<p>I agree with much of what tokenadult says, with a couple of caveats. First, the “flight to quality” tokenadult describes also affects yield rates, another factor pushing down overall acceptance rates. More kids than ever who are accepted to HYPSM end up going there, and the generous no-loan financial aid packages some of these schools now offer will likely only further increase their yields. </p>
<p>Second, I think you need to dig a little deeper than overall numbers of HS-age kids to get at what the demographic trends foretell. Most state universities, and even the very best LACs, tend to draw heavily from a regional applicant pool. But projections on the number of HS graduates vary widely by region, with most of the Northeast and parts of the Midwest expected to see a sharp drop in HS grads, while parts of the South and Southwest will experience sharp increases, potentially affecting application and acceptance rates at regionally-skewed schools.</p>
<p>For example, Haverford gets almost 2/3 of its entering class (64%) from the Northeast (New England and and Mid-Atlantic). Similarly, Wesleyan gets 61% of its entering students from the Northeast. Most public universities in the region draw 75% or more of their students from in-state. Unless the LACs aggressively expand their recruiting in the growing areas of the Southeast and Southwest (which they will surely try to do, but with uncertain prospects of success), they could see real shrinkage in their applicant pools. As might public institutions in the Northeast and Midwest.</p>
<p>Second, college participation rates vary widely by race/ethnicity and by income. Generally, Asians are the most likely to attend college, followed closely by middle- and upper-income whites. African-American, Hispanic, and Native American college participation rates lag considerably, as do rates of college participation among lower-income families of all racial and ethnic groups. But the number of white middle- and upper-class HS graduates is expected to fall sharply in most of the country, while Asians, African-Americans, and Hispanics will make up a much larger proportion of a generally declining pool of high-school aged students. Given lower rates of HS graduation and lower rates of college participation in these groups, the size and composition of the college applicant pool could change considerably in the years to come, again with a heavy regional skew.</p>
<p>Some illustrative figures:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>According to one widely cited study, the overall number of HS grads nationally is expected to decline only modestly from 3.34 million in 2008 to 3.19 million in 2014 (-4.5%), but the decline in the Northeast (New England & Mid-Atlantic) will be much sharper, from 625,000 in 2008 to 552,000 in 2014 (-11.7%), potentially enough to shrink applicant pools at state universities and LACs in the region.</p></li>
<li><p>In the Northeast, the number of non-Hispanic whites graduating from HS—the group statistically likeliest to attend college—is expected to decline from 380,000 in the peak year of 2008, to a projected low of 293,000 in 2022, a rather substantial 22.9% drop. This will be only partially offset by a modest increase in the region in Asian HS grads (also highly likely to attend college), from 28,000 to 45,000 over the same period. Thus the Northeast region will not only experience an overall decline in HS grads in this period, but it will also see a dramatic change in the racial/ethnic composition of the HS grad pool, with Hispanics comprise a significantly larger share and non-Hispanic whites representing a much smaller share. Unless Hispanic college participation rates increase sharply, it appears very likely that the pool of college applicants from the Northeast will decline, perhaps substantially, and possibly to the detriment of public universities and LACs drawing mainly from this regional applicant pool. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>This doesn’t necessarily imply a significant easing of competitive pressure for college admissions. HYPSM will probably be harder than ever to get into. Schools in the South and Southwest will likely be bursting at the seams will applicants from regional and state-specific growth in their applicant pools. But Northeastern LACs will need to beat the bushes to find replacements for a shrinking pool of Northeastern applicants, and many state schools in the Northeast and Midwest may see declines in the absolute numbers and quality of in-state applicants. The elite publics will need to be more open than ever to OOS applicants to maintain the caliber of their student bodies, and more state schools may need to consider a less discriminatory posture toward OOS applicants.</p>