The graduating classes of 2025 and 2026 will likely experience a unique milestone: the peak of high school graduates in the United States, followed by a decline in years to come. In 2025, about 3.9 million seniors will graduate across the country. However, by 2027, there will be a 10.7% decrease of a projected 3.5 million graduates.
One of the primary factors behind this decline is the drop in annual birth rates. They’ve dropped since the 2008 economic recession, but in 2023, the U.S. recorded its lowest amount of births since 1979. However, fewer births aren’t the only factor contributing to the decline of the graduating class of seniors.
Both schools and colleges are closing, especially K-12 schools in cities that lost population due to the pandemic. With fewer students in classes, school districts face difficult financial decisions. Declining enrollment results in reduced per-student funding, forcing some schools to cut extracurricular programs, sports, and even staff. For many schools, pandemic-era relief money expired in September 2024, creating a financial dilemma. Colleges suffered from the FAFSA conflict at the hands of the Department of Education. Primarily, small liberal arts schools are closing.
In 2023, Americans’ confidence in higher education fell to 36%—it was 57% in 2015 and then fell to 48% in 2018. Much of the blame points to the pandemic, as there has not been a rebound in public school enrollment since. During the first full school year after the pandemic’s peak (2021-2022), there was a nationwide enrollment decline of 1.1 million students in K-12 schools, with a third of that amount involving kindergarteners. Additionally, both homeschooling and chronic absenteeism are on the rise.
Meanwhile, colleges in the U.S. are closing at a rate of roughly one a week.
Factors include lower enrollment due to financial challenges, negative press, and divided optics over student protests on campuses. President Jay Bernhardt of Emerson College, which just announced faculty layoffs, noted struggles of “national enrollment trends away from smaller private institutions, an enrollment deposit delay in response to the new FAFSA rollout, student protests targeting our yield events and campus tours, and negative press and social media generated from the demonstrations and arrests.”
In 2023, enrollment in vocational programs jumped 16%–an increase in students interested in trades rather than college education. There is an ongoing labor shortage for technical jobs. Alone, the construction industry faces a gap of half a million workers. 54% of Gen Z individuals say that a high school diploma is enough to get a stable and well-paying job. Many believe that entering a trade will save them from years of debt and enable them to start a career that makes a similar or higher salary than the college-educated.
Also, the concern of AI replacing jobs is prevalent. Trade jobs, especially plumbing, electricity work, and construction, are far less susceptible to AI than a variety of jobs that can be obtained with a college degree.
Undergraduate college enrollment peaked in 2010 at about 18.1 million students and has declined steadily since. In fall 2021, only about 15.4 million students were enrolled in college. Also, about one million fewer young men but only 0.2 million fewer women are in college.
For current juniors and seniors, as well as the students to follow, this could mean slightly less competition for college, graduate programs, and careers that require such education.
In underdeveloped countries, populations are increasing rapidly—the population of low-income countries, located mostly in sub-Saharan Africa, is projected almost to double in size between 2020 and 2050. However, fewer international students have the opportunity to apply to colleges. These countries often lack the infrastructure and resources for educational development.
Although the future of education in the U.S. currently remains unforeseen, there is still hope for innovation and growth. Plenty of opportunities are still available for students seeking to advance their educations and build successful careers.
