https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/l...870034007/

Same story, different thread. This is a state of MI specific article.

Data and graphs which speak for themselves. And speak clearly portraying an ominous trend.

Less live births in recent years, lower number of h.s. grads and of those h.s. grads, declining percentage entering college straight out of high school.

"Of the state's 100,765 high school graduates last year, 52.8% enrolled in any kind of post-secondary education, according to MI School Data, the state's official data education source. That's a dramatic drop compared with enrollment before COVID-19 arrived: In 2019, the last year before the pandemic, 62.8% of high school graduates enrolled in college. Ten years ago, 65.8% of Michigan's class of 2012 enrolled in college."

If this was an academic article I would suggest the following table (made up data):
I think my made up data reflects the trends, declining numbers of h.s. grads, declining number starting college also reflecting a declining 'participation rate.'

Year, # H.S. Grads, # starting college, % of h.s. grads starting college

2010 100,00 65,000 65%
2015 98,000 62,500 63.8%
2020 96,000 60,000 62.5%

I went to one of the links and looked for TOTAL school enrollment (K - 12 + pre-kindergarten, can strip out pre-k if one wants) for 2002/3 and 2021/2.

Statewide 2002-03 All Grades All Students All Students 1,713,165 100.0%

Statewide 2021-22 All Grades All Students All Students 1,443,456 100.0%



https://www.mischooldata.org/student-enr..._CrossTab=

Couple other thoughts. Data for the last few years is difficult to interpret because of Covid. Covid was an once in a hundred year occurrence. Data for 2019 is a good benchmark.

Also, as many have said, things really changed in MI during the Great Recession. Folks left the state, etc. I suspect I could have looked at data for say 2007 and again say 2010. Did the school population decline significantly in those few years?

And for college administrators they can project out h.s. graduation by looking at trends in say middle school enrollment. Declines in middle school enrollment should show up say 3 - 5 years later as declining h.s. graduations.

And if anyone wonders why I like this kind of stuff (and I'm not being a George Santos) I did work at the Census Bureau, had a grad demography course at Georgetown (Go Hoyas), worked on price indexes at BLS, did the statistical programming and statistical tables for a cabinet department's annual report, etc..

So this kind of data is very much what I did for many years and I like higher education and issues related to it.

(02-10-2023 06:54 AM)emu steve Wrote:  Couple other thoughts. Data for the last few years is difficult to interpret because of Covid. Covid was an once in a hundred year occurrence. Data for 2019 is a good benchmark.

Also, as many have said, things really changed in MI during the Great Recession. Folks left the state, etc. I suspect I could have looked at data for say 2007 and again say 2010. Did the school population decline significantly in those few years?

And for college administrators they can project out h.s. graduation by looking at trends in say middle school enrollment. Declines in middle school enrollment should show up say 3 - 5 years later as declining h.s. graduations.

And if anyone wonders why I like this kind of stuff (and I'm not being a George Santos) I did work at the Census Bureau, had a grad demography course at Georgetown (Go Hoyas), worked on price indexes at BLS, did the statistical programming and statistical tables for a cabinet department's annual report, etc..

So this kind of data is very much what I did for many years and I like higher education and issues related to it.

Steve, your analytical and data collection skills are admirable and undeniable.

I grew up in Downriver Detroit and my Trenton High School graduating class had over 650 members. Today that is nearly the total population of grades nine through twelve. My father taught and coached in nearby Southgate at a High School that was absorbed by another in the city due to low enrollments. Ron Adams, our California winning QB, graduated from Taylor Center HS, one of four Taylor High Schools, that now has been reduced to just two.

The University system in Michigan was built to serve the in-state population of a time long ago. What do you see as the future?

(02-11-2023 11:30 PM)Jerry Weaver Wrote:  

(02-10-2023 06:54 AM)emu steve Wrote:  Couple other thoughts. Data for the last few years is difficult to interpret because of Covid. Covid was an once in a hundred year occurrence. Data for 2019 is a good benchmark.

Also, as many have said, things really changed in MI during the Great Recession. Folks left the state, etc. I suspect I could have looked at data for say 2007 and again say 2010. Did the school population decline significantly in those few years?

And for college administrators they can project out h.s. graduation by looking at trends in say middle school enrollment. Declines in middle school enrollment should show up say 3 - 5 years later as declining h.s. graduations.

