Not referring to any book or author. Simply looking at birth rates since the Great Recession. In the US, the decline tripled beginning in 2009 (it has since stabilized, or at least it did till Covid hit). That makes an impact. Selective schools will adapt, of course, and are even doing so now - we saw how dropping test scores as a requirement, for instance, caused apps. to go through the roof at some selective schools this past year and that there has been, so far, little hurry to reinstate standardized testing as a required portion of the application going forward. Itâs a good way shift around the admitted pool (perhaps toward those who truly do need education for increased social mobility). There is also the option to increase the international representation. But all this still means the pressure will be on to attract college-ready students - because there will likely be fewer of them overall. The central power-elite universities will do fine. But some on the other end may have to fold up - they simply wonât have the funds to compete with more selective schools.
Actual statistics show that the decline in birthrate has been highest among Latinx women (about 31%), followed by Black women - not among white women (although theirs declined as well) so Iâm not sure how that plays into the narrative you describe above. A smaller cohort of high school students (which is coming) means fewer potential college applicants no matter which way you cut it. Of course top schools will navigate these waters unscathed as they have an over-abundance of applicants as it is, however, less prestigious schools will struggle to fill classes - a phenomenon that was present, pre-covid, and is most likely accelerating now.
This article pretty much sums up how I am feeling about Covid these days and why we will need to learn to live with it. I assume this thinking is why mask mandates havenât come down in MA (where I live) because despite breakthroughs and rising numbers, a large and growing % of the population is fully vaccinated. Deaths and hospitalizations (while increased) are still relatively low. Vaccines work.
Simmons University has walked back their earlier statement about providing quarantine housing for students who test +. They are now indicating that students who live within a 200 mile radius will be asked to leave campus (to return home, presumably). I think they are starting to get a foreboding sense of just how many + students they may end up withâŠ
Hamilton had freshman move in and 761/761 students were negative on arrival.
Hamilton does not have 761 freshman. They did have 761 tests administered.
my apologies. Still, no positives. And, however many freshmen there are, all negative coming from all over the country.
Of course, a negative test will not detect an infection after the test, or just before the test but too soon for a detectable viral load.
Um. ok. I know itâs just a snapshot in time but itâs still better than a lot of students showing up positive.
Very well said.
Nathan Graweâs book is where all this âcliffâ talk came from. He developed an index! Gotta have indicies. Rah economics.
So â CC is pretty fixated on the high-school-to-college transition. (And some are unhappily fixated on womenâs reproductive habits.) But there are a few factors outside this that affect university enrollments.
The first is the tremendous growth in the ânon-traditionalâ, by which is meant old, student population. People returning to school, for the first or fifth time, make up a large and growing slice of enrollments at non-elite universities. I call them the last invisibles. Theyâre a somewhat difficult population for universities to adjust to â itâs not just the bias baked into faculty and admin that these people are failures because they havenât gone through on a timetable they themselves were taught was a marker of success, or fac/adminâs squeamishness outside B-schools about dealing with people who have business experience from Out There; itâs that these students have kids, jobs, a higher rate of disability. Many are military and struggling with the transition back to civilian life, especially amidst so many traditional-age students who donât know anything about military life. Universities have resisted dealing with any of these issues but are coming around now. They have to. Itâs why I tell students at the beginning of the semester to let me know if they have work/childcare/family issues that might affect their ability to come to class and get their work done on time; Iâll work with them, but I donât want them to try to hide these things and then crash/burn/disappear midsemester. Disability they usually know how to deal with at this point.
The second is immigration. We still do a lot of that. And the third is international enrollment, which waxes and wanes.
The populations of both America and the world are still exploding. Not as fast as they have been. But still very freaking fast. And thatâll likely go on for a while. As long as thatâs true and the worldâs complex enough that people need college, Iâm not worried about their seeking education. The stupid-expensive kind, maybe. But education in general, no.
Thanks for posting this â Iâll read it, but Iâm already bracing, and guessing thereâs a good reason Ed Yong didnât write it. It seems to me very, very early in our acquaintance with this virus to be putting out such plucky assurance in a headline.
Meanwhile, skyrocketing local hospital admissions! Wahoo! Not a mask mandate in sight! Freedom!
The US population grew at .35% last year. That is not âexplodingâ. Stagnant growth is forecast for many years. Nontraditional students, which already comprise 75% of those enrolled in higher education, will continue to utilize the community college and local public urban schools that permit part-time study around work and child care. There is no flood of Nontraditional students willing or able to pay for the traditional residential college experience of 18-24 year olds.
I am not familiar with Graweâs work. Is he a research economist? Iâve been following demographic trends for awhile now and donât really read popular literature. The cliff is obvious.
Oh, letâs not be sniffy about poor Nathan, whoâs been having the time of his professorial life and seeing it flag. Heâs got an update, see here: https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2021/02/01/nathan-grawe-answers-questions-about-his-new-book-and-projected-demand
Not sure why you are having difficulty with my posts. Never heard of the guy before though itâs apparent that you have. Just saw he wrote his book in 2018? This issue has been known before then. Perhaps his work is well publicized but not necessarily original. Or heâs tweaked it to focus on higher ed specifically. Itâs no doubt a popular topic.
Though not an R1, Carlton is an excellent undergrad institution. Unfortunately, my kids ruled it out when one of the tour guides confused âliberal artsâ for liberal politics. 
Another creative solution for the K12. Paris district in Texas has made masks part of the school uniform. That seems to work.
Itâs actually not a rosy picture of the covid situation, but a realistic one. The author isnât suggesting we ignore precautions to minimize covid exposure nor does she downplay its current danger - and she is a huge proponent of vaccines. At the same time, the article focuses on the fact that coronaviruses are hard to fully eradicate; thatâs why we still have the common cold and have yet to effectively knock out the flu. She guesses that, in time, covid will become endemic instead of a pandemic and that, as a result, weâll need to learn to live with it.
Thatâs what my sisterâs district did. Several school districts banned mask mandates, but right before school started, the Governor declared that the law passed requiring schools to be open 5 days/week âin accordance with CDC guidelinesâ meant that masks must be worn. Most (but not all) school districts complied with the law, but getting parents/kids on board has been trickier.
The 3rd day of school my sister still counted 58 unmasked middle schoolers come off the bus. She said in one class 12/19 of the kids were unmasked. But it is now part of the school uniform and they are trying to crack down. By Monday the had fallen to 3/16, but 3 were already out.
I know a principal in a school district closer to home who said she gets verbally abused by parents every day that masks are child abuse. What fun.
I am so happy that even though we are a low vax community, Hâs school district seems to be OK with mask wearing. School board meetings have not been zoos. No protests. And H says that for the most part, kids comply just fine.
And the friend who seems to have caught Covid from S (before his symptoms appeared) has infected her roommate too (also before any symptoms). The vaccine appears to be offering very little protection to close contacts (from getting infected) and his best guess is that the period when you are infectious but have no noticeable symptoms might be as long as 4-6 days (ie Day 2-6/7/8) for a young vaccinated person with a strong immune system. But they are all doing fine with minimal impact (nothing worse than a minor cold) which is really the point of the vaccine.
At least amongst the people he knows, a degree of fatalism about ultimately getting infected has taken hold, given this degree of spread when thereâs little socializing going on. They are all self-checking with rapid tests (that they bought for themselves) on a regular (daily or near daily) basis.
Exactly. Enrollment managers and their army of consultants have been preparing/strategizing for the coming 2026 enrollment cliff for a decade.