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.