Colleges face a new reality, as the number of high schools graduates will decline
An increase in low-income and minority-group students will challenge colleges to serve them better
The nation’s colleges and universities will soon face a demographic reckoning: A new report projects that the total number of high school graduates will decline in the next two decades, while the percentage of lower-income and nonwhite students will increase.
The report challenges colleges to increase the percentage of students from all demographic groups entering college and earning degrees. While more students in recent years have been enrolling in postsecondary institutions, the U.S. has struggled to enable more to graduate with a bachelor’s or associate’s degree. According to one respected tally, just under 55 percent of students who entered college in 2010 had earned degrees after six years – an increase of two percentage points since 2009.
For higher education institutions to continue at that pace or boost it, they’ll need to find new ways of educating a student body increasingly composed of people who are the first in their family to enter college. And because those students tend to have fewer financial resources, colleges may feel pressure to expend more resources to help students handle the costs of college.
“Well prepared, well resourced, full-pay students: Those are the students all institutions want because they help them meet their bottom line,” said Joe Garcia, president of the organization that released Tuesday’s report, the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education. “But there are fewer and fewer of those students as a percentage of the total.”
Though the country’s number of high school graduates grew by 30 percent between 1995 and 2013, to 3.47 million students, by next year colleges will see a high school graduating cohort that is smaller by 81,000 students – a dip of 2.3 percent. After a few years of some Colleges face a new reality, as the number of high schools graduates will decline - The Hechinger Report: