I worked in Big Tech for years and now help others get jobs. Don't follow these 4 career advice clichés.

Alan Stein worked at major companies, including Google, before starting Kadima Careers, a career accelerator.

Alan Stein

• 51-year-old Alan Stein worked in the corporate world for 25 years at companies including Google and Meta.
• Now, as the CEO of Kadima Careers, he advises against following certain career advice clichés.
• He suggests focusing on referrals rather than creating multiple résumés and posting on LinkedIn.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Alan Stein, CEO of career-accelerating service Kadima Careers. The story has been edited for length and clarity.

After 25 years of working in the corporate world, including at companies like Google, Meta, Salesforce, and American Express, I now help people get jobs at the world's best companies.

My company, Kadima Careers, is a career accelerator. We work for candidates and we help them get better jobs quickly, competently, and with lots more money. We've helped hundreds of people get jobs and negotiate offers.

Last time I checked, there were thousands of career experts on LinkedIn, sometimes, without any verification or certification.

These are some of the pieces of advice that I think you should avoid.

Posting often on LinkedIn

Don't expect that your posting or commenting is going to get you a job. You have to hope that your posts get seen by the right people. It's not easy to do that.

You should definitely keep LinkedIn up to date and make sure you are marketing yourself effectively on there because you will get people to come to your profile. But the way you'll do that is not by posting content but by proactively reaching out to people or people tangential to the people that you want to speak to.

Then, before they meet you, they'll look at your profile and understand that you're a program manager with 12 years of experience or you're a sales executive working at some of the best SaaS companies in the world.

You're wasting your time if the listed salary isn't what you want

You should decline to talk about compensation until after you get the offer.

I've seen so many times that there is flexibility with the compensation, and the best leverage you have as a candidate is after you have the offer. Furthermore, you get more practice. The more practice you get, the better you will become at interviewing — and you might learn things, you might meet people, and there might be other opportunities that pop up along the way.

There are three exceptions, including if you're grossly overpaid.

When I was at Google, sometimes I would just put the number out there to short-circuit things to see if it's not worth my time. Secondly, if they give you a homework assignment to do, you want to make sure it's worth your time.

The third reason is if you have so many interviews that you need to figure out which one to take and which one's going to compensate you if you get to the finish line.

Research the heck out of a company

Some people say you should research the heck out of a company and impress them with all your knowledge and that will lead to an interview. Don't do unsolicited work.

I've interviewed so many people in my time and some people come very well prepared and they've done research. But to put together a project, a presentation, a one-sheeter, a cover letter, or anything that is not asked for doesn't make sense. It might work for small organizations, but the better way is just to connect with the decision-makers at the company.

You should definitely check the company values out, understand the products, and research the role and who you're meeting with. But you don't need to research more than an hour for most interviews about the company. You will be surprised at how little most companies ask about the company itself.

Customize your résumé for every job

There are a couple of times when you want to have two résumés.

If you're going for an individual contributor role and you're going for a manager role, there are some different dynamics you do there. Also, if you have a disparate background and maybe you've done customer success and product management, you might want to have two different résumés.

Also, don't overcomplicate things and think you need to have the right search terms on there for the application tracking software.

Have a strong résumé that reflects your impact and what you've done and uses the right words for your industry — and then keep your résumé.

Your résumé is just table stakes. It's not going to make or break your search. So, focus on getting the referrals. That will get your résumé to the hiring manager.

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Trump ramped up his trade threats against a group of nations that are skeptical of the dollar. Here's what the US buys from the 9 countries at risk.

 

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• President-elect Donald Trump's latest tariff threat is 100% on goods from a group of nine countries known as BRICS.
• Trump's trade announcements seem to be a negotiation tool; this time, he's warning BRICS against competing with the US dollar.
• The US imported billions of dollars of goods from BRICS in 2023, including apparel and electronics.

President-elect Donald Trump's latest trade threat on nine countries could impact key US imports, risking price increases if the tariffs are implemented.

In a November 30 Truth Social post, Trump targeted the BRICS group, which comprises nine countries: Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Ethiopia, Egypt, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates. All have pushed to curb the global dominance of the US dollar. He wrote that he would impose a 100% tariff on those countries unless they committed to not creating another currency that competes with the dollar.

"There is no chance that the BRICS will replace the U.S. Dollar in International Trade, and any Country that tries should wave goodbye to America," Trump wrote.

Business Insider looked at the top goods the US imports from BRICS nations, including medicine, apparel, and electronics. While it appears Trump is using the tariff threats as a negotiating tool and could choose not to implement them at the scale he's proposing, the top imports from the targeted countries could see prices increase even with smaller tariffs.

Census Bureau trade data showed that in 2023, the BRICS nations together accounted for about $578 billion in imports to the US. China was responsible for the lion's share of that trade, with about $427 billion.

In 2023, the US imported $66.7 billion in cellphones and other household goods from China, $37.4 billion in computers, and $32 billion in toys, games, and sporting goods.

The US imported $151 billion in goods from the remaining eight BRICS nations, excluding China, including over $11 billion in pharmaceutical preparations, followed by nearly $9 billion in gem diamonds, $6.3 billion in crude oil, and $6.1 billion in cotton apparel and household goods. India accounted for much of the imports when looking at the BRICS nations, excluding China.

Trump is targeting this group because some BRICS leaders have previously suggested creating new currencies to reduce their countries' reliance on the US dollar. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil's president, proposed creating a common currency among the BRICS nations last year, which could help avoid US sanctions.

The tariff threat on BRICS came just days after Trump said he would impose a 25% tariff on imports from Mexico and Canada that would remain in effect "until such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country!" He also warned of a 10% tariff on imports from China on top of any additional tariffs put in place on the country.

Russia has already responded to Trump's tariff threat. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday that if the US uses "economic force to compel countries to use the dollar," it will empower countries to shift to other currencies.

Some companies, including Walmart and Columbia Sportswear, have already said they are preparing to increase prices should Trump implement tariffs on key trading partners.

The Trump team did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI on the impact of Trump's tariff threats on prices. However, Trump has previously said that tariffs will not hurt Americans, calling them "a tax on another country."

Trump could be launching trade threats as a negotiation tactic — something he did during his first term when he announced tariffs on Mexico aimed at strengthening the border but later withdrew the plan. GOP Sen. Bill Hagerty told NBC on Sunday that trade has long been used as a "strategic tool," and he said he supports Trump using tariffs as leverage to achieve his priorities.

"We need to take a very hard look at countries that don't have our best interests at heart, countries that are allowing our borders to be violated, and use those tariffs as a tool to achieve our ends," Hagerty said.

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Universal basic income in the US isn't yet reality, but 16 states have UBI-like programs that give residents cash

New York is one of 16 states where guaranteed-basic-income programs have been launched.

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• Guaranteed basic-income programs can help low-income participants afford necessities like rent.
• More than 100 US cities and counties have tried GBI, offering cash for housing and groceries. 
• Despite legislative opposition, basic-income programs remain active across the country.

Basic income gives many participants the financial boost they need to afford necessities.

Shamarra Woods, a 31-year-old Atlanta resident, spent basic income on bills and day care for her toddler.

For Jennette Fisher, 46, $500 a month allowed her to sign a lease for an apartment in a quiet Chicago suburb with her daughter.

"It took such a weight off," Fisher previously told Business Insider. "If I wouldn't have had that money, I don't know what would have happened."

Guaranteed basic income has become an increasingly popular strategy to approach poverty in US cities. More than 100 municipalities have tried the GBI model since 2019, offering low-income participants between $50 and $2,000 a month, no strings attached, for a set time period.

What makes basic income different from traditional social services is the element of choice. Most participants told BI they spent basic income on housing, groceries, transportation, and debt repayment — wherever they needed it the most.

Typically, participants fall below the federal poverty line. Some programs have focused on specific populations, such as new and expecting mothers, households with children, or people experiencing homelessness.

Basic-income pilots have been completed in cities and counties in Alabama, Virginia, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Mississippi, Louisiana, Indiana, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Washington, and Oklahoma, among other states. The Alaska Permanent Fund is similar to UBI, and several countries have basic-income programs.

GBI varies slightly from universal basic income, which also offers participants no-strings-attached cash payments but has no set time period. It's also not limited to participants in a specific demographic or income bracket.

Local and federal leaders continue to weigh the pros and cons of UBI. Basic-income programs have faced legislative opposition from some Republican lawmakers, who say that basic income discourages work.

