This incoming class is the last big one before a prolonged decade-plus drop off begins.
Starting this year, the graduating classes of high schools across the country are getting smaller, the result of fewer people having children during the Great Recession and the years after. Even after the economy rebounded, the birth rate kept dropping. The COVID pandemic led to another sharp decline.
This is the beginning of what college officials call the “demographic cliff.” Higher education is one of the few industries that can predict its future customer base far in advance. When college leaders look at the projections of high-school graduates, they see down arrows only every year through 2041 — by then totaling a 13 percent drop overall to 3.4 million high-school graduates from nearly 3.9 million this year.
This makes a lot of sense to me. My hunch is that schools have thought about this. Some, like many of the New England SLACs, have been quite strategic in making their brands desirable beyond their region. And there are some that have not and will likely suffer. Leadership’s vision matters.
Not mentioned in the article are changes we’ve all speculated about on the college closure thread. Might some schools figure out how to deliver a high-focus, low-frills product at a significantly different price point? Where do international students fit into this? How do community colleges change?
I suspect that some of what Selingo anticipates will happen is right on the money, but that there may also be some versions of college that differ from what we know or imagine today. He’s right that it’s not sustainable as is.
I struggle with a 13% drop calling it a “cliff”. Need to layer in international applicants as well (will they tap into that applicant pool more than they had previously?).
The schools on shaky ground today are likely to be most impacted. Students that might have otherwise gone to those schools and were on the bubble for a “better” school now maybe get into that better school.
It depends upon the segment.
T100 schools will likely see a leveling out or even an increase in applications.
Lower ranked schools may see a decrease in applicants and school closures may increase for the most marginal schools in terms of popularity or economics.
And I use the “rankings” precisely because most kids, sadly, 100% believe what USNWR and others are selling.
Less than half of high school graduates go on to a 4 year college/university.
How do we know higher ed will feel the pain? Perhaps the trades will suffer the most.
The sticker price of a 4 year degree is much more likely to reduce enrollment than a shrinking pool of applicants.
I think that high sticker price is exactly why it will be colleges affected and not the trades.
I do think the elite academic schools will be fine. And we’re already seeing the climbing popularity of flagship state schools. I think the danger is most pronounced for colleges below the elite yet still expensive. Value shoppers will avoid them and the smart and/or rich will want something better academically or reputationally.
Some potentially offsetting effects drawing on Common App’s latest reporting:
The number of applications per applicant appears to keep rising.
There has been some gap-closing in first-gen and low-income application rates.
Growing International applicants had been contributing until this last cycle, and that might come back.
Collectively these effects have meant both applicants and even more so applications have been increasing significantly faster than US HS graduates, and actually there was a notable acceleration post-COVID.
OK, so HS graduate levels starting to decline may slow this effect down, but I am not at all sure either applicants or applications will actually go negative. I think there is a decent chance this combination of other effects will more than offset the expected declines in HS graduates for at least quite a while longer.
Like the overall rate of increase in applicants has been about 6% a year since 2015-16, and applications has been about 10% per year since 2015-16, and still 5% and 8% this last year despite the International leveling off.
The HS graduate population has only been increasing something like 0.7% annualized, so almost all of that increase has NOT been caused by HS graduate population increases.
The projections in question are then US HS graduations are going to go to something like -0.8% annualized over the next 15 years, a net swing of 1.5%. But subtracting 1.5% from 5-6% is still an increase in applicants, and further increases in applications per applicant would keep adding even more growth in applications.
That said, we are already seeing declining applications and enrollments in some parts of the system, even as applications and rejections keep increasing in other parts of the system. And so even if the overall applicant and applications trends stay positive, if they even just slow down that could accelerate the declines in some parts of the system.
Applicants and applications using The Common Application may not be demographically representative of the entire US college-bound population.
Enrollment cliff has to be the most misleading term ever.
I’d be surprised to see it come back this year. A lot (probably the vast majority) of last cycle’s applicants would have applied before the change in administration and issues with international students and visas that followed. While some would have known the administration would change (election was between most EA/ED1 deadlines vs the ED2 /RD ones) I don’t think many realized how quickly and sharply the landscape would change. It’s certainly going to be interesting to see the report for this year’s cycle.
(anecdotal, but I personally know of one potential applicant who decided to apply to Australia and the UK instead. This person is not of a demographic background that might be expected to be disadvantaged, either - simply uncomfortable with the entire situation. )
Certainly true.
I think for things like “national” universities and colleges, Common App data is a useful proxy for the overall applicant pool to such institutions.
For things like commuter or mostly local public colleges and universities, not so much, and in fact really the very idea of an overall applicant pool makes little sense. They are each facing their own individual applicant pool dynamics, which already have sometimes dramatically differed from the Common App pool.
Yes, I was more thinking on the time frame of the projected US demographic effect in question, which is projected to happen gradually through 2041. That’s 16 cycles, give or take, and over that time frame I think it is plausible International applicant growth could return and indeed accelerate.
Over the next few cycles, though, I would not make such a prediction. And of course even that longer-term possibility is just a “might come back” sort of thing.
I do believe on a fundamental level the US higher education system has a lot of attractions, and I think there is a growing population of ex-US potential students with the combination of preparation and financial means they need to make use of the US system, and I think for demographic and other reasons it makes sense for many US higher education institutions to want to market themselves in that growing potential market.
But they are not in complete control of how marketable they can be, which is a rather dry way of putting what is very much currently happening. So we shall have to see what unfolds over the next 16 cycles overall.
However, which schools use The Common Application affects applicant demographics. For example, The Common Application recently had a large rise in Texas applicants. The apparent reason is that many Texas public universities began allowing The Common Application to be used, in addition to the Apply Texas application.
Note that this also affects the demographics of applicants using Apply Texas.
Would just point out that California publics also do not use the common app and the flagship UCs are among the colleges that attract the highest number of applicants. According to one website, UCLA, UCSD, Cal and UCI are the four colleges at the top of the table with the most applicants (followed by NYU in 5th place), then UCSB in 6th place and UCDavis in 8th.
Also a good point. I tend to mostly prefer looking at multi-year trends which can help smooth some of that out, but for sure in the end there is “noise” in this data for various reasons.
Yes, and in fact if they ever did allow it, it would cause a huge one-time change in Common App data. You’d obviously have to adjust for that if you were using Common App data for trend analysis.
Certainly it would noticeably change the public/private breakdown the common app provides.
Really excited to announce that we are hosting an exclusive AMA w/ Jeff Selingo on Oct 30 @ 7pm ET where he can answer questions about the book, as well as college admissions or how to create a “Dream Schools” college list. You can submit questions on the event page here: