Plunging US Birth Rate Leaves Too Many Colleges with Too Few Kids

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2026-college-enrollment-cliff/

27•toomuchtodo•1h ago

Comments

toomuchtodo•1h ago

https://archive.today/m9Jyf

https://www.wiche.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/2024-Knocki...

https://sheeo.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/SHEEO_NSCRC_Col...

taurath•1h ago

Maybe someday there will be more attention paid to adults. Every aspect of college seems built for 18 year olds.

helterskelter•21m ago

Honestly I would love to go back to college for studying $THING. And then I think about the kids there and decide I'd rather stay away. That and the stupid shit schools do to make sure you aren't using AI.

No thanks, I'd rather watch lectures on YouTube and go to the library. I don't need any diploma, I only want enrichment.

nullc•2m ago

> That and the stupid shit schools do to make sure you aren't using AI.

What makes you think they care? https://youtu.be/JcQPAZP7-sE?t=881

I've been following a conman fantisist for a number of years and of late he's gone full LLM powered and has been churning out graduate degrees from respectable sounding places. Years ago he merely claimed to have varrious degrees, but now with the help of chatgpt he's just pumping them out.

While I'm sure a few places care many very clearly don't.

nradov•1h ago

"Peak College" has passed. The first and second tier colleges will still do fine but many of the third tier colleges are doomed. They'll have to reinvent themselves as trade schools or corporate training centers or something if they want to survive. The job market for tenure track professors will get even tougher.

techblueberry•1h ago

Maybe third tier colleges can start rebranding and advertising the “Animal House Experience”

esafak•37m ago

Hasn't that experience been long over? I was of the belief that recent generations are much tamer.

rangestransform•18m ago

It’ll be impossible to replicate the college experience without some kind of shared stressor like classes and exams. It’s the same deal in military training where collective suffering is used to instill a sense of camaraderie amongst recruits from various places and backgrounds.

dfajgljsldkjag•59m ago

It is crazy to see how much the birth rates dropped after the recession and how that is finally hurting colleges. I guess a lot of the smaller schools will just have to close if they cannot find enough students to enroll.

lotsofpulp•54m ago

Technically, the number of high school graduates dropping wouldn’t have affected colleges yet if enrollment rates kept going up, but they have also declined (only a couple percent for now, but I bet that trend continues).

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cpb/college-enrol...

Also, seeing only 40% of high school graduates going to college is a wake up call to how much I don’t interact with people outside my bubble, because I don’t know anyone whose kids didn’t go to college in the last 20 years.

debo_•23m ago

Pretty soon we'll call trying to have children "giving it the old college try."

mixmastamyk•16m ago

Maybe they’ll you know, lower their prices so more people can afford it. Haha.

synergy20•1m ago

Surprised because I learned today UT Austin had so many applications(100K) that they can only issue 25% admissions and had to put off the rest 75% for one extra month. It made me feel college is still "crowded" to me.

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