For example, Iowa passed a ban on GBI in April, and the Arizona House of Representatives voted in February to ban basic income. On April 23, the Texas Supreme Court placed a temporary block on a Houston-area basic income program that the attorney general called "unconstitutional."

Despite these political challenges, basic-income programs remain active across the country. Here's a breakdown of states, listed in alphabetical order, where cash payments are offered to low-income residents.

California

Los Angeles.

LPETTET/Getty

Location: Los Angeles County
Program name: Breathe
Duration: June 2022 to August 2025
Income amount: $1,000 every month for three years
Number of participants: 1,000 low-income households

Location: Los Angeles
Program name: Building Outstanding Opportunities for Students to Thrive (BOOST) program
Duration: fall 2024 to fall 2025
Income amount: $1,000 a month for 12 months
Number of participants: 250 students pursuing health careers in the Los Angeles Community College District

Location: Alameda County
Program: United Way Bay Area's GBI pilot
Duration: November 2024 to spring 2026
Income amount: initial $3,000 payment, then $1,000 a month for the next 12 months, with amounts tapering for the final six months
Number of participants: 100 local families

Location: Long Beach
Program name: Long Beach Pledge
Duration: spring 2024 to spring 2025
Income amount: $500 a month for 12 months
Number of participants: 200 low-income households with children

Location: Mountain View
Program name: Elevate MV
Duration: December 2022 to December 2024
Income amount: $500 a month for 24 months
Number of participants: 166 low-income parents

Location: Sonoma County
Program name: Pathway to Income Equity
Duration: January 2023 to January 2025
Income amount: $500 a month for 24 months
Number of participants: 305 low-income families

Location: Pomona
Program name: City of Pomona Household Universal Grants Pilot Program
Duration: summer 2024 to spring 2026
Income amount: $500 a month for 18 months
Number of participants: 250 low-income families with children under 4 years old

Location: Humboldt County
Program name: Humboldt Income Program
Duration: on a rolling basis, beginning December 2023
Income amount: $920 a month for 18 months
Number of participants: 150 low-income pregnant people

California has seen basic income programs in Stockton, San Francisco, Marin County, Compton, Oakland, Santa Clara, and San Diego. In 2021, California's basic income efforts were granted $35 million for more GBI pilots over five years, and a bill being heard in the California Senate would provide GBI starting in August for students experiencing homelessness.

Colorado

Boulder.

Walter Bibikow/Getty Images

Location: Boulder
Program name: Elevate Boulder
Duration: January 2024 to January 2026
Income amount: $500 a month for two years
Number of participants: 200 low-income households

Beginning in 2022, a basic-income program in Denver gave cash assistance to 800 people experiencing homelessness.

Georgia

Atlanta.

Sean Pavone / Getty Images

Location: Atlanta, southwest Georgia, and College Park
Program name: In Her Hands
Duration: a first pilot from 2022 to 2024 and a second pilot that began in spring 2024
Income amount: average payments of $850 a month over 24 months for the first round
Number of participants: 650 low-income Black women

Illinois

Chicago.

Allan Baxter / Getty Images

Location: Cook County
Program name: Cook County Promise
Duration: December 2022 to December 2024
Income amount: $500 a month for 24 months
Number of participants: 3,250 low- to moderate-income families

Location: Evanston
Program name: Guaranteed Income Program
Duration: A first round ran from December 2022 to December 2023, and applications for a second round were due in summer 2024.
Income amount: $500 a month for one year
Number of participants: 150 low-income families

Location: statewide
Program name: Empower Parenting with Resources
Duration: fall 2024 to fall 2026
Income amount: monthly payments for a year dependent on each participant's income and local cost of living
Number of participants: 400 families involved in the child-welfare system

Chicago previously ran the Chicago Resilient Communities Pilot, providing basic income for 5,000 residents, and has set aside $32 million to relaunch the program. OpenAI's cofounder Sam Altman also sponsored a GBI program beginning in 2019 that gave 3,000 Texas and Illinois residents $1,000 a month for three years.

Iowa

Des Moines, Iowa.

f11photo / Getty Images

Location: Polk, Dallas, and Warren counties
Program name: UpLift — The Central Iowa Basic Income Pilot
Duration: May 2023 to spring 2026
Income amount: $500 a month
Number of participants: 110 low-income households

Louisiana

New Orleans.

Peter Unger/Getty Images

Location: New Orleans
Program name: Rooted School: $50 Study
Duration: two phases, running from fall 2022 to summer 2024, with funding set aside to expand the program over the next three years
Income amount: $50 a week for the 40-week academic year
Number of participants: 800 New Orleans high-school students

A previous program in Shreveport gave 110 single parents $660 monthly for a year ending in February 2023. The New Orleans Guaranteed Income Program gave 125 young people disconnected from work or school $350 monthly between spring 2022 and spring 2023. A statewide basic-income pilot called the Truth and Reconciliation Project also gave 12 people described by the program as "survivors of police misconduct who did not receive restitution in the courts" $1,000 a month, with payments concluding in October.

Massachusetts

Somerville, Massachusetts.

DenisTangneyJr / Getty Images

Location: Somerville
Program name: Somerville Guaranteed Basic Income Program
Duration: July 2024 to July 2025
Income amount: $750 a month for 12 months
Number of participants: 200 low-income families

Massachusetts has run basic income programs in Boston, Chelsea, and Cambridge.

Michigan

Ann Arbor, Michigan.

pawel.gaul / Getty Images

Location: Ann Arbor
Program name: Guaranteed Income to Grow Ann Arbor
Duration: January 2024 to December 2025
Income amount: $528 a month for 24 months
Number of participants: 100 low-income entrepreneurs

Location: Flint
Program name: Rx Kids
Duration: January 2024 to spring 2025
Income amount: $1,500 lump sum, then $500 monthly payments during the first year of a baby's life
Number of participants: 1,200 new and expectant mothers

Minnesota

St. Paul, Minnesota.

Saibal / Getty Images

Location: statewide
Program name: Guaranteed Income for Artists
Duration: initially 18 months, extended to five years in summer 2024
Income amount: $500 month
Number of participants: 75 artists living in rural areas, plus 25 artists set to be added in 2024

St. Paul previously hosted an 18-month program for 150 low-income families, who received $500 a month beginning in fall 2020. A program in Minneapolis gave 200 families $500 a month.

Mississippi

Jackson, Mississippi.

SeanPavonePhoto / Getty Images

Location: Jackson
Program name: Magnolia Mother's Trust
Duration: 12 months per pilot, ongoing
Income amount: $1,000 a month
Number of participants: over 400 low-income Black mothers since fall 2018

Missouri

St. Louis.

Art Wager / Getty Images

Location: St. Louis
Program name: STL Guaranteed Basic Income Pilot
Duration: fall 2023 to spring 2025, with payments temporarily blocked in July by a lawsuit
Income amount: $500 a month for 18 months
Number of participants: 540 low-income families with children

New York

New York.

Alexander Spatari/Getty Images

Location: New York City, Rochester, and Buffalo
Program name: The Bridge Project
Duration: June 2021, ongoing
Income amount: up to $1,000 a month for three years
Number of participants: 1,200 low-income mothers

Location: Hudson
Program name: HudsonUp
Duration: five years, with staggered cohorts launched in fall 2020, 2021, and 2023
Income amount: $500 a month for five years
Number of participants: 128 households

A 17-month program in Ulster County that provided basic income to 100 households ended in September 2022. Another program in Ithaca gave a full year of cash payments to unpaid caregivers through May 2023. The nonprofit Creatives Rebuild New York also ran an 18-month basic-income pilot for artists affected by the pandemic, which ended in early 2024.

Oregon

Portland, Oregon.

David Gn Photography / Getty Images

Location: Portland
Program name: Black Resilience Fund
Duration: January 2023 to spring 2026
Income amount: up to $2,000 a month for three years
Number of participants: 25 Black households in Multnomah County

In November, voters opposed Oregon's universal-basic-income proposal to give all state residents $1,600 annually through taxing corporations.

Pennsylvania

Philadelphia.

Jon Lovette / Getty Images

Location: Philadelphia
Program name: PHLHousing+
Duration: fall 2022 to spring 2025
Income amount: $89 to $2,079 a month for 30 months, depending on household income
Number of participants: 300 renter households from the Philadelphia Housing Authority's Housing Choice Voucher or public-housing waitlist

Location: Philadelphia
Program name: Philly Joy Bank
Duration: launched in summer 2024
Income amount: $1,000 a month for 18 months
Number of participants: 250 low-income pregnant people

Texas

San Antonio.

