The number of high-school graduates will reach a record high in 2025 and then decline steadily for many years, according to a new report on the latest projections from the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, known as WICHE. During that period, the number of students graduating from public high schools who identify as Hispanic or multiracial will continue to increase while the number of students of all other races and ethnicities will decline.
Those are among the key findings from the latest edition of “Knocking at the College Door,” an analysis WICHE has published every four years since 1979. The report examines birth rates, primary- and secondary-school enrollments, and high-school graduation data to project future graduates. Though the major trends described in WICHE’s latest projections are surely familiar to most anyone with a stake in higher education, the updated forecasts further illuminate enrollment challenges that many institutions will confront in the years to come — if they’re not confronting them already.
“This inflection point comes as other challenges loom,” the report says. “Concerns about college affordability, questions about the value of postsecondary education, and a favorable labor market with relatively high starting wages and low unemployment put additional pressures on already-declining postsecondary enrollment.”
Go ahead, keep calling it the “demographic cliff” if you insist. But WICHE’s detailed projections confirm that what lies ahead resembles a gradual downward slope. “While the cliff metaphor is useful to illustrate the impending demographic shift for policymakers,” the report says, “the reality will be a slower and steadier decline.”
Here’s what you need to know:
- WICHE projects that the number of high-school graduates will peak at 3.8-3.9 million next year and then decline steadily to about 3.4 million in 2041 — a 13-percent drop. That projected decrease is primarily driven by declining birth rates, which have lessened almost every year between 2008 and 2023. Also, the percentage of students graduating from high school has plateaued in recent years, the report says, “suggesting that substantial improvement may not be likely in coming years.”
- Among regions, only the South will see a net increase in high-school graduates (3 percent) between 2023 and 2041, according to the projections. The Northeast (-17 percent), Midwest (-16 percent), and West (-20 percent) will see declines. A total of 38 states will see a decline in high-school graduates. And five states with large populations — California, Illinois, Michigan, New York, and Pennsylvania — will account for three-quarters of the total projected decline nationally. During that time, a handful of states will see significant increases, including Tennessee (15 percent), South Carolina (14 percent), and Florida (12 percent).
- The number of white students graduating from public high schools will decline by about 26 percent between 2023 and 2041, WICHE projects. By the latter date, white students will make up about 39 percent of all public-school graduates, down from 47 percent (detailed data on the race and ethnicity of private-school graduates are not available, the report says).
- Hispanic students will make up approximately 36 percent of all public high-school graduates by 2041, up from 27 percent in 2023. Meanwhile, the number of Black graduates will decline sharply (-22 percent), as will the number of American Indian/Alaska Native graduates (-41 percent).
- The number of Asian American students will increase by about 7,000 students between 2023 and 2034, while the number of Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander students will increase by about 1,000. But projections for those two groups can be listed separately only until 2034, the report says, because of changes to federal definitions for racial and ethnic categories. The number of students in the combined subgroup will decrease by about 10 percent between 2023 and 2041.
- The number of graduates identifying as multiracial is projected to nearly double by 2041, when such students would represent about 7 percent of all public-school graduates.
- The Covid-19 pandemic caused fluctuations in K-12 enrollments, adding “substantial uncertainty across all levels of education.” Though the impact on the first few graduating classes after the pandemic began was apparently limited, WICHE found, enrollments in earlier grades are lower than previously projected, which resulted in slightly lower estimates of future graduating classes. “The available information does not provide clear conclusions,” the report says, “about what has happened to these students nor about whether the impacts have affected different student populations more than others.”
“Knocking at the College Door” includes several recommendations for confronting demographic shifts, including greater investment in affordability strategies, reducing the complexity of the admissions and financial-aid processes, and enhancing wraparound support for students.
“Postsecondary enrollment has been dropping for several years, even as the number of high-school graduates has been increasing,” the report concludes. “If higher education collectively cannot ensure its relevancy, demonstrate its value to students, and improve student outcomes like retention and completion, these demographic trends will exacerbate the existing enrollment trends, leading to substantial drops in the number of students, increased work-force shortages, and fundamental financial difficulties for many tuition-dependent institutions.”
