<p>This article was in today's Brown Daily Herald:</p>
<p>Study:</a> colleges to see fewer applicants until 2015 - Higher Ed</p>
<p>"the class of 2015 will be the trough"</p>
<p>That works well for S; yay!</p>
<p>I wouldn't cheer too loudly. The projected "trough" is less than 4% below this year's figure, roughly equivalent to the college class of 2009. Most "top" colleges, very broadly defined, have seen mid-double-digit applications growth in the past three years, far in excess of the modest increase in the number of U.S. high school graduates. Increased numbers of applications per student, increased interest in national colleges, and increased foreign applications (remember -- our national fiscal policies have represented a massive price cut to international students during a period when many countries are seeing huge increases in wealth and demand for higher education with little or no expansion of domestic capacity) -- they are all likely to offset the shallow dip in U.S. high school graduates for selective colleges. In addition, there has been a fairly robust long-term trend of a higher percentage of high school graduates going to college. It isn't clear whether that will continue, mainly because it isn't clear how the behavior of Hispanic high school students -- whose numbers are growing, and whose college attendance rate is relatively low -- is going to develop. </p>
<p>Second- and third-tier colleges and community colleges in the Northeast and upper Midwest will surely feel pain. All of them have a strategy for adapting. Most have relatively few tenured faculty anyway, and rely heavily on adjuncts and part-time teachers. They can contract fairly easily. Some institutions will refocus or repurpose themselves. Some may close. Some are learning how to recruit students in Asia. But that's going to do nothing to alleviate the "frenzy" around highly rated private colleges and popular public flagships.</p>
<p>I agree with JHS, this may not work out like you think. International student are increasing (many have excellent stats), and more U.S. kids have figured out that they really need to go to college to improve their long-run lot in life. So their may be a dip in U.S. HS grads, but these other forces may countervail them.</p>