Adam Jones/Getty Images

Location: San Antonio
Program name: UpTogether San Antonio
Duration: summer 2023 to December 2024
Income amount: $500 a month for 18 months
Number of participants: 25 low-income families

Location: Harris County
Program name: Uplift Harris
Duration: initially scheduled to begin in April 2024, but the Houston-area basic-income program is delayed because of a state Supreme Court ruling
Income amount: $500 a month for 18 months
Number of participants: 1,928 low-income households

An earlier San Antonio program offered $5,108 to 1,000 families over a 25-month period that began in December 2020. The Austin Guaranteed Income Pilot gave its participants $1,000 a month ending in May 2023. Additionally, Altman's GBI program that began in 2019 gave 3,000 Texas and Illinois residents $1,000 a month for three years.

Virginia

Richmond, Virginia.

SeanPavonePhoto / Getty Images

Location: Richmond
Program name: Richmond Resilience Initiative
Duration: two-year program beginning October 2020, with staggered cohorts planned through spring 2025
Income amount: $500 a month for 24 months
Number of participants: 94 low-income families with children

Location: Alexandria
Program name: Alexandria Recurring Income for Success and Equity
Duration: spring 2023 to spring 2025
Income amount: $500 a month for 24 months
Number of participants: 170 low-income people

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Critics said Musk 'overpaid' for Twitter. Thanks to Trump and xAI, it could actually be a steal.

Elon Musk acquired Twitter at $44 billion, but investors have been writing down its paper value.

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• Elon Musk's $44 billion Twitter buyout was seen by many as overpriced.
• However, the social media platform has helped give Musk close access to the Trump administration.
• Twitter, now X, has also been a valuable data source for Musk's $50 billion startup xAI.

When Elon Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion, it was panned as one of the worst tech acquisitions in history. Two years, an election, and a generative AI boom later, it's starting to look like more of a bargain.

Shortly after the deal closed in October 2022, Wedbush Securities tech analyst Dan Ives said it would "go down as one of the most overpaid tech acquisitions in the history of M&A deals on the Street."

On paper, the $13 billion that Musk borrowed to buy Twitter, now X, has turned into the worst merger-finance deal for banks since the 2008 financial crisis.

Yet the deal has provided significant benefits for Musk. He now wields considerable influence in the incoming Trump administration after using X to throw his support behind the former president's reelection.

Not only has X served as Musk's political megaphone, but it's also been a lucrative source of training data for one of the billionaire's other ventures: xAI, the startup that's rocketed to a $50 billion valuation just 16 months after launch.

That fresh valuation means xAI has surpassed Musk's purchase price for X. It came with a $5 billion funding round, which The Wall Street Journal reported was backed by the Qatar Investment Authority and Sequoia Capital.

Musk launched xAI in July 2023 as a springboard to get in the AI race after cofounding and then leaving ChatGPT maker OpenAI due to differences with its CEO, Sam Altman.

The startup has made up significant ground on its rivals by using X as a source of third-party data, one of the key avenues for training large language models.

In late 2023, Musk blocked other organizations from scraping X data for free — but gave xAI continued access. That gave xAI a crucial boost.

Ellen Keenan O'Malley, a senior associate at intellectual property law firm EIP, told Business Insider that xAI's access to "third-party information through X is the potential kryptonite to ChatGPT's edge" and a potential driver behind the rising valuation of Musk's startup.

Although the number of X users has been falling, it had 600 million monthly active users as of May, according to Musk.

"This is a level that neither OpenAI nor any other third party can access, or at least not as easily, which provides a huge competitive edge and therefore makes xAI a valuable company," added O'Malley.

Access to 0.3% of X's data costs around $500,000 annually, which prices many out, Wired previously reported.

"Clearly, X's or indeed any social media platform's data is valuable," Advika Jalan, head of research at MMC Ventures, told BI.

xAI gets a boost from X data.

NurPhoto/Getty

X marks the spot in the Musk-Trump alliance

Musk spent at least $119 million on a political action committee to support Trump's campaign.

X played a large role, too. Musk has long been an avid poster on X, but he ramped up the volume during the election cycle. Analysis by The Economist found that the share of Musk's political posts on X has risen from less than 4% in 2016 to over 13% this year. Since endorsing Trump, has has posted more than 100 times on some days to his more than 200 million followers.

