Marketplace

Below is a copy of the latest Daily Wrap email from Marketplace.
Sign up for the Marketplace Daily Wrap to receive updates directly in your inbox each weekday evening.

We hope you enjoy today's briefing from Marketplace. Subscribe to more Marketplace newsletters here.

Good evening. We’ve got a bunch of new economic data to mull over today, along with a historic deal putting historic Hollywood studios in the hands of a Big Tech scion. But first, I have good news and bad news about Marketplace.

We had a goal to add 2,000 donors during our recent fall fundraiser and unfortunately we fell short. The good news is any donation makes you a Marketplace Investor — and gets you a cool new sticker! If you can, please, kick us a few bucks to keep Marketplace’s reporting strong and free for all. — Tony Wagner , newsletter editor

Jim Watson / AFP via Getty Images

Americans' view of college education is at a 50-year low

That low view comes at a time when many colleges face an enrollment cliff, Marketplace’s Stephanie Hughes reports.

More Americans than ever are questioning the value of higher education.

A new survey from Gallup finds that just 31% of adults in the U.S. think a college education is “very important.” That’s the lowest since Gallup first asked that question nearly 50 years ago.

In the cauldron of ingredients that’s led to this loss of trust in higher education, the cost of college is key . So are the loans people take out to cover that cost.

“Everybody knows somebody who's drowning in debt,” said Josh Wyner, who leads the Aspen Institute's College Excellence Program. “That difficulty repaying debt is shaping how people feel about the whole system.”

Another ingredient, Wyner said, is that many recent college grads have struggled to find work , and their stories resonate with would-be students.

Plus, higher ed hasn’t worked out for a lot of people, noted Catharine Hill, a senior advisor at the education nonprofit Ithaka S&R. There are more than 43 million adults in the U.S. who started college and may have taken on some debt but never got a degree.

News you should know

Let’s do the numbers

Despite high oil prices and bond yields, Wall Street is bullish again. The S&P 500 closed up 0.6% to a new all-time high today. The Dow gained 0.5% and the Nasdaq added 0.4% to its own record.
Paramount Skydance closed its $111 billion deal to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery. The new Hollywood giant, now just called Skydance, saw shares fall 2.5% in its debut.
The euro hit a 17-month low against the dollar on Monday, largely on concerns over the growing debt crisis in France (the dollar is quite strong right now, too).
The Black unemployment rate rose a full point last month, to 7%. By comparison, the white unemployment rate barely moved. What’s that say about the economy?

Tech

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is a trillionaire once again after SpaceX’s stock took off this week.
Markets were leery about calls to slow down AI development. But a safer "frontier" could ultimately drive up demand for chips.
Skydance has a massive library of movies and TV shows post-merger, and two streaming services. The company said HBO Max and Paramount+ will “unify” over time.
A new EPA proposal could make it harder for communities to find out about data centers, and their impact on air quality, before they're built.

The Trump administration

Facing backlash, President Donald Trump said taxpayers will no longer pay for TV ads promoting his administration. At least $1.5 million has already been spent, and the president’s PAC won’t reimburse us.
The administration has also revamped childhood “Trump accounts” to hold donated individual shares of companies rather than cash — stocks parents can’t choose or sell.
New work requirements mean more than two million young people could lose Medicaid in the next couple of years.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“[We’d] seen the onslaught of ads, scrolled our phones at two in the morning with the fussy baby, trying to figure out, ‘Did I buy the wrong thing?’”

— Chabeli Carrazana, a reporter at The 19th

Algorithms inundate new and expectant parents with ads for the so-called baby products industrial complex. Carrazana has seen it firsthand, and she came on “Marketplace” to talk about how online ads can exploit the anxieties of parenthood.

HEAR MORE

President Donald Trump looks directly into an ecclipse.

David Ellison (left) with his “Flyboys” costar James Franco at an event for “Flyboys” in 2005. (Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images)

Final note

Time flies!

Skydance is among the biggest names in Hollywood, after acquiring historic studios Paramount and Warner Bros. That makes Co-CEO David Ellison one of the most powerful men in entertainment period, but 20 years ago Skydance was a scrappy upstart — and Ellison was a fledgling movie star.

The studio’s very first first feature film, “Flyboys,” starred Ellison and James Franco as World War I fighter pilots. Much of the budget came from Ellison’s tech billionaire father, Larry Ellison. I saw the movie in theaters and I don’t remember loving it, but the whole thing’s on YouTube if you want to see for yourself, or read a retrospective review. Not for nothing, Larry helped bankroll this merger, too.

"One of the best sources available for honest, in depth analysis of economic factors and performance."

— Terence, a Marketplace Investor in Richmond, Virginia

Your support keeps Marketplace's reporting free and accessible to all, for years to come.

DONATE TODAY

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this newsletter, forward it to a friend. If this newsletter was forwarded to you, subscribe to Marketplace newsletters here.

Got feedback for us? Just reply to this email. We can't get back to everyone, but we read it all.