| | |

Is It Really a Cliff? Exploring the Future of Enrollments in Higher Education

ByBlake Decker

For a number of years, much of the talk in higher education circles has been about the pending ‘enrollment cliff’ that is projected to have widespread effect over the course of the next 10-15 years. The publication of Demographics and the Demand for Higher Education (Grawe, 2018) brought the concept of the ‘demographic cliff’ to the forefront of our common vernacular, linking demographic shifts of the past 20 years to an ‘enrollment cliff’ for higher education. To understand these trends, we will be exploring many data points across a series of blog posts related to the future of enrollments in higher education. For this blog post, we are starting at the beginning with a focus on natality data nationally and at the state level.

the ‘birth dearth’ in the usa and texas

There is no secret that the number of births in the United States has been declining for the better part of two decades. Using CDC Natality data, the number of live births in America declined by 17 percent from a high of 4.32 million in 2007 to 3.6 million in 2023. This 17-percent decrease in live births coincides with a 6-percent increase in the number of females between the ages of 15 and 44 during that same time period (62.3M in 2007 to 66M in 2023). In the visualization to the right, there have been two slight recoveries in live births from 2007 to 2023. One occurred in 2014-2015 and another in 2021-2022, although both were followed by decreases in subsequent years. The window from 2015-2020 will be important as we look at other variables moving forward in our blog series.

BIRTH COUNTS: Turning our attention to state-level data, the ‘Birth Counts’ visualization below shows the four states in America that have exceeded 200,000 live births each year from 2003 to 2023. Particularly of note is the decreasing gap between California and Texas. Since 2007, Texas experienced a 4.3-percent decrease in live births (408K in 2007 to 388K in 2023), while California saw a 29.4-percent decrease (566K in 2007 to 400K in 2023). By comparison, the total population in Texas increased by 28 percent during this time frame (23.8M in 2007 to 30.5M in 2023), with California’s total population growing by 7.5 percent (36.3M in 2007 to 38.9M in 2023).

FERTILITY RATES: Another metric published by the CDC is fertility rates per 1,000 females between the ages of 15 and 44. The fertility rate is calculated as: # of births/(# of females between ages of 15-44/1,000). In the ‘Fertility Rates’ graph below, the four states from the birth counts are shown with Utah, South Dakota, and the USA rates for comparison.

  • Since 2007, the state of Utah has seen the most precipitous decline in fertility rates in the country, falling 38 percent from 95.7 live births per 1,000 females (ages 15-44) in 2007 to 59.6 in 2023. Utah experienced an 18-percent decrease in live births in Utah (55K in 2007 to 45K in 2023) and a 31-percent increase in the female (ages 15-44) population (576K in 2007 to 755K in 2023), falling from its long-held position as the state with the highest fertility rates to ranking 8th overall in 2023.
  • Texas decreased by 23.5 percent from a peak fertility rate of 79.2 in 2007 to 60.6 in 2023, placing Texas 5th in highest fertility rates by states in 2023. Even though live births in Texas have remained relatively steady, especially in comparison to other states and the national totals, Texas experienced a 24.3-percent increase in the female (ages 15-44) population from 5.1M in 2007 to 6.4M in 2023.
  • California’s fertility rate dropped 30.5 percent from 72.6 in 2007 to 50.4 in 2023. California had an almost 30-percent drop in the number of live births from 2007-2023 and a 1.6-percent increase in the female population from 7.8M in 2007 to 7.9M in 2023.
  • Nationally, the USA fertility rate per 1,000 females fell 21.3 percent (69.3 in 2007 to 54.5 in 2023). Overall, the United States saw a 6-percent increase in the female population (ages 15-44) from 62.3M in 2007 to 66M in 2023 while experiencing a 17-percent decrease nationally in live births from 2007 to 2023.

So What?

There is no denying institutions of higher education are already feeling the effects of the demographic cliff in terms of enrollment drops. The National Center for Education Statistics’ (NCES) most recent data show an overall 15-percent drop in total undergraduate fall enrollment in degree-granting postsecondary institutions from 18M in 2010 to 15.4M in 2022, although undergraduate enrollment appears to have rebounded slightly during the past two fall terms. For the most part, Texas universities have been relatively immune to headcount drops during this timeframe, with 12-percent growth in overall enrollment across all public universities from fall 2014 to fall 2023.

However, the ‘Birth Counts’ visualization above has increased concern about future enrollment drops. For Texans, the 8.8-percent drop in live births from 404K in 2015 to 368K in 2020 has raised concern related to the enrollment pipeline in 2033-2038, when the babies born between 2015 and 2020 will be turning 18-years-old and graduating from high school. Projections related to these two data points will serve as the topic of our next blog post in this series on the future of enrollment in higher education.