Though the number of people pursuing psychology degrees have increased, a decline in college enrollment numbers is causing concern. This trend has raised questions within academic circles and among prospective students about the future of psychology. This article explores these trends—and the effect they may have on the field. We also look at why promoting psychology to younger generations matters and what the future of psychology holds.
Psychology degree program trends
The American Psychological Association (APA) reports between 2012 and 2021, trends showed increases in the number of psychology degrees awarded at all degree levels. The report reveals:
However, the APA also revealed that in 2023, higher education enrollment was lower than pre-pandemic levels. Anticipated future drops in higher education enrollment may result in fewer students pursuing psychology degrees.
As higher education enrollment has declined, GRE requirements have dropped. APA reveals the percentage of psychology graduate programs requiring GRE scores decreased substantially between 2020 and 2022 and continued to decrease in the 2022–23 academic year. What do these trends suggest? Some experts feel that graduate programs have reduced their emphasis on standardized test scores to help increase enrollment numbers.
The decrease in psychology degree program enrollments is a multifaceted issue. However, to understand why numbers have dropped, it's essential to tackle the reasons behind the decline.
Causes behind program decline
The “Great Enrollment Cliff”
The financial recession in 2008 rocked the U.S. economy, and with this, birth rates plummeted. Today, higher education is feeling the impact, especially psychology programs. Experts are calling this phenomenon the “Great Enrollment Cliff.” How will the declining birth rate affect colleges and universities?
The Hechinger Report reveals college enrollment may fall by 15% by 2029. Currently, schools are experiencing fewer students, resulting in canceled classes and less funding. Addressing the “great enrollment cliff” is essential to ensuring institutional longevity, and psychology programs are no exception.
Financial Bottlenecks
Higher education costs and student debt have skyrocketed, leading many students to reconsider their academic choices based on potential return on investment. For example, for students aiming for a master’s degree, the average costs are $59,060 for public universities and $87,950 for private institutions.
Advanced degrees can be financially burdensome. As a result, pursuing a career in a field that requires advanced degrees may be less attractive. Instead, students are trending toward professions that promise higher pay or are entering fields with better cost benefits, such as those requiring less schooling.
Career Burnout
APA reports that a survey found that from 2021 through 2023, early and midcareer psychologists consistently reported higher stress levels than senior career psychologists. The survey also revealed earlier career psychologists were more likely to report feeling burned out than psychologists in later stages of their career. High stress levels may cause psychologists to switch fields, retire early, or lead less productive careers.
Trends and impacts on psychology
How could the drop in psychology program enrollment affect the field? APA reports it could harm the quality of education and training, psychological research, and patient care. One report predicts this shortage of mental health counselors, psychologists, and psychiatrists will continue well into 2036.
In addition, the gap between the need for mental health providers and access is wider among marginalized populations, including those in rural areas. One report shows that less than half of U.S. counties lack a single psychiatrist. This gap will only continue to grow if the decline in psychology program enrollment continues. Pursuing research careers among mental health professionals has also lowered due to several obstacles, including inadequate training and financial constraints, according to one report. With a drop-off in enrollment, this decrease will only continue.
Why promoting psychology to younger generations matters
Despite all the challenges in the field, psychologists are still hopeful. Mental health professionals and higher education faculty are finding innovative ways to show the utility of a degree in psychology. Below, the APA highlights these measures.
Benefits of diversity in psychology
With all the ways professionals and college faculty attract new students to the field, diversifying the psychology pipeline to be representative of the population is of utmost importance. For example, the APA reported that half of Asian Americans do not get treatment for mental health issues due to a language barrier, and only a little over 2% of those earning a doctorate in psychology identify as Asian. A diverse population of providers may help encourage individuals who had otherwise not pursued mental health services to seek the assistance they need.
Attracting different cultures, races, religions, and backgrounds to psychology will also open the door to more diversified courses and training, creating more multiculturally competent psychologists.
The future of psychology
Despite the current decline in enrollment, psychology remains a vital discipline. The overall occupation is expected to grow 6% from 2022 to 2032.
