Is This Year the Peak of Baby Boom "Echo"

Parent Cafe
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<p>A new study is just out on a topic that gets kicked around here a good bit: when will things let up for prospective applicants. This study seems to confirm that this year is, indeed, the peak year for the number of HS graduates (just my D's luck) and that there will be significant regional differences looking forward:</p>

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[quote]
On a national level, the number of public high school graduates is projected to peak this year at just over 3 million before beginning a gradual decline through 2013-14 — when numbers are expected to begin climbing back to peak levels by 2017-18. The anticipated average annual rate of decline from 2007-8 through 2013-14 is about 0.7 percent.</p>

<p>“After 2007-08 overall production of high school graduates will become much more stable for the foreseeable future than it was during the expansion period,” the report states, “when it was growing by leaps and bounds.”</p>

<p>The Northeast and Midwest will be bracing for substantial declines. Under the projections, the Northeast will experience declines from this year’s peak through the end of the projected period, in 2021-22, with 1 percent average drops per year. The total percentage declines in high school graduates by 2021-22 range from 2.6 percent in Maine to 22.7 percent in Vermont.</p>

<p>Meanwhile, in the Midwest, the number of high school graduates is expected to fall by about 8 percent — 60,000 students — by 2014-15. (“Thereafter,” the report states, “the number of graduates is projected to fluctuate.”) Michigan will see the most precipitous declines, at 13.2 percent among public school graduates by 2015.</p>

<p>In contrast, in the South, robust and rapid growth is expected. From 2004-5 to 2021-22, the number of high school graduates is projected to increase by 210,000 — about a 20 percent increase. Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Texas account for most of the projected expansion, with the percentage of public high school graduates expected to rise by 35.5 percent in Florida, 40.9 percent in Georgia, 30.7 percent in North Carolina and 40.1 percent in Texas. Unlike in the rest of the country, it’s unclear, the report says, whether those four states will peak at a certain point: “[R]ather, they may undergo a consistent expansion in high school graduate numbers, with a single year or two during which the growth pattern is momentarily disrupted.”</p>

<p>And numbers of high school graduates in the West, after peaking next year, in 2008-9, will slowly decline by 2 percent by 2014-15 before rising.

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<p>Knocking</a> at the College Door: Projections of High School Graduates by State, Income, and Race/Ethnicity, 1992 to 2022</p>

<p>Demographic</a> Boom and Bust :: Inside Higher Ed :: Higher Education's Source for News, and Views and Jobs</p>

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<p>One thing I didn’t see discussed in looking quickly at your links was that there is a slightly larger number of males than females, another topic that gets discussed here and elsewhere. That will be interesting to watch, also.</p>

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<p>There are more than 1200 four-year colleges in the U.S., some with extraordinary faculties and facilities, that are begging for students NOW. Some of them will even fill out your application for you, require no essays, no recommendations, and often, no standardized tests. If you have a pulse, you are in, and in many cases, you won’t even have to prove you have a pulse, just a Social Security number.</p>

4

<p>A couple observations: </p>

<p>2008 is the peak projected year for U.S. high school graduates for the next decade. But the LOW POINT projected over the next decade is approximately equal to 2006. In other words, the difference between 2008 and “normal” is pretty insignificant.</p>

<p>If what one cares about is U.S. college admissions, there are some obvious factors missing from the equation: How many of those high school graduates will want to go to college? How much demand for U.S. college admission will there be from NON-U.S. high school graduates? The 100+ page report devotes three sentences to the first question, the last of which essentially says “We have no idea.” As far as I can tell, it devotes 0 sentences to the second question. Another three-sentence topic, ending with “no idea”, is homeschooling.</p>

<p>What all of this means for elite education is that approximately nothing is going to decrease demand in our lifetimes. It has a lot of interest for secondary and tertiary public colleges in the northeast (which is losing population, natch) and the west (which is gaining it, and more of it is speaking Spanish). But we knew that already. (Pennsylvania is a huge net importer of college students to its public and private colleges.)</p>

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<p>Not taking issue with the general thrust of this thread, or with the figures, projections, etc… but one thing that always confuses me is the reference to Baby Boom Echo, or Baby Boomers’ children being the swell in college admissions applications.</p>

<p>My husband and I were both born in 1954. (I’m 54 now.) And we were on the late, outer edge of the Baby Boom. Most people traditionally classified as Boomers are a little older than we are. We had our children relatively late in life – I was 36 and 38 respectively when my kids were born. My son is one of the record number of college bound students this year.</p>

