This is a moment for higher education 18 years in the making. By the latest estimates, 2025 will be the year that the number of high school graduates peak. The long-dreaded demographic cliff — caused by declining birth rates starting in 2007 — is coming. But the coming decline in traditional-aged college students might not be a “cliff,” exactly, and it doesn’t necessarily spell a disaster for the nation’s colleges. In its latest forecasts of future high school graduate numbers, the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education described a more gradual drop over the next 15 years than the cliff metaphor suggests, though it also project