Educational institutions and industry professionals are making positive strides to address these enrollment challenges and highlight the value and versatility of psychology degrees. Through these efforts, psychology students have insight into the future of the field, helping them to navigate the evolving landscape of psychology and better position themselves for success.
For those who are training the next generation of psychologists, it’s imperative to teach them to use the very best assessment instruments on the market. By providing your students with training on valid, reliable, and fully standardized instruments, you are helping to prepare them to enter the field with the skills they need to provide the highest standard of care to their own clients as well as put them on the path to conduct impactful research.
It’s not an easy job, but PAR is here to help!
The UPP is a concierge service that offers dedicated assistance to you and your students as they pursue advanced degrees. The entire program was developed to help you save time and energy so you can focus on what’s important—your students. Our UPP staff can provide you with the information you need to help you decide which tests best fit into your syllabus. In addition to offering a single point of contact for all your services, the UPP can provide a variety of training resources that can be integrated into your courses.
UPP members receive three free PAR test kits of your choice. Plus, you’ll get a 40% discount on products used for training and research. In addition, graduate students using PAR products for their research can take advantage of a 40% discount, too!
Learn more about the University Partnership Program and get started on your 2023–2024 syllabus now!
This week’s blog was contributed by Melissa Milanak, PhD, PAR’s clinical assessment. Melissa is a licensed clinical psychologist and internationally recognized academic. She has extensive clinical experience providing therapy and conducting assessments with a diverse array of patient populations.
As your trusted source for assessments for all your clinical needs, PAR is excited to also partner with you in many practical ways as you conduct your research, whether it be a large federally funded grant, a manuscript you are preparing to submit, or a course project with your students and trainees running on zero budget. Here are just a few of the ways PAR can help researchers.
The submission deadline is approaching, and it is time to write the methods section. Instead of spending hours pouring through assessment manuals and reading journal article after journal article to extract psychometric data for the one paragraph, consider reaching out to PAR directly. Our psychologists and researchers have already prepared and formatted the assessment info paragraphs for you that you can insert into your manuscripts and grant applications. Don’t see the one you need there? Let us know and we will get you the info you need.
Through our data sharing program, you can partner with our R&D team to help us collect important data on our assessments all while receiving discounts and/or free usage of the related assessments. All data sharing is of course de-identified and confidential to protect participants.
Through our digital assessment platform, PARiConnect, you can email HIPAA-compliant links directly to research participants to complete all of your research assessments online, expanding your geographical reach. You can also access observer and collateral research data without requiring additional individuals to come into your data collection site. Plus, if you send out an assessment link and a participant decides not to participate, you can revoke the link and reuse the assessment with another participant without having to pay for an unused assessment.
By using PARiConnect, either through a HIPAA-compliant email link or in-person digital entry option, participants enter their own data, removing a layer of data entry error (and the need to invest in time for research assistants to enter and check data entry). Plus, with settings to prevent skipping questions, you can reduce the risk of missing data.
In less than a minute, you can download item-level assessment data to a CSV spreadsheet formatted to integrate with statistics software such as SPSS to increase the ease of data processing and analyzation.
Through our FREE Training Portal and team of clinical assessment advisors, PAR provides on-demand training for you and your research teams to learn about the assessments from underlying constructs to administration, scoring, and interpretation.
As you are designing your research, clinical psychologists, neuropsychologists, and psychometrists who have a history of successfully securing federally funded grants and publishing in high impact-factor journals are available to consult with you to build effective, efficient research assessment batteries.
These examples are just the beginning when exploring ways that PAR can partner with you to design, conduct, and publish your research using high-caliber, industry gold-standard assessments. Reach out to our team today to learn more!
Check out this video on ways PAR can help you easily integrate digital assessments into your practice.
This week’s blog was contributed by Melissa Milanak, PhD. Melissa is a licensed clinical psychologist and internationally recognized academic. She has extensive clinical experience providing therapy and conducting assessments with a diverse array of patient populations.
Learning more about assessment products can improve our ability to provide the best care for our clients, patients, and students. However, continuing education can also directly relate to other professional duties, such as keeping our license current and educating trainees.
