WICHE Actual and Forecast High School Graduates - 2009 to 2041
Thursday, February 13, 2025
The Western Interstate Commission on Higher Education (WICHE)’s forecast for high school graduates after 2024 does not bode well for higher education. The year 2024 is the high point for the number of high school graduates. After that year, the number of graduates begins to drop precipitously, continuing until 2077, when the number of graduates remains flat until 2035. Then, the steady decline resumes from 2039 through 2038.
There is a bump up starting in 2039 and ending in 2040, which is eighteen years after the most intense period of the COVID pandemic. In 2041, the decline in high school graduates returns.

The problem for tuition-driven private colleges is whether they have the wherewithal to withstand an eight-year (2024 – 2032) decay in high school graduates. Even if they can withstand this drought in high school graduates, the reprieve only lasts a year, and the decline (2032 to 2039) recurs for seven years. It seems difficult to imagine how tuition-dependent colleges can survive fifteen years of shrinkage of their primary source of enrollment.
Drilling down into the WICHE report reveals that private tuition-dependent colleges will face the most significant stress in the states seen in Chart 2 (right).
There are ten states with positive growth in high school graduates: Delaware, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Texas, Idaho, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana.

The WICHE report suggests that tuition-dependent private colleges with a small cash reserve buffer must begin immediately to choose a new survival strategy. Otherwise, they will quickly discover that the crisis has overwhelmed their ability to implement new strategies.
[1] Unglesbee, Ben (January 27, 2025); “The Coming Decline in High School Graduates”; Higher ED Dive; The coming decline in high school graduate counts, in 5 charts | Higher Ed Dive.