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California State University system sees unprecedented decline in enrollment

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Re: California State University system sees unprecedented decline in enrollment

#31

Post by shagie »

khazhoux wrote: post #6
panzagl wrote: post #3

I know when my daughter started college 5 years ago, the dean was up front that there was a demographic cliff coming up, I wonder how much of the decline is that.

what's a "demographic cliff"?

https://www.census.gov/newsroom/blogs/random-samplings/2016/... (also linked in sibling)

Presumably, the school was built / staffed for a certain regular enrollment that reflected some percentage of the people in state.

For California specifically:

https://data.census.gov/profile/California?g=040XX00US06

You can see the peak of 25-30 somethings, and then it drops off.

When you start looking out at the 15-19s there are 400,000 fewer than the 25-29s (roughly 3M -> 2.6M). That then means that enrollment is going to drop and things will need to be cut.

The school that I went to for grade school was built for baby boomers. It was large, and the next town over likewise had a large school. When I went it was a bit empty, not too bad though. It picked up again with the echo.

The towns have recently closed half of each school and combined classes because there isn't enough students to keep two sets of classes running at reasonable funding levels (having a class of five 3rd graders and six 4th graders is great for student to teacher ratios ... not so much the budget of a small rural school).

Re: California State University system sees unprecedented decline in enrollment

#32

Post by mik1998 »

Escapado wrote: post #21
throwup238 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CSU is the cheaper state university system in California. It costs like $6,000 per year for in-state students. If they were waking up to the con game, more would be going there.

Which is still about twice of what I paid for my entire bachelors and masters education in germany and it included a ticket for the entire public transport system in my city for the entire 5 years and full access to _very_ comprehensive library (of both physical books and e-books so there was no need to buy even a single book during my studies). I may speak from a perspective of ignorance here but I believe 6000$ a y…

It's an infinity% more than what I paid for university in Poland

Re: California State University system sees unprecedented decline in enrollment

#33

Post by yodon »

lxm wrote: post #13
KerrAvon wrote: post #4

The article is pretty light on facts. I wish there was some real analysis here. There's no shame in going to CSU traditionally; lots of great schools in the system and certainly fine alumni.

Probably a better link but PDF https://collegecampaign.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/2023_...

That's a MUCH better link. The data in it makes clear what we are seeing is a flight to quality.

The top ranked, best known Cal State schools saw enrollment grow. The lesser known and lower ranked Cal State schools saw enrollment fall. There are more lesser known Cal State schools than top ranked Cal State schools, so on average the system saw a decline.

The California Community College system (lower ranked than Cal State) saw enrollment fall more than the lower ranked Cal State Schools, and the University of California system (higher ranked than Cal State) saw enrollment grow more than the upper ranked Cal State schools.

Re: California State University system sees unprecedented decline in enrollment

#34

Post by shagie »

pavon wrote: post #27
neogodless wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.census.gov/newsroom/blogs/random-samplings/2016/... Take a look at the 20-24 and 15-19 age groups. Note that 15-19 is smaller, and consider that members of that age group will move up to the next group over the next 5 years. They're also entering typical college age. Now, in this chart, it's far from a "cliff", but it is smaller, so that would mean that you could reasonably expect a lower enrollment since…

Note that chart is from 2015, here is a more recent one[1]. There is no drop in current college age students, in fact the birth rate saw slight growth in the decade leading up to today's 18 year olds. There has since been a significant decrease in birth rate, but it shouldn't have affected college enrollment yet. Edit: Enginerrrd posted data[2] with more fidelity than the 5-year bins both of our charts were using, an…

That's US wide. Consider the population pyramid for California only https://data.census.gov/profile/California?g=040XX00US06 and the buckets for 15-19, 10-14, and 5-9 and consider what that will look like for college enrollment in 5 and 10 years.

Re: California State University system sees unprecedented decline in enrollment

#35

Post by ramesh31 »

Escapado wrote: post #21
throwup238 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CSU is the cheaper state university system in California. It costs like $6,000 per year for in-state students. If they were waking up to the con game, more would be going there.

Which is still about twice of what I paid for my entire bachelors and masters education in germany and it included a ticket for the entire public transport system in my city for the entire 5 years and full access to _very_ comprehensive library (of both physical books and e-books so there was no need to buy even a single book during my studies). I may speak from a perspective of ignorance here but I believe 6000$ a y…

>I may speak from a perspective of ignorance here but I believe 6000$ a year is still prohibitively expensive for a lot of people, especially if they don't want to accrue debt.

Reality is almost no one pays that. Out of state and international students are just about the only folks paying tuition at CSU. Nearly everyone else is covered by the various state/federal grants, and community colleges are essentially free.

Re: California State University system sees unprecedented decline in enrollment

#36

Post by juris »

The covid kids are graduating high school. Imagine the effect quarantine had on the lives of these kids; the distrust. The disparity of the quality of education between socioeconomic strata during that time. Maybe an indicator of mass ennui, accelerated by the lack of affordability here.

Re: California State University system sees unprecedented decline in enrollment

#37

Post by darth_avocado »

throwup238 wrote: post #7
readthenotes1 wrote: post #5

The headline could read: Parents and children are waking up to the student loan con game.

CSU is the cheaper state university system in California. It costs like $6,000 per year for in-state students. If they were waking up to the con game, more would be going there.

It's not just the cost of tuition, cost of attendance in California is extremely high because cost of living in California is extremely high. You'd have to compare it with enrollments across the country.

Re: California State University system sees unprecedented decline in enrollment

#38

Post by kkylin »

Enginerrrd wrote: post #24

Is this really surprising? Let's just look at US demographics right now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Sta... Looking at the chart, I'd expect to have seen a drop in enrollments among those younger than early to mid 20's over the last few years. 6% easily seems en par with the demographics shift. If that reasoning is correct, we'll see a slight recovery or stabilization peaking in about 5 y…

I work at a large state university in the US, and none of this is a surprise. It is in part general population trends, in part a significant drop in birthrates around the 2008 recession. COVID didn't help -- the number of foreign students paying out-of-state tuition (which subsidizes everyone else to some extent) also dropped. These trends do not hit all universities and colleges evenly however.

Re: California State University system sees unprecedented decline in enrollment

#39

Post by BryantD »

wnevets wrote: post #25

> According to the Education Data Initiative, college enrollment statistics indicate that more Americans are forgoing higher education; “some may be putting off college attendance to build savings.” Less demand should reduce the price to attend, right?

Depends on whether or not there are economies of scale.

Re: California State University system sees unprecedented decline in enrollment

#40

Post by mertd »

Enginerrrd wrote: post #24

Is this really surprising? Let's just look at US demographics right now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Sta... Looking at the chart, I'd expect to have seen a drop in enrollments among those younger than early to mid 20's over the last few years. 6% easily seems en par with the demographics shift. If that reasoning is correct, we'll see a slight recovery or stabilization peaking in about 5 y…

Population pyramid is the new population density meme.

https://xkcd.com/1138/

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