Higher education’s future hinges on whether Gen Z values college and believes it’s affordable. Colleges have already been grappling with multi-year enrollment declines, and they are now staring down the so-called demographic cliff — an expected dropoff in high school graduates starting around 2026 due to declining birth rates during the Great Recession.
“Enrollment rates will, likely at best, remain stagnant — and, at worst, decline,” Tara Nicola, a senior consultant at Gallup, wrote in a report summarizing the survey results.