A study published by the Queensland University of Technology this month suggested that Musk may have tweaked X's algorithm to boost the reach of his and other Republican-leaning accounts.

Shmuel Chafets, cofounder of venture capital firm Target Global, told Business Insider that "X has become a powerful tool" in Musk's ecosystem, adding that it serves "as a platform for promotion and influence, similar to how Warren Buffett leverages the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholders meeting and his shareholder letters."

X didn't always seem destined to attain such influence in Musk's hands.

In the months and years following Musk's takeover, an advertiser revolt ensued over content moderation concerns, the company laid off about 80% of staff, and service outages disrupted users.

Musk's co-investors have been writing down the value of their X stakes in the two years since. In September, Fidelity, one of its investors, slashed the value of its holding, giving X an implied valuation of $9.4 billion.

Yet Musk's support for Trump, which came after an assassination attempt against the president-elect at a rally in Pennsylvania in July, gives the tech billionaire political sway that is hard to put a price on.

Donald Trump and Elon Musk have big plans together.

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Musk, who Trump said was a "super genius" in his victory speech at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, was selected by the president-elect to run a new Department of Government Efficiency alongside Vivek Ramaswamy, who ran in the 2024 Republican primary.

DOGE will be a "threat to bureaucracy," according to Musk, whose remit at the newly formed department will include driving $2 trillion in federal spending cuts and slashing regulations he deems superfluous and in the way of his corporate empire. As one SpaceX official told Reuters, Musk "sees the Trump administration as the vehicle for getting rid of as many regulations as he can, so he can do whatever he wants, as fast as he wants."

Since Trump's election win, the billionaire has been seen side-by-side with the president-elect at a UFC fight night while reportedly joining his calls to leaders like Volodymyr Zelensky and Google CEO Sundar Pichai.

X-odus

How long X maintains a Musk-Trump bromance and supports xAI's growth remains to be seen.

Musk, for instance, isn't always getting his preference for cabinet appointments chosen by Trump; his choice of Wall Street veteran Howard Lutnick as Treasury secretary was shunned for Trump's pick Scott Bessent, dismissed by Musk as a "business-as-usual choice."

X also faces legal challenges in which judges have expressed concerns over gatekeeping user data. In May, a federal judge in California dismissed a lawsuit filed by X against Israeli firm Bright Data. X claimed Bright Data was "using elaborate technical measures to evade X Corp.'s anti-scraping technology."

Earlier this month, X partially revived its suit against Bright Data. Should X be unsuccessful, it would raise questions about the value of the X to xAI data pipeline.

Elsewhere, the renewed interest in X rivals like Bluesky and Threads risks seeing Musk's social media site lose users who are both key for advertising revenue and providing vital sources of data for training future models at xAI. X is now in a position where "lots of people hate it because they see it as being a weaponized instrument of MAGA," Calum Chace, cofounder of AI startup Conscium, told BI.

For now, though, Musk has a powerful tool in his hands with X.

"Critics may enjoy pointing out his missteps, but Musk's ability to leverage X for both personal and business purposes reinforces his reputation as a visionary entrepreneur who consistently thinks several steps ahead of his contemporaries," said Target Global's Chafets.

"Ultimately, this deal could prove highly lucrative if he decides to sell or take the company public in the future."

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The way Americans pay for higher education is changing

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• The College Board found that student-loan borrowing is decreasing while grant aid is increasing.
• It comes as colleges are facing enrollment declines and questions over the value of a degree.
• Education experts told BI these shifts could force colleges to change the way they charge students.

You may not have noticed that the cost of college is quietly going down.

That's because sticker prices at public colleges haven't kept up with inflation, and schools are offering more grant aid, bringing the average real cost down. Student loan borrowing has also decreased, showing how new students are less reliant on loans.

"It's really something that's never happened before, so that's pretty remarkable," Jennifer Ma, a researcher at The College Board, which reported these findings, told Business Insider.

Still, steep college costs remain a barrier for many seeking a higher education. Students are increasingly sensitive to taking out loans, and with many questioning the value of higher education, it's forcing colleges to consider whether they can still afford to raise tuition, even with a looming enrollment cliff and volatile state funding. It could shift the way tuition prices are set in years to come.