<p>It surely doesn’t seem to me that he qualifies as Baby Boom Echo. If the Baby Boom peaked in 1950 (let’s just say… I don’t know when it actually did, but imagine it must be somewhere around there) and those Boomers peak childbearing years were, say, when they were 30 years old (which I suspect is older than it actually was, but just to err on the side of trying to make this Baby Boom Echo tag work), then their high school seniors would have graduated in 1998. So how is that 10 years later than 1998 we are seeing the Baby Boom Echo?</p>

<p>I think the swell in applications has more to do with higher numbers of students going to college rather than straight to work, among other factors. I don’t really know… but I think we need another catch phrase for it, because I don’t think this is really the children of the Baby Boomers going off to college. Those children should be around 30 years old now!</p>

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<p>'rent, your basic premise is wrong. The increase in births that constituted the “Baby Boom” did not peak until the early '60s. One usually sees the dates for the Baby Boom as 1949-1964, although I think by 1964 the birth rate was already declining, and I suspect that people born in 1946, say, have a lot more in common with people born in 1950 than they do with people born in 1940. </p>

<p>The next spike in births started happening in the early 80s and peaked around 1990 – hence the peak in high school graduates this year.</p>

<p>My youngest sister, born in 1962, does not consider herself a Boomer at all, but there’s no question I and all of my other siblings, born in the 50s, were.</p>

<p>There IS something of a cultural divide in the Baby Boom, roughly corresponding with the end of the draft. People born after 1954 didn’t live through the Vietnam War and associated domestic chaos quite as intensely as the leading edge of the boomers. But the bulk of the demographic baby boom happened after 1954.</p>

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<p>Actually, the Baby Boom peaked in '56 or '57. The outer edge of the baby boom is actually the early '60s–when big postwar families were finishing up. I was born in 1963 and I ran in a pack with a bunch of kids who were kid # 4, 5 or 6 and whose older sibs were born in the early to mid '50s. </p>

<p>The reason you have so many kids now is that you have people like yourself who waited to have kids and younger parents like me and some older Gen Xer’s who had kids in their '20s so Gen Y is huge because it’s a mix of kids who have boomer parents and Gen X parents.</p>

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<p>Mombot, that does sound a lot more like what I’m seeing – that mix of kids of parents from 3 generations. Now that deserves a handy term the media can catch onto. Got any ideas?</p>

<p>Maybe BoX – ;)</p>

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<p>I just looked up the numbers. It’s true that 1957 was the absolute peak year, but 1961 and 1962 were both within 1% of that, and more kids were born in 1961-62 than were born in 1956-57. By contrast, the number of births in 1965 was 88% of 1957 and 1962. A very sharp drop-off.</p>

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<p>I was born in 1951 and had my D when I was 37, in 1989. Anecdotally, most of the parents of her friends here in Brooklyn were our age. So, I think a lot of mid-Boomers waited to have children until their late thirties.</p>

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<p>The type of boomer-ish parents who waited to have children until their late thirties are also high achieving types whose offspring apply disproportionately to the most selective colleges – making the crunch for such schools especially acute.</p>

<p>Unlike JHS, however, I don’t have the data to back this up, it’s just a hypothesis.</p>

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<p>Fendrock, you nailed it.</p>

<p>Franglish, I’m just like you.</p>

<p>Boomers were technically born in '46 to '64. As a practical matter, people were waiting for the war to end. Then marriages picked up and of course it takes nine months or so to have a baby.</p>

<p>At the other end, “The Pill” came out in '60 and not everyone started taking it the same day.</p>

<p>JHS, your sister is a boomer, her opinion doesn’t matter. I totally agree about the Vietnam war. Guys in my HS graduation class '70 were the last to receive those lottery draft numbers. That was the last drawing and none were drafted. Since then high school boys don’t have to worry about college being interuppted by being drafted.</p>

<p>There is another term “Joneser” (from the song) for those born after '64.</p>

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<p>I think the boomlet is happening now, both because we mid-baby boomers (1956 here) had our babies late and more of them are going to college. Mini, may be right that there are plenty of school for all of them, but as a proper overachieving CC parent, I don’t want just *any *college for my kid. ;)</p>

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<p>Mombot, I’m another 1963 baby. :slight_smile: Had two kids in mid-20s and am enjoying being in mid-40s with both to be away at college next year. (One will be a senior in college and one a freshman).</p>

