Hold On--The College Frenzy Is Going to Pass
If you have a child, or know of a child, who is awaiting the "verdicts" on college applications, you know the pressure and anxiety that accompanies the process. Each year, for the past several years, the tension has been increasing. But all that is likely to ease--though not in time to help out this year's contingent. Specifically, the demographics are changing.
After a 15 year period of steady growth, the annual number of high school graduates in the United States will peak at about 2.9 million. The number is then expected to decline until about 2015. Most universities expect this to translate into fewer applications and with that, less selectivity. As a result, most students are like to find it easier to get into college.
Daniel Fogel, president of the University of Vermont put it this way, “For the high school graduate, this becomes a buyers’ market.†Nevertheless, the struggle to win entry to the most prestigious universities such as Harvard, Yale, Columbia and Stanford is likely to continue.
The demographic changes include sharp geographic, social and economic variations. Experts anticipate, for example, a decline in affluent high school graduates, and an increase in poor and working-class ones. In response, colleges and universities are already increasing their recruitment of students in high-growth states and expanding their financial-aid offerings to low-income students with academic potential. Nationally, the population decline is projected to be relatively gentle, with the number of high school graduates expected to fall in the Northeast and Midwest, while continuing to increase in the South and Southwest.
The changes will also reflect the demographic changes that are taking place in our nation. It is expected that the number of white high school graduates will go down nationally, and the number of African-American graduates will remain relatively steady. But the number of Hispanic and Asian-American graduates is expected to increase sharply.
Colleges are already making adjustments to be ready for the future. For example, Colby College and a number of others in the North have also begun to offer airplane tickets for low-income high school students and their parents from Sun Belt states to visit their campuses. Last summer, Middlebury and Williams flew in 27 college counselors from states where the colleges are not well known.
The new recruiting strategies take many forms. Bucknell, Cornell, Amherst and the University of Michigan are among eight colleges and universities to receive grants from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation to create partnerships with community colleges; the goal is for some of the most promising graduates of two-year schools to transfer to the elite universities for their last two years of college.
Unfortunately, none of this is of much use for students in this year's group. As one student said, when he heard that the competitive frenzy is expected to calm down. “It’s good for my sister,†he said. “Definitely I’m a little jealous.â€
