the Sam Jackson College Experience

Redrawing the College map, NYT july 30 By Jennifer Steinhauer

Source: Interstate Commission for Higher Education; number of students in 2005 and 2015 are projections based on 2001-2 data.

FACT The swelling population of 18-year-olds — members of the demographic behemoth known as the echo boom, offspring of the baby boomers — is expected to peak in 2009, when the largest group of high school seniors in the nation’s history, 3.2 million, are to graduate. While a slow descent is projected to follow, the growing value of a college degree means record high enrollments every year until 2015, according to a June report from the United States Department of Education.

Other headlines like “College Bubble About to Burst” [philly inquirer] … clearly, in terms of college admissions, it’s 1999 and the kool aid is flowing. Or what? Not exactly.

“The nice thing is, you can pretty well predict when someone’s going to turn 18, so we’ve been able to systematically look at this and find a way to sustain our numbers beginning in 2009,” said Barbara Elliott, director of enrollment management at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.

Even so, this big (but gradual) decline in enrollment after this “echo boom” of high school students will be significant. I find demography quite interesting sometimes. Too bad I wasn’t born later so as to benefit from the decreasing applicant pool…