I know about that trend. It obviously happens because people think college degrees are valuable, so if they're jobless but can get a degree, why not? I did that myself in 2000 when I graduated with my Comp Sci bachelors degree, looked around, decided the bubble was going to pop anytime now, and said, well, might as well go for the masters. (It did in my first semester.)
If word continues to get around that college degrees aren't generically valuable, and adding my personal assumption that many people either can not just become engineers, and/or will realize in advance they can't just become engineers, that trend will stop and reverse. I probably overestimate the abruptness, but it will happen. Increasing enrollment in college during downtimes isn't an immutable fact of the universe, it emerged from social conditions and beliefs, conditions and beliefs that are changing.
That's not so much proof that I'm wrong as the reason why I'm predicting this in the next year or two.
Ok fair enough, but it just as accurate as predicting the stock market then. Granted, now that we know we are in a prediction scenario, I'd be happy to take you up on a gentleman's bet that this won't happen in the next year or two.
If word continues to get around that college degrees aren't generically valuable, and adding my personal assumption that many people either can not just become engineers, and/or will realize in advance they can't just become engineers, that trend will stop and reverse. I probably overestimate the abruptness, but it will happen. Increasing enrollment in college during downtimes isn't an immutable fact of the universe, it emerged from social conditions and beliefs, conditions and beliefs that are changing.
That's not so much proof that I'm wrong as the reason why I'm predicting this in the next year or two.