Since my field of interest and expertise, such as it is, involves the world of higher education, I've been thinking a lot about the past of and future for those young people who are currently on or aspiring toward campuses across America. So, to start 2016 here on Admit This!, I'd like to offer three predictions for the coming year. Unfortunately (or fortunately) we'll have to wait until January 2017 to see how prescient I am. Thus …

My 2016 Predictions

1. The Ivy/elite admissions frenzy will continue unabated … unless …

I believe that the only hope for a thinning of the masses who furiously seek to get into these august institutions is, oddly, in the hands of the U.S. stock market. If the opening few days of this year are any indication, it's going to be a hairy year for investors. Analysts have warned for years that the market is sitting precariously on a huge bubble, with stock values highly inflated. The world economies are on shaky ground, especially that of huge American debt holder, China. This house of cards is acutely subject to the winds of multiple forces. Oil prices have gone through the floor, the Middle East is poised on all-out war, American interest rates have once again started to rise, it's a presidential election year in America, etc., etc.

There are big dominoes involved here. The Ivy League and other so-called “elite" colleges and universities have huge multi-billion-dollar endowments, which drive many of their operational activities, such as (primarily) financial aid and physical plant maintenance, modernization, and expansion. If the market heads south in a significantly extended correction, as numerous experts have predicted, the trickle-down effect on colleges will be immediate and substantial. As financial reserves diminish, so will certain financial aid policies, such as those that claim to meet 100% of families' demonstrated financial need.

This, in turn, will put increased pressure on students who come from economically disadvantaged families. Schools who now offer an almost cost-free education to students from families whose incomes fall below certain benchmarks will have to shift their aid packages more toward loans and away from outright grants. This would sharply exacerbate the already staggering national student loan debt crisis and shift a large block of applicants to more affordable options, such as state-system schools and community colleges. The fragility of that house of cards would be exposed in bold relief.

However … as Joubert, the skilled professional killer in the film Thee Days of The Condor said regarding those who hire him, “There's always someone willing to pay." How true. Unfortunately, a sharp investment downturn would deal a blow to the elites' policy of overall diversity, limiting the number of students who could not afford the tremendously high costs of top-shelf education. Thus, the old adage, “What goes around comes around" would kick in. What “went around" in elite higher education were those F. Scott Fitzgerald days, where elite schools were primarily — almost exclusively — for the well to do of society, which took the “good" out of the good old days.

Let's hope that doesn't happen. If it doesn't, then, as a codicil to my prediction I'll speculate that overall acceptance rates of the “top" Ivies, Stanford, MIT, and the University of Chicago, among a few others perhaps, will burrow further into the single digits. That raises the question of when rates will approach three percent, or even lower. As I said, the frenzy will continue unabated … unless …

2. Political correctness on campus will reach the breaking point.

Eventually, enough will become enough. I predict that at some point this coming year, someone or some self-appointed group, will cross the line and challenge their college administrators in such a ludicrous manner that they will inject the entire realm of politically correct protests with a suicide serum.

Administrators across America have become paranoid about “offending" even the smallest segment of their student bodies. To wit:

– Hating pumpkin-spice lattes was declared sexist.