If you thought your niece’s high school graduation ran a little long last weekend, if you had to show up 30 minutes early to get three seats together at your son’s graduation, or if you had to park three blocks away, there’s good news for you: Future graduations will be less crowded — statistically speaking.
This year’s high school graduating class in the United States was the largest in history, and it may hold that record until the end of the Republic. After next year, the number of American school kids finishing high school will go down basically every year for the foreseeable future.
A rash of dropouts is not behind this upcoming graduation recession. It’s a dearth of births. The millennials forgot to reproduce.
Births in the U.S. peaked at 4.3 million births in 2006 and 2007. Then came the iPhone in the Summer of 2007 and the Great Recession in 2008.
Every year since then, Americans have had fewer and fewer babies, with only 3.6 million born in each of the past two years — a 16% drop from the Bush-era peak.
This means that every year for the foreseeable future, we will have fewer 17- and 18-year-olds. This will affect the labor force, for sure, but its effect on schools is more imminent.
Elementary schools across the country have been closing and consolidating for well over a decade. Middle schools peaked and began shrinking during the pandemic. Now, high schools will start getting smaller.
Even though our Baby Bust has been going on for almost two decades, most Americans are only just now finding out. Many still think overpopulation is the threat. However, American academia is well aware of the problem. It’s been planned for the “Enrollment Cliff” for years now.
It’s not quite a cliff: The drop off in births from 2007 until today has been steady. However, it is a one-way, unending decline. Colleges will have to compete for fewer high school graduates, meaning that some colleges will no longer be able to operate in four years.
THE COST OF DITCHING YOUR COMMUTE
This may be a relief if your children are in a wealthy and highly regarded suburban district currently bursting at the seams — a scholar entering high school next year has better odds of being valedictorian, and a ballplayer will have a better chance of making the varsity team’s starting nine.
However, fewer high school graduates today will mean fewer HVAC repairmen or movers in a few years. As you sweat for five days in June 2035, waiting for your central air to get fixed, you’ll long for the old days of crowded parking lots.