You wanted to commoditize higher ed and demand people have degrees just to essentially survive, yet you've defunded higher ed. This is exactly how a market functions. Consumers no longer have the time nor money to waste on degrees which are poor returns on investments, either because they came from a college no one had ever heard of, or because the skillset that the degree endowed is not in-demand. Really this is just the market reacting so I don't feel like its a huge surprise. (I guess the article kind of expressed this sentiment already, but I feel its worth reiterating).