Illustration: USN&WR | Credit: Roberto Moiola, Getty Images

The higher education sector is facing mounting pressure from multiple fronts. An increasingly contentious political climate, concerns about affordability and job availability, challenges to academic freedom and cuts in research funding have placed colleges and universities at a critical crossroads. Simmering beneath these already significant challenges is a persistent concern: how institutions will sustain enrollment going forward.

For years, headlines have warned that a sharp drop in college-going students is just around the corner, driven largely by declining birth rates and the resulting decrease in the population of traditional college-aged students who matriculate directly from high school. This projected “enrollment cliff” – also referred to as the “demographic cliff” – has taken on an almost boogeyman status so unsettling that many institutions have been reluctant to confront it directly.

Should you ever be pushed off a cliff, you should hope it looks like the enrollment declines chart – not as steep as it’s made out to be.

The demographic trends are real and backed by solid data, but the narrative – one of a sudden, catastrophic plunge – misses the mark. In reality, what higher education faces is more of an uneven hill. The change, it turns out, is gradual, running into the 2040s. It’s also not uniform across regions or institutions. Most importantly, it’s not inevitable that this slope leads to disaster. With the right choices, colleges and universities can turn a potentially steep drop into something closer to a manageable bunny........

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