Phildelphia Inquirer: College ‘bubble’ is about to burst
These are bountiful days for colleges and universities, inundated as they are with more and better applicants than ever.
Schools that less than a decade ago were eagerly accepting any remotely qualified student have the luxury of turning away even standouts, confident in the knowledge that plenty of stronger candidates are lined up to pay tuition.
But it won’t last much longer.
Fueling the current college admissions frenzy are the “baby boomletters” born in the late 1980s and early ’90s. By 2009, the last of them will reach college age, heralding the first sustained decline in the number of graduating high school students in nearly two decades.
The drop is expected to be about 4 percent nationwide, but far sharper in the Northeast, according to the U.S. Department of Education. In Pennsylvania, a 10 percent decline is predicted. New Jersey’s larger, and growing, Latino and Asian student populations mean that state probably will fare better than most, with an anticipated drop of just 2 percent.
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