<p>One thing that worries me even more than competitive college acceptances right now is the job competition in five years! I hope the economy gets back on track because there will be a whole lot of college grads competing for the same jobs. Our kids are used to competition, so it won’t be a huge shock to them, I guess. Still… it seems like everything has been that much harder for D, who graduates this year from high school. Making the team, getting the grades, getting into college.</p>

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<p>Here’s my FAQ about demographics: </p>

<p>DEMOGRAPHICS </p>

<p>Population trends in the United States are not the only issue influencing the competitiveness of college admission here. The children already born show us what the expected number of high school students are in various years, but the number of high school students in the United States, which is expected to begin declining in a few years, isn’t the whole story. </p>

<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/09/education/09admissions.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/09/education/09admissions.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp&lt;/a&gt; </p>

<p>First of all, if more students who begin high school go on to college, there will be more applicants to college even with a declining number of high school students. And that is the trend in the United States and worldwide. </p>

<p>Second, colleges in the United States accept applications from all over the world, so it is quite possible that demographic trends in the United States will not be the main influence on how many students apply to college. The cohorts of high-school-age students are still increasing in size in some countries (NOT most of Europe). </p>

<p>Third, even if the number of applicants to colleges overall stays the same, or even declines, the number of applicants to the most competitive colleges may still increase. The trend around the world is a “flight to quality” of students trying to get into the best college they can in increasing numbers, and increasing their consensus about which colleges to put at the top of their application lists. I do not expect college admission to be any easier for my youngest child than for my oldest child, even though she is part of a smaller birth cohort in the United States. </p>

<p>And now I would add to this that at the very most selective colleges that have just announced new financial aid plans, next year’s (and the following year’s) crush of applicants will be larger than ever. When colleges that are already acknowledged to be great colleges start reducing their net cost down to what the majority of families in the United States can afford, those colleges will receive more applications from all parts of the United States, and very likely from all over the world.</p>

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<p>Can you define in birth years who exactly fits the Baby Boom Echo generation?</p>

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<p>I think this is the peak year of ADMISSIONS. More students will be admitted to two- and four-year colleges this year than at any time in the nation’s history. More than 80 percent of students will be admitted to their first choice college. </p>

<p>It is has never been easier to get admitted to our nation’s colleges and universities - the challenge is paying for it.</p>

<p>And it may have peaked. I think we will see a raft of colleges closing their doors in future years for lack of students.</p>

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<p>I’m not sure how many colleges will close, but I agree that many will be challenged by the demographics, especially LACs in the Northeast quarter of the country which have depended on “rich white kids”. The following schools aren’t about to disappear, but may well have student bodies weaker 10 years from now than today’s cohort-</p>

<p>Haverford
Vassar
Colgate
Hamilton
Smith
Oberlin
Colby
Bates
Bryn Mawr
Mount Holyoke
Kenyon
Bucknell
Holy Cross
Lafayette
Trinity
Bard
Franklin and Marshall
Union
Connecticut College
Dickinson
Skidmore</p>

<p>Some of these schools have deep pockets and will battle the numbers, but even schools like Smith already have more kids of modest means than they would prefer. If they didn’t, they would have need blind admissions.</p>

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<p>I can’t comment on the other schools, but Vassar does have need blind admissions.</p>

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<p>one thing im surprised hasnt been mentioned is the projected growth of asian-american high school graduates over the next decade. a 50% increase in asian-american applicants over the next ten years is substantial, especially considering how over-represented the demographic already is at many elite colleges.</p>

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<p>i also dont see many of the schools provided by danas struggling to attract top-quality students a decade from now. even with some demographic disadvantages,</p>

<p>1) in terms of competition, i cant imagine public university tuitions not skyrocketing over the next decade as senior-directed entitlement programs begin eating up enormous parts of both state and federal budgets;</p>

<p>2) the wealthier schools on the above list are going to be in VERY good positions to subsidize both tuition and financial aid a decade from now, when many of them will have endowments per student approaching $1,000,000.</p>

<p>its the ‘poorer’ new england schools that i see struggling. schools like villanova, skidmore, connecticut college, kenyon, bard, sarah lawrence, allegheny and muhlenberg… that, without raising MAJOR money, are going to have trouble either 1) justifying $80000 comprehensive fees or 2) providing enough aid to enroll significant numbers of students at discounted costs.</p>