The Rust Belt refers to an industrial zone near the Great Lakes in the northeast that was once the center of the golden age of U.S. manufacturing, but has now collapsed with industrial decline. It comes from the appearance of abandoned factories rusting.
However, analysts say that the new Rust Belt has recently emerged. The main characters are universities that have been supporting the local economy. The decline in the number of students enrolled has resulted in a series of closing schools, and as a result, the surrounding commercial districts have collapsed, forming another Rust Belt. The campus of Western Illinois University in Mercom, a rural Illinois city, clearly shows this change. According to the Wall Street Journal, the dorm where about 800 students used to live in the past has now turned into a police training center. Instead of books, rubber bullets and paintball shells are scattered, and furniture is left upside down.
Other nearby dormitories have been torn down and turned into weeds, and two more will be closed this summer. “It feels like I’m seeing a town slowly dying.” Kalib McGruder, a Mercom native and a 28-year-old campus police officer at Western Illinois University, told the WSJ.
In the 1960s and 1970s, when American baby boomers were flocking to college, Western Illinois University was in its prime. In 1973, the number of enrolled students reached 15,469. However, since 2010, the number has halved. The number of enrolled students decreased from 10,377 in 2010 to 5,511 last year, and the number of faculty members decreased by 38% during the same period. When universities shook, the cities that grew on them also declined. During the same period, the population of Mercom decreased by 23% to 14,765. This is not just a problem for Mercom. According to Hetching Streetport, an educational media outlet, about 300 universities closed across the U.S. between 2008 and 2023. According to the Brookings Institution, three-quarters of cities that are highly dependent on universities saw economic growth below the U.S. average between 2011 and 2023. Just a decade ago, these areas grew faster than the U.S. average. The root cause of the change is the widening gap between universities. In the U.S., more and more students are giving up college after graduating from high school. This is because, in addition to the high tuition fees, the opportunity cost of the working period lost by study is not worth it to go to a less competitive university.
On the other hand, the trend toward prestigious universities, which can be expected to earn high salaries, is getting worse. “More of the students who choose to go to college are aiming for prestigious universities,” said Richard Vedder, an economics professor at Ohio State University. “I believe such a diploma will guarantee better jobs.”
He described it as “flight to quality.” “Flight to quality” originally refers to the phenomenon of avoiding risky assets in the financial market and moving funds to safe assets. It can be interpreted as referring to the trend of students flocking to better universities in entrance examinations.
The following statistics illustrate this: The WSJ’s analysis of 748 four-year public universities in 50 states showed that last year’s enrollment in prestigious state universities increased by an average of 9% compared to 2015, while other state universities fell by 2%.
Tennessee, for example, saw a 30% increase in enrollment during the Tennessean period, but the total enrollment at the remaining 10 state universities decreased by 3%. The University of Wisconsin saw a 16% increase, while enrollment at other campuses saw a 9% decrease. The University of Illinois, which is close to the Mercom area, also saw a 36% increase in enrollment compared to 2010.
In addition to the Donald Trump administration’s cut in federal funds and the possibility of canceling student visas, financial pressure on universities that rely heavily on foreign students is increasing. The U.S. State Department resumed interviews with student visas in mid-June, which had been suspended for nearly a month, but reservations have decreased significantly and screening has become more difficult. The International Education Association (NAFSA) predicts that the number of new international students enrolled in the U.S. will fall by about 30 percent this fall.
The bigger crisis is demographic change. The number of U.S. births has been decreasing since peaking at 4.3 million in 2007. From next spring, the number of high school graduates itself is expected to decrease.
It is not a far cry for us, either. Korea is also facing the same challenges: a low birth rate and a decreasing school-age population. The change in the United States may be a warning sound that will tell us the reality that is coming soon.
SAM KIM
US ASIA JOURNAL
