As the number of applications to Boston College rose to an all-time high of 31,000 this year, many members of the BC population expect it to increase as the profile of the school continues to rise. According to data from the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE), however, the number of high school graduates nationwide is going to decline due to normal population shifts.
A recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education stated that this trend in decreasing population is not distributed evenly among demographics. Due to the decrease in population, there will be a large shift in the composition of the collegiate student body as a whole in America over the next seven years. More specifically, this means that there will be record numbers of minority students who are able to attend a university in the upcoming seven years.
The population goes through periods of highs and lows in birthrates, although it exhibits an overall increasing trend. It appears that over the next seven years the population of high school graduates will be declining, and then in 2015 it will go through another period of growth.
As the numbers for overall high school graduate rates are broken down, however, it becomes clear that some racial demographics are actually increasing their high school graduation numbers, leading to not only a decrease in the numbers of college entrants but also a redistribution of the racial makeup of those same college entrants.
It appears that while over the next seven years the number of white and black high school graduates will be decreasing, in some cases by double-digit percentages, the numbers of Hispanic and Asian graduates will actually be increasing. This will cause an enormous redistribution among the racial makeup of college campuses. The members of WICHE predict that nearly half of all high school graduates will be minority students by the year 2022.
Some wonder if the decline in the numbers of high school graduates will make getting into college less competitive in the coming years, possibly leading to a decrease in the quality of students. However, results from another WICHE survey demonstrate that in many areas, school districts are taking measures to make sure that the overall level of education in high schools is continually improving.
