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America is closing a college per week due to student population declines. Most students are coming from countries with significantly worse demographic trends.
by mensetmanusman 1y ago
America is closing a college per week due to student population declines.
Most students are coming from countries with significantly worse demographic trends. The population inversion is already here but it is being felt by schools first.
In 10 years it will be for new employees, in 40 years it will be shortages in medical care.
- strict9 1y ago>America is closing a college per week due to student population declines. This is kind of misleading. There were 16 nonprofit college and university closures in 2024 [1] I also have reservations about making predictions of what will happen in 10 years, much less 40. There are challenges relating to demographic change but it's not predetermined as you present it. Every time someone makes a confident prediction about the future 10 or more years out all I can think of is the Population Bomb book [2] 1. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/business/financial-health/2024/12/13/2024-has-seen-more-college-closures-last-year https://www.insidehighered.com/news/business/financial-healt... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Population_Bomb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Population_Bomb
- dlivingston 1y agoThe Population Bomb is a great reference. This was something a family member of mine was seriously worried about in her younger days. Population is an extremely complex, dynamic system, and I don't think we have any way of actually predicting it -- all we can do is look at trend lines and make projections. (caveat - not a social scientist; just my current opinion; etc.)
- saghm 1y agoAnd now less than half a century later, there are even people who are worried about falling birth rates in some places, because apparently it's concerning if we don't keep growing the population at the same rate.
- FredPret 1y agoIt is concerning when all of our major social systems are built on the idea of an growing population and a growing economy (most pressing right now is funding pensions). Maybe we'll have a billion humans living in orbit in a century. Unsure if they'll be willing to pay Earth Tax though.
- mothballed 1y agoUS Citizens have to pay taxes even in orbit or on the ISS, or even on Mars or wherever in the universe they may be. This is fairly unique though, there's like one African dictatorship that does the same and that's about it.
- FredPret 1y agoLet's see how that goes after the Lunar Tea Party
- saghm 1y agoThat sounds a lot more like an argument for being concerned about our major social systems than the population trend. I guess I just don't think that introducing millions of extra humans into existence purely to avoid fixing Social Security or other similar issues makes any amount of sense.
- amanaplanacanal 1y agoImmigration can easily cover that though. If you can get past the widespread anti-immigrant sentiment.
- msgodel 1y agoImmigration at that scale is completely indistinguishable from invasion. At small scales you can have them give up their culture and assimilate but at replacement scales you just turn your country into a third world country. That's completely unacceptable.
- rich_sasha 1y agoThere's a bit of a difference. Population Bomb's core claim was about the instantaneous rate of reproduction. This is a complex stochastic process. It could drop to 0 overnight if people decide no more babies. But population decline is easier to model mid term because you don't need to make almost any assumptions. The next 18 years of university intake are all already born and there ain't a lot of them. The only way for them is down. Clearly, what's beyond that is hard to forecast, but even then making a pretty good forecast for the next 25 years only depends on forecasting births in the next 7 years.
- lazyasciiart 1y agoNot at all - immigration flows in and out can dramatically change the cohort.
- rich_sasha 1y agoSure. But the numbers are down everywhere.
- guyomes 1y ago> Every time someone makes a confident prediction about the future 10 or more years out all I can think of is the Population Bomb book Fortunately, almost twenty years before the Population Bomb book, others such as Alfred Sauvy were already warning against confident overpopulation arguments. They suggested more reasonable arguments such as examining countries on a case-by-case basis [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Sauvy#Key_ideas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Sauvy#Key_ideas
- thinkingtoilet 1y agoThere's already a massive shortage when it comes to medical care.
- jnwatson 1y agoIn a market economy, shortages are simply a statement that the buyers value a good or service less than the market price. Medical care shortages are mostly a function that hospitals don't want to pay nurses market rate and then treat them poorly. The exception is doctors. The shortage there is completely driven by their guild (AMA) successfully lobbying for a restriction on the number of medical schools.
- realitybitez 1y agoThe AMA specifically restricts residency spots. They cry about medicare funding, but it is all about keeping the supply of doctors artificially low. Unlike tech, there is no free market in medicine, which is why 20% of the national gdp is consumed on healthcare while doctors drive away in BMWs to the bank
- lovich 1y agoThe doctors are not why the US pays more for medicine than other western countries. It’s also a little rich coming from a software focused board when we make equivalent or better than a lot of doctors
- mothballed 1y agoDoctors can send men in with guns to imprison, and if they resist, kill, those who engage in their profession without going through the gates of their fiefdom, though. In software you can be a nobody off the street, straight out of prison, if someone pays you money to write software then that is that.
- Avshalom 1y ago
- salynchnew 1y agoHistorically, America has grown its population via immigration. Whoops!
- polski-g 1y agoThe TFR decline of the rest of the world over the past decade has been astronomical. There simply aren't that many young people left in the world to pull from. South American countries have seen >50% declines.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- allturtles 1y ago# of X closing / time isn't a meaningful measure of decline. You would have to subtract # closing / time from # opening / time. But even a net loss of colleges doesn't necessarily indicate a loss of students, it could be that bigger colleges are absorbing smaller ones. If you are making an argument about a decline in student population, you should just look at student population data. It's more-or-less flat since 2020 [0]. [0]: https://educationdata.org/college-enrollment-statistics https://educationdata.org/college-enrollment-statistics
- dcchambers 1y ago> America is closing a college per week due to student population declines. It's interesting to see that but then also see boasts of "record freshman class sizes" at major public universities every single year (eg my Alma Mater, Wisconsin). Is this a consolidation that is happening?
- wakawaka28 1y agoKeep in mind that this problem can be solved. 40 years is long enough to raise two whole new generations of adults.