For example, when your job is to train future providers, having accurate, easily accessible resources not only saves time but also engages trainees in new and exciting ways. PAR’s Training Portal features product-specific videos, resources, and practical applications that can provide hours of didactic support for trainees. These tools are also ideal for established providers who want to learn more about a new product or get a refresher on an instrument they might not have used recently. PAR’s Training Portal is completely free of charge and available on demand, 24/7. New content is added regularly, so it’s good practice to check back frequently for information relevant to your practice.
You can easily put products into practice using the 40% discount we offer on training materials that provide hands-on, practical experience. With PAR’s University Partnership Program (UPP), you can determine the tests that best fit your syllabus and get access to concierge support to design your own training (including PowerPoint slides, free test kits, and products), along with student discounts and faculty research discounts.
In addition, as a licensed provider, you must receive continuing education (CE). Though requirements can seem arduous and tedious, it’s important for you to continually learn about the tools and practices that can best help your patients and clients—and it can often be an exciting way to learn about what’s innovative and new in the industry. Even gold-standard assessments are updated and renormed as the literature grows and new insights are uncovered. The key as a provider is to balance relying on the assessments we know and love and have served us well (and helped many of our patients and clients over the years) while also keeping current with updates and edits, new product offerings, and useful new applications of our reliable tools!
PARtalks, our webinar platform, offers a vast array of CE sessions on products and applications. Featuring experts from a variety of backgrounds and topic areas, as well as insight from product authors and knowledgeable PAR staff, our webinars cover many topics relevant to psychological practice. Check out PARtalks frequently to see what webinars are coming up and which offer CE credits. And if you miss a live session, head back to the PAR Training Portal to view a recording.
Whether you are working with trainees or looking to further your own education on a topic, PAR offers a number of options to help you!
This week’s blog was contributed by Darla DeCarlo, LMHC, PsyS, PAR’s regional manager–educational assessments. Darla is a certified school psychologist who spent more than 30 years providing professional services in a variety of settings.
School personnel have been navigating chaotic times for almost two years, and psychological services departments have had to make some difficult decisions. Positions have been eliminated, staff has changed, and psychologists have had to juggle added tasks within their department (and/or schools) while grappling with existing duties. With all of this added responsibility comes added pressure.
One common concern among school psychologists is finding time to train on assessment tools. Introducing an entire staff to new test options, training new staff and interns on existing instruments,
and familiarizing staff on what’s available can be confusing and time-consuming. Incorporating the free PAR Training Portal as part of regular monthly staff meetings can provide solutions to these problems. In just 30 to 60 minutes, an entire staff can learn more about a PAR tool—from instrument overview and development to scoring and normative data. It’s a perfect way to provide needed training while preserving staff members’ valuable time to take care of district business. Staff who can’t attend can access the presentation online 24/7, ensuring staff members are on the same page when it comes to assessment training. The PAR Training Portal also includes recorded topical and author webinars, and the training courses and presentations are updated frequently.
When psychological services departments are dedicated to improving staff knowledge to keep up with changes in school psychology, it can increase staff efficiency and build confidence. In addition, participating in trainings helps reinforce group goals, shows the staff they are valued, and improves morale. And who doesn’t want that for their staff?
Visit partrainingportal.com to get started.
On June 3, we held the first live PARtalks event, a FREE day of virtual sessions featuring today’s most in-demand speakers on school psychology. The response to these timely topics was overwhelming!
We are pleased to offer access to the recorded sessions at no cost through the PAR Training Portal. Log in using your parinc.com username and password to view the recorded sessions and share with your friends and colleagues. Don’t have a free account? It’s easy to register. Sessions on the portal include:
Healing Together: Mental Health, Trauma, and Resilience in the Wake of a Global Pandemic
Presented by Kristin Greco, PAR CEO, and Kirby Wycoff, PsyD, NCSP
Following welcoming remarks from Kristin Greco, Dr. Wycoff discusses emergent research around the mental health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and how resilience and connectedness can help communities heal.
The Neuropsychology of Stress and Trauma: How to Develop a Trauma-Informed Assessment
Presented by Steven G. Feifer, DEd, and Terri Sisson, EdS
This presentation will explore the neural underpinnings of stress, trauma, and emotional dysfunction in children and its impact on learning.
