americans have thrown traditional scholarship and learning to the winds for reasons the rest of us will never know, much less understand. How else do we account for Covid- deniers, anti-vaxxers, conspiracy theo- rists of all sorts—people who persist in their beliefs and behaviors despite scholarship and scientific evidence to the contrary? How else do we perceive a seemingly growing anti-intellectu- alism in our nation? I saw a woman on television tell a reporter that she simply did not care about the facts. "I just believe what I believe," came out of her mouth before an international audience. We need a visit from Hinton James to help us remember why education is important to us as individuals and as a nation. MARGARET DICKSON, Columnist. COMMENTS? Editor@ upandcomingweekly.com. 910-484-6200. Shaping our lives by MARGARET DICKSON Photo courtesy of Pexels Wunderkinds SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 7:30PM HOLY TRINITY EPISCOPAL CHURCH TICKETS AVAILABLE AT FAYETTEVILLESYMPHONY.ORG OR CALL 910-433-4690 Featuring the Harlan Duenow Young Artist Concerto Competition winner, Gavin Hardy! FREE HEALTH CARE • for Eligible uninsured Adults call 910.485.0555 Inspiring, educating, empowering and celebrating women in our community

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