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.
>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]
The 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.)
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.
And 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.
It 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.
US 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.
The 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.
# 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].
In 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.
> 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.
It's not just this. It's also that the career is starting to suck.
Over half the doctors I know who I met while they were in medical school/residency are now out of the practice. They counted down the days until they had their student debt paid off and bounced to non-patient care roles outside the medical system.
The entire profession has been captured by the administrative and managerial class. Doctors have had most of their agency stripped from them, and it's an exhausting career choice for someone who generally has a ton of options at their disposal.
I expect the trend to get even worse as more and more pressure gets applied to the medical system both due to demographics and the endless march of making everything corporate.
>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.
NPs are starting to get around this by getting independent or mostly independent practices in many states. The Doctors can still kick PAs in the teeth because they are usually under the medical board, but they can't do nearly as much to get their greedy claws on NPs because they are governed by a separate nