Schools are reportedly preparing for an “enrollment cliff” that could see high schools and colleges close, staff lay off staff and school districts grappling with financial problems, in part due to a declining U.S. birth rate.
The U.S. is expected to peak in high school graduating in 2025 or 2026, when about 3.9 million young people will graduate. After that, student numbers are expected to decline and schools will experience a decade-long drought known as the “enrollment cliff.” report From Axios.
Falling birth rates, particularly after the 2008 recession, have played a part. Meanwhile, K-12 schools in cities that lost part of their population to the Chinese coronavirus pandemic have also been closed.
Thomas Dee, an economist and professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, told Axios that “public school enrollment has not recovered” since the pandemic, suggesting that parents are continuing to homeschool even after in-person classes have resumed.
According to data from the Western Interstate Commission on Higher Education (WICHE), an organization that studies student demographics and addresses education issues, the number of high school graduates in the United States is expected to decrease by 10.7 percent by 2037, to just 3.5 million.
“I think at this point, people are starting to feel the effects,” Patrick Lane, vice president of policy analysis and research at WICHE, told Axios. “It’s going to make things harder for higher education, not easier.”
“We’re already seeing it in elementary schools. We’re seeing K-12 class sizes shrink,” Lane added. “We always push back against the term ‘cliff.’ It seems more like a peak and then a decline.”
There’s also a looming “fiscal cliff” as schools prepare for COVID-related relief funding to expire this September.
Meanwhile, pro-terror protests are raging on college campuses, bungled Ivy League presidents are being ousted, and a shocked public is questioning the value of expensive college degrees — costs the Biden administration is trying to foot the bill for taxpayers.
according to Gallup PollLast year, Americans’ confidence in higher education fell to 36%, a dramatic drop from 2015 (57%) and 2018 (48%).
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