The depression which has so seriously affected all businesses the world over is apparently having little effect on the enrollment of the University of Minnesota. The registration this year will be only about 3 percent less than that of one year ago. Registration in the graduate school, meanwhile, may rise to a new high for Minnesota.
It is difficult to ascribe a reason for this relatively small decline in enrollment at Minnesota while other colleges and universities show more serious declines. However, the tuition here is less than at smaller colleges and some other universities, while its curriculum is one that only a large and well-equipped university can offer. Further, students from the Twin Cities and its environs, faced with the necessity of getting along on curtailed budgets, are turning away from the eastern universities and completing their courses at home. Others who find themselves unemployed, yet with sufficient wherewithal to go to the school, choose that alternative rather than wait in hopes of some day finding that most elusive of things, a job.
The increased enrollment in the graduate school, though easily accounted for by the large number of unemployed, presents a serious problem. With the increasing number of highly educated people will come a gradual decrease in the market value of degrees, and the day may be approaching when men with Masters’ degrees will be doing manual labor.
If the students now enrolled in the graduate school are there only because they have nothing else to do is not proof of the utility of an education for increasing earning power. However, if the increased enrollment is due to a realization of the value of education in the stiffer competition of modern business, it is a healthy sign.