If you listen carefully wandering by any college administration building, you can hear the slow panic building about declining enrollment, largely for demographic reasons, but maybe because more Americans are starting to reject the self-serving cliche that everyone must go to college.

The Wall Street Journal/NORC survey noticed here last week released a second round of data showing that the public is growing increasingly skeptical about the value of higher education. Gee—I wonder why?

Chaser: Even The New Republic is skeptical about college for everyone.

P.S. “Students Avoiding Community Colleges.”

Consumers are abandoning [community colleges] in droves. The number of students at community colleges has fallen 37% since 2010, or by nearly 2.6 million, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.

“The reckoning is here,” said Davis Jenkins, senior research scholar at the Community College Research Center at Teachers College, Columbia University.