And if anyone wonders why I like this kind of stuff (and I'm not being a George Santos) I did work at the Census Bureau, had a grad demography course at Georgetown (Go Hoyas), worked on price indexes at BLS, did the statistical programming and statistical tables for a cabinet department's annual report, etc..

So this kind of data is very much what I did for many years and I like higher education and issues related to it.

Steve, your analytical and data collection skills are admirable and undeniable.

I grew up in Downriver Detroit and my Trenton High School graduating class had over 650 members. Today that is nearly the total population of grades nine through twelve. My father taught and coached in nearby Southgate at a High School that was absorbed by another in the city due to low enrollments. Ron Adams, our California winning QB, graduated from Taylor Center HS, one of four Taylor High Schools, that now has been reduced to just two.

The University system in Michigan was built to serve the in-state population of a time long ago. What do you see as the future?

I may have to put on my demographics hat on. That said, unless demographic in-migration surges beyond belief, the cake is in the oven. We know by looking at live birth the next 22 years for EMU and other colleges which live or die by in-state student populations. EMU's incoming in-state (birthed) freshmen of say 2040 have already been born.

Jerry, two things:

1). Where are the live births (which counties and are the numbers going up or down)?

2). Where is the net in-migration?

E.g., is the growth around Grand Rapids? Whom does that help?
Is MI's rural mid-Michigan population declining? Does that hurt CMU?
Metro Detroit a fertile grounds for EMU? Declining school pop (as Jerry indicates).

I think de-industrialization has killed states like MI. I live in the DMV (D.C/Md/Va.) and population growth is strong across the board. Sometime I'll post the population of say Fairfax County, Va., D.C., etc. No population loss here. One city in MI I lived has saw great population loss. Fairfax Co, OTOH, has nearly doubled its population in 40 years.

I hate to sound pessimistic (I'm still 'Sunshine Steve') but demographics can be destiny. Why? As I indicated demographic trends for schools (K - 12 and college) are already BAKED IN. These things happen over generations. We, sports fans, are used to thinking in terms of rebuilds for a few years.

(02-11-2023 11:30 PM)Jerry Weaver Wrote:  

(02-10-2023 06:54 AM)emu steve Wrote:  Couple other thoughts. Data for the last few years is difficult to interpret because of Covid. Covid was an once in a hundred year occurrence. Data for 2019 is a good benchmark.

Also, as many have said, things really changed in MI during the Great Recession. Folks left the state, etc. I suspect I could have looked at data for say 2007 and again say 2010. Did the school population decline significantly in those few years?

And for college administrators they can project out h.s. graduation by looking at trends in say middle school enrollment. Declines in middle school enrollment should show up say 3 - 5 years later as declining h.s. graduations.

And if anyone wonders why I like this kind of stuff (and I'm not being a George Santos) I did work at the Census Bureau, had a grad demography course at Georgetown (Go Hoyas), worked on price indexes at BLS, did the statistical programming and statistical tables for a cabinet department's annual report, etc..

So this kind of data is very much what I did for many years and I like higher education and issues related to it.

Steve, your analytical and data collection skills are admirable and undeniable.

I grew up in Downriver Detroit and my Trenton High School graduating class had over 650 members. Today that is nearly the total population of grades nine through twelve. My father taught and coached in nearby Southgate at a High School that was absorbed by another in the city due to low enrollments. Ron Adams, our California winning QB, graduated from Taylor Center HS, one of four Taylor High Schools, that now has been reduced to just two.

The University system in Michigan was built to serve the in-state population of a time long ago. What do you see as the future?

Jerry, Thanks.

One of these days I'll do a 'deep dive' and figure out where the big school enrollment loses AND GAINS occurred.

Based on the data I presented above, the losses will overwhelm the gains, but some counties must have growing school aged populations. Some counties have significant population gains so maybe they are thriving.

This small private U.P. college is closing its doors. Lot of the issues we discussed are cited:

"The move is "due to a combination of demographic changes, with fewer high school graduates available, a steep decrease in interest in going to college among those graduates, and an unbearable debt load," the school's board wrote in a letter to its community."

https://www.freep.com/story/news/educati...964941007/

"However, demographers are finding smaller and smaller numbers of students graduating from Michigan high schools every year. That smaller pool of students means colleges are competing more directly for each and every student, especially the small private liberal arts colleges that dot the Midwest. There, the demographic decline of traditional age students is among the highest of any region in the nation."

This is a big MAC story.

Poor Finlandia. I knew a girl there once…