:: The 4th Era ::

by Janet Lorin

summary by Carnegie Perspectives

"The number of U.S. university students declined by almost half a million last year, following years of growth, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The decrease was driven by students 25 and older, with 419,000 fewer enrolled in the fall of 2012 from a year earlier, according to data the Census Bureau released today. The number of college students younger than 25 also declined. The cost of college continues to rise as the population of college-age students drops. After two decades of growth, the number of high-school graduates probably peaked at 3.4 million in the 2010-2011 school year, the Western Interstate Commission on Higher Education said in January. College enrollment at the undergraduate and graduate levels had grown to 3.2 million between 2006 and 2011 before the decline. "

by Richard Perez-Pena

"College enrollment fell 2 percent in 2012-13, the first significant decline since the 1990s, but nearly all of that drop hit for-profit and community colleges; now, signs point to 2013-14 being the year when traditional four-year, nonprofit colleges begin a contraction that will last for several years. The college-age population is dropping after more than a decade of sharp growth, and many adults who opted out of a forbidding job market and went back to school during the recession have been drawn back to work by the economic recovery.

"Hardest hit are likely to be colleges that do not rank among the wealthiest or most prestigious, and are heavily dependent on tuition revenue, raising questions about their financial health — even their survival."