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I recall that the last "rush to quality" was triggered by a poor job market in the mid 90s. New grads were having difficulty finding jobs, and elite applications surged as students looked for anything that might give them an edge as a new grad. In 1996, admissions officers were bemoaning the fact that they had to turn down students that a few years before would have been certain admits. As we know now, of course, the jump in elite apps wasn't a flash in the pan. The surge continued even through the boom times of turn of the millennium, though it did abate somewhat, with a few of the Ivies seeing year-to-year declines once or twice.

Now that we are in a weak job market again, will more students seek a "brand name" education? Or will the bad economy force them to look at low-cost, in-state colleges?

By Roger (Roger) on Sunday, January 27, 2002 - 09:50 am: Edit

Interesting theory... I don't know if the job market alone will drive this, but it could certainly help keep applications high despite tighter family budgets and greater financial uncertainty.

I think the big impact would come if one or more of the top schools dramatically cut, or even elimated, tuition. Can you imagine Harvard getting 100K applicants? I think the school that did that would get a ton of publicity and a great number of "hey, why not?" applicants. Even if the deal were limited to domestic students with family income below, say, $200K, the impact would be dramatic. It would no doubt have to be one of the top few schools, though - another college doing it might look desperate, plus, few have the endowments to pull something like this off.