Making Room for College Learners
Traditional predictions of high school graduates over the next 10 or more years suggested that in 2009 the U.S. would reach a new high level, after which a decline in numbers would begin. Such cycles of rise and fall are not new—a precipitous downward cycle occurred during the 1980s after the baby-boomers had completed their postsecondary education. Estimates had pointed to 2009 as a beginning of the downward cycle of college enrollment.
Continuing education administrators have been watching that date and the projections, too. Typically, as the traditional age college student market retreats, continuing education administrators fly into the breach, building continuing education programs for nontraditional learners to maintain college revenue and fill the tuition revenue void. After years of attending to that date as the beginning of a new famine, we are told in a new NCES report that high school graduation numbers will not decline. In fact, they will increase 10 percent, from 2.9 million in 2002 to 3.2 million in 2014.
Each year, many more colleges have become increasingly competitive in their acceptance percentage, and they tout their restrictiveness. Meanwhile, we are told that the U.S. has declined from #1 to #7 among nations in percentage of students who receive a college degree (CBSNews.com). Frankly, we don’t have the campus infrastructure to accommodate, say a 25 percent increase in college students. As a nation we ought to be targeting growth even beyond 2014 by engaging more diverse populations of learners through technology, distance learning, continuing education and hybrid courses. But first, we need national, state and institutional strategies to advance the goal of extending postsecondary education to many more who deserve to participate.