This blog has documented the rapid rise of elementary school closures, which is now extending to middle and high school as well. Here in the U.S. this is just about to start impacting university enrollments too as this is the year the leading edge of the shrinking youth cohort will begin to enter college.
In Japan, plummeting university enrollment forecasts what’s ahead for the U.S. (hechingerreport.org)
The number of 18-year-olds here has dropped by nearly half in just three decades, from more than 2 million in 1990 to 1.1 million now. It’s projected to further decline to 880,000 by 2040, according to the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.
That’s taken a dramatic toll on colleges and universities, with severe consequences for society and economic growth — a situation now also being faced by the United States, where the number of 18-year-olds has begun to drop in some states and soon will fall nationwide.
To deal with the much smaller youth population, universities have lowered entrance requirements, leading to a perception that new college students might not be as well qualified as the past, or their contemporary foreign competitors.
In the U.S., college enrollment has declined by 11% since 2010. The next ten years will probably see an additional 10 to 15% decline, just due to a smaller population. With fewer grads competing in a low unemployment work force, more young will likely skip college all together. Thus, the decline could be even steeper.
In the U.S., we have college educated too many people. There are reports that half of all workers are in positions that do not require a college degree. We over educated our workforce because for decades, the baby boom dramatically increased the supply of labor. Employers used college degrees as a filter to reduce the over supply of workers. Today, we have 3.4% unemployment, much lower than the historical trend.
And there is a significant side effect of college enrollment drops: Enrollment declines threaten the economic futures of college towns | Higher Ed Dive
