Cam's experience as well as Eddie's daughter are illustrative of many of the points I made.
In Cam's case, he was able to get a 4 year degree by living home with parents and getting a state supported education in the quasi socialist Great White North. So pretty much debt free at the moment. Still, that education didn't offer much in the way of good job opportunities, so he elected to continue education, moving over to the trades, specifically Welding. When he graduates that program fully trained, what kind of salary can he expect?
Here in the FSoA, the median salary for Welders is $41K. Range between $35K & $60K for the most part. This translates to around $20/hr, and straight out of HS now Amazon will pay $17hr. Assuming he can find a good welding job after graduation, it will still take a few years to be at the higher end of the pay scale. Even that salary though is barely middle class and won't buy you a McMansion. He'll be 25-30 before he could even consider marriage on the economic level, and that's only if his wife also works, making a similar amount. And that is a best case scenario for the graduate with no debt.
For Eddie's daughter, she has been a perpetual student for a decade already, now planning to go to Med Skule. That's another 4 years, and a year of Internship and another of Residency after that. She has lived at home for most of these years also. Add it all up, she's easily 35 before she's out working as a Doc, and only low on debt because of 15 years worth of free rent and food from Eddie.
These examples although illustrative are just anecdotal. The real problem is in the statistics the OP article detailed. Enrollments ARE dropping, and quite rapidly. This means fewer small colleges can employ fewer teachers, and they end up going outta biz. That means fewer spots available for recent HS grads who might want to get on this merry-go-round. There is no guaranteed payoff for doing so either, the only guarantee here is unless you have good parental support financially along the way, you'll have a huge debt load to pay off that is not dischargeable in bankruptcy.
Meanwhile, if you can live at home and eat for free on your parents dime after HS, you could earn $140K in 4 years flipping burgers at Mickey D's You'll need some money to buy your gas and pay your cell phone bill of course, unless parents also hand over some money for that also. So why leave the nest?
You wonder why reproductive rates are falling? The best years for females to put one in the oven are between 20-30. They're still not finished with Skule yet! Only the dumb ones who don't use some contraception get preggers right out of HS or even in Junior High. Then if they can get the dick who knocked them up to marry, he also is in deep
**** trying to support both the wife and kid. These folks don't generally make the best parents. The single moms at least get state support though. That's the dynamic in the black community, in a nutshell.
I expect continuing decrease in young people going on for further education, and a continuing and increasing worker bee shortage as time moves on here.
RE