College Enrollment Is Declining

An article in today's New York Times on the rising cost of college includes the following sentence: "Although college enrollment has continued to rise in recent years...it is not clear how long that can continue."

I have posted on this topic before, and I will say it again: college enrollment is already declining. Traditional college enrollment--meaning undergraduates attending four-year schools full-time--fell 4 percent between 2005 and 2006 (the latest data available).

This dramatic reversal of the long-term trend is being masked by an enrollment surge at community colleges. All this was underway BEFORE the current economic collapse. The next few years are going to be very tough indeed for high-priced private four-year colleges.