Learning Disability Evaluations During and After a Pandemic
Presented by Peter K. Isquith, PhD, and Theo Miron, PsyS, NCSP
This presentation will address several challenges practitioners face when evaluating students after more than a year of disrupted instruction, further complicated by restrictions on typical assessment processes and settings.
Ethics in Psychological Tele-Assessment with Children
Presented by A. Jordan Wright, PhD, ABAP, and Carrie Champ Morera, PsyD, NCSP, LP
This presentation will discuss ethical considerations that practitioners need to keep in mind while conducting teleassessment sessions. Topics include practitioner training and competence, and steps to ensure the client’s safety and appropriateness for telehealth.
More PARtalks! Browse our upcoming PARtalks virtual sessions and register soon—space is limited!
The Personality Assessment Inventory™ (PAI®) has earned its reputation as one of the most important innovations in personality assessment. Its 22 nonoverlapping scales cover the constructs most relevant to a broad-based assessment of mental disorders. Now with the introduction of the PAI Plus, there are even more ways to interpret PAI data.
A recorded webinar from presenters Kevin Lauer, PhD, and Sierra Iwanicki, PhD, is now available on the PAR Training Portal. It covers topics such as:
Visit partrainingportal.com to view it today!
We’re proud to announce the latest addition to the PAR Training Portal!
Our newest course, Overview of the PAR Trauma Suite, provides FREE training for some of PAR’s most in-demand trauma instruments. Course content includes the Trauma Symptom Checklist for Young Children (TSCYC), Trauma Symptom Checklist for Children (TSCC), TSCC and TSCYC Screening Forms, the Trauma Symptom Inventory-2 (TSI-2), and the Detailed Assessment of Posttraumatic Stress (DAPS).
Whether you are a long-time user or are considering a purchase, this course provides greater insight into each of the products. You’ll also learn when each is most appropriate for use and see examples of how they can be used for intervention.
Remember, PAR’s Training Portal is always free and includes interactive courses, videos from test authors, and supplemental materials that serve as a resource to help you to learn more about select products. To learn more about the Training Portal or register for your free account, visit the PAR Training Portal web page.
The PDDBI family of products is growing! Free interactive training on how to use PDDBI products is now available on the PAR Training Portal. Whether you are a long-time user and want a greater understanding of the product or are considering purchasing for the first time, this course will give you greater insight into the assessment of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), the decisions made when developing the PDDBI, and how the different components work together. The PAR Training Portal is a free, on-demand resource available 24/7. Visit partrainingportal.com today!
In addition, we are pleased to announce the release of the PDDBI Parent Form in Spanish! In addition to the Spanish form, we are releasing a white paper by Amy Kovacs Giella that explains the translation process. According the U.S. Census Bureau, approximately 13% of the U.S. population primarily speaks Spanish at home. With autism diagnoses steadily rising, identification of Spanish-speaking individuals who may be at risk is vitally important. With the introduction of the PDDBI Parent Form in Spanish, this significant portion of the population can now benefit from the PDD Behavior Inventory product family for detection, diagnosis, and progress monitoring.
The PAR Training Portal is a great way to learn more about select PAR instruments. Whether you want to preview a measure you are considering, gain greater insight on a favorite assessment product, or simply look for further information on how to interpret scores, the PAR Training Portal is a free, on-demand resource available 24/7 to fit your schedule.
There’s more than just interactive courses! Author videos, supplemental materials, and more are all there!
It’s built with your time in mind! Start and stop, back up, or watch just the parts that interest you. The training portal is flexible—watch as many times as you want!
We are always adding new material! If you haven’t stopped by in a while, there’s probably something new to see.
Train an individual or a whole staff! Many schools and large organizations have used the portal to train all the individuals in their group. It’s an efficient and cost-effective solution for training.
As part of our mission, PAR aims to provide the best support to our Customers. It is our goal to contribute not only with the best assessment tools, but with the best training on these tools as well. To learn more about the Training Portal or register for your free account, visit the PAR Training Portal web page.