I'm Lydia Who and this is the Fox Business Rundown.

Monday, December 23rd, 2024.

I'm Lydia Who.

On this shortened week of trading on Wall Street,

we take a look at the state of higher education and ask,

is college getting easier to get into?

So this was a bubble that kept blowing and blowing and then it's coming to a burst.

And the families are now realizing or actually questioning the value of college education.

Students work hard and stress about getting into college. From grades to standardized

exams, letters of recommendations, and personal essays, the process can leave a student's stomach

tied up in knots. But new data suggests maybe they can relax a bit. For many schools,

acceptance rates are climbing, meaning it's getting easier, and colleges

and universities are competing with each other to recruit students. For some students, this means

they can leverage an acceptance into a discount in tuition.

It is correct that the median acceptance rates have risen. In fact, if you look at the nonprofit four-year colleges, almost 90% of them now admit half of their applicants.

Ibrahim Ferrat is the chief educational consultant at Ferrat Education.

Compared to 80% in 2012.

So you look at that number and you can say, okay, is college more accessible?

It is for those majority of the colleges. However, for hyper-competitive colleges or high to mid-tier

colleges that have 30% or fewer admit rates, those colleges are getting harder.

So we are seeing two extremes.

We're seeing on the lower competitive college side, numbers rising dramatically.

...