Today we’re talking about the economics of higher education in the United States.

Though the average cost of going to college nearly tripled from 1980 to 2021, the net cost of attending both public and private institutions has started to come down. Martin Kurzweil, vice president of educational transformation at the nonprofit Ithaka S+R, traces that back to a decline in enrollment.

“Demographers will tell us that the generations of young people coming through after the baby boom, the cohort sizes, have decreased over time, and higher education is looking at what’s come to be known as a demographic cliff,” Kurzweil said.

On the show today: Kurzweil explains how college became unaffordable for many Americans, why costs have started to come down, and how a shrinking population of typical college-age students will transform higher education in the U.S.

Then, we’ll get into the repercussions of the Great Recession on the retirement wealth of younger baby boomers. And, are credit rating firms underestimating the climate crisis?

Later, listeners share how they deal with news fatigue. Plus, one listener explains what she got wrong about getting a college degree.

Here’s everything we talked about today:

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