In recent years, young people have changed their academic preferences and factors such as the need to quickly enter the labor market, time flexibility, a higher cost of education and technological advancement have caused this transformation when choosing their professional training.
In the particular case of Colombia, “the least number of aspiring higher education seems to be a trend,” this is indicated in a recent article of the National University in which the reason why this phenomenon is gaining land among young people in the country is exposed.
The world is evolving and the perspectives of the young population, especially in the academic and workplace, do so at the same time.
In the case of virtual expansion, the National Higher Education Information System (SNIES) shows that, in just four years, enrollment in this modality doubled: They went from about 150,000 students in 2015 to 446,063 in 2022, promoted mostly by pandemic; This increase represents a jump from 8.2 to 18 % of the total registered.
Virtual education grew considerably after confinement and this was demonstrated in 2023, the year in which a 4 % increase in the number of university students were recorded online programs.
49.8 % of these offers correspond to undergraduate and 50.1 % to postgraduate, consolidating a new way of understanding higher formation.
In that scenario, shorter academic programs have appeared, whether new or result of existing adjustment. A factor that drives the growth of these short careers lies in the promise of a faster job insertion.
Professor Nubia Janeth Ruiz, Vice Chancellor for Research at UNAL, says that “When the current economic model destroys employment for young people, These begin to see that their own initiatives open for other forms of consumption. “
In their concept, they are no longer knowledge, science or discipline, but other creatives, which allow them, for example, go to a bank, have a fast loan, acquire a motorcycle or start a business.
And the lack of employment in formal fields has been a decisive factor when making academic decisions in the modern youth population. Employment opportunities do not demonstrate an encouraging scenario and this is precisely evidenced in the DANE report on the employment of young people in the country.
In the first quarter of 2024, the youth unemployment rate rose to 17.7 %, compared to 17.1 % of 2023.
However, it should be noted that the growing need is also reflected for universities, for example, to adapt their academic programs to today’s environments, mostly digital, that require specific knowledge for many of which academic pensum have not yet been reformed. Transforming academic programs, according to the reality of the world, the professional, that of the labor market and that of the young people themselves is a pending task.
For his part, Professor Mario Alberto Pérez, National Admissions Director of the UNAL, explains that the decrease of applicants is not an exclusive problem of that cloister, or Colombia, of Colombia, but It is a regional and global trend, accelerated since 2019.
“The decrease in the number of applicants evidences deep difficulties in young people, since the pandemic transformed the way of conceiving educational processes and gave way to the interest in virtuality,” adds Pérez.
Another radiography of the panorama is the 2022 investigation of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, in the United States, which surveyed more than 1,600 high school graduates in seven states of that country.
The study found that 38 % of students do not continue their studies due to high costs, 27 % feel that it is a process too stressful, 26 % expressed that their priority is to have a job and make money fast, And 25 % said they feel a very large uncertainty in the face of the future.
The panorama is complex, but reality requires transforming how we educate ourselves.