"For colleges, I think they're really up against those tough public perceptions right now of cost is up, and value is down," Michelle Dimino, the director of the centrist think-tank Third Way Education, told BI. "And so they're going to still be in a bind for a while figuring out, 'How do we mitigate that?'"

Student loan aversion and enrollment declines

Over 40 million Americans have student debt, and while President Joe Biden has taken steps to improve some programs to make the loans easier to pay off, high interest rates can leave many struggling to pay off their balances for decades. This is a big reason many younger Americans are leaning toward financing options that do not include student loans, like grants, or forgoing college altogether.

A 22-year-old previously told BI that avoiding debt was a key factor in her decision to skip college.

"I have no student loans, like so many of my friends are in $100,000 in debt and student loans just to get a job that pays $60,000 a year," she said.

The reluctance to accumulate debt could factor into the College Board's finding that student-loan borrowing has decreased.

"Students are feeling more nervous and more skeptical about taking out loans to go to college," Dimino said, adding that as a result, colleges should be prepared to respond to students' price sensitives, especially with looming enrollment challenges.

The enrollment cliff is something colleges cannot control. The number of high school graduates is expected to decline in the coming years because of birth rate declines, meaning fewer students could seek to enroll in a postsecondary institution. Data from the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education found that the number of high school graduates should peak in 2025 at 3.9 million, with a projected decline to 3.5 million by 2037.

Kimberly Dancy, associate director of research and policy at the Institute for Higher Education Policy, told BI that the declines in student borrowing could already be a sign of lower enrollment. She added that the students who are enrolling today might have less financial need than "students who were enrolling 10 to 15 years ago might've seen" due to the availability of aid like grants and scholarships.

Specifically, per the College Board, the maximum Pell Grant award for low-income students increased to $7,395 in 2023-24 from $6,895 in 2022-23 before adjusting for inflation due to a spending bill Biden signed into law. On top of that, institutional grants — or grants provided by colleges — to undergraduates increased by 30% between 2013-14 and 2023-24. Additionally, institutional grant aid for all students rose by $19.6 billion over the same timeframe, accounting for 52% of all grant aid in the 2023-24 school year.

With federal aid being volatile, institutions focusing more on grant aid could be a sign that colleges are responding to affordability concerns and contributing to net college price declines.

"Institutions will really have to grapple with if they do see a decline in state appropriations, maybe they can't raise tuition in the way they did in the past," Dimino said.

What's at stake for colleges

Over the course of the pandemic, colleges got government funds to help keep them afloat. Those funds have now run out, meaning colleges are subject to the volatility of the state budget funding cycle — and higher education is usually on the funding chopping block.

Jennifer Delaney, a professor in the School of Education at Berkeley, told BI that a main factor as to why higher education often doesn't get the funding it needs is because "institutions have figured out that students and families are more reliable at paying their bills than the state is." However, that type of thinking can make it difficult for colleges to best serve their students when they do not have reliable funding.

"The mission for colleges is advancing the human condition and advancing knowledge, and these are very long timeframe missions and goals, yet they're working within either annual or biannual budgeting cycles," Delaney said.

The conversation on the value of higher education could also be weighing on state's decisions to boost funding for colleges, leading some officials to think that "maybe it's not as worthwhile to invest in the sector," Delaney added.

Since state funding shifts, there are steps colleges can take to make higher education more affordable for its students. Dancy said the availability of institutional aid is a good first step, "using grants in ways that help them both attract students, to encourage them to enroll in their institutions and also as a tool for retention and to support degree completion for those students over the course of their education," she said.

To be sure, Dancy said that even with the increases in grant aid, there is still the issue of unmet need, which she defined as "a really substantial gap between what many students can afford and what they are asked to pay to enroll in higher education."

That's where the federal government can play a role. The left-leaning think tank Center for American Progress released recommendations for the government to boost college affordability, including strengthening the Pell Grant, implementing proposals to make college free for two years, and fully funding community colleges.

However, it's unclear where federal investment for higher education will sit under President-elect Donald Trump, placing the focus on colleges to consider ways to make a four-year degree affordable.

"Earning a college credential is still a worthwhile investment for many students," Dancy said. "And so addressing affordability concerns on the front end is a really critical way to ensure that that opportunity is available to more students."

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