Recession plagued the world in 2008 and stripped many off of their economic power. It hit the economy hard and in the financial crunch, everything and everyone got affected, even the education sector wasn't spared. Amidst the global recession and long after that as well, many strategies were built to recover economy and efforts were made to revive the education sector as it witnessed a downfall during the time.
While many nations reduced funds for higher education because of downturn in tax revenues, many countries took the stand and had a proactive approach to funding colleges in order to keep the education system up and running.
Students who were looking forward to study at renowned colleges for higher education chose to enroll themselves in lesser known colleges only because the tuition fee was much lesser than their counterparts. Moreover, admissions to many primary and secondary schools were also affected by recession because of severe budget cuts. Since the government was cash-strapped during the time, many schools didn't get adequate funds as well.
In addition to that, cost-cutting went up to such an extent that schools had to cut off elementary supplies and resource materials provided to students, consequently resulting in poor quality of education. This can be further damaging to the students because they missed the opportunity to get qualitative education making them less capable of competing against others specially on a global level. Such students lack the requisite knowledge and skills that are essential to succeed in the competitive marketplace.
On top of that, recession has also made it nearly impossible to secure a job even for students who achieved their degrees from prominent colleges. Due to recession, an employment is not guaranteed even if one is eligible for it.
Digging a bit deeper, cut down in jobs and paychecks has also impacted education. Many parents who had been saving up for their kids' higher education from ace colleges had no other choice than to drop the idea, mainly because either the cost of education had increased way beyond their capacity or they needed the money for other important things like paying house rent, various bills, loan repayments and more.
Due to income loss, people simply struggled to make the ends meet during the time and had to sacrifice the education of their children. Unemployment also forced many to deprive their kids' of a supporting learning environment which includes not only education but also adequate health care and a stable lodging.