Years after the publication of Nathan Grawe’s 2017 book Demographics and the Demand for Higher Education, there is still extensive discussion about how to best approach the impending enrollment cliff. Writing in The CPA Journal, Copley and Douthett (2020) cite research indicating that the college-age population will decrease by 15 percent between 2025 and 2029 as a result of the recession-related dip in the birthrate some 17 years earlier. Some types of institutions and some regions of the US will be hit harder hit than others. Institutions that have built a fiscal strategy on the assumption of steadily increasing enrollments will have a serious wake-up call.
Connections Are Everything: Putting Relationships at the Heart of Higher Ed
As academic leaders, we are under so much pressure to deliver—enrollment targets, strategic plans, graduation rates, AI policies, and on and on—that we can lose sight of what our students
Isis Artze-Vega, Leo M. Lambert, and Peter Felten
March 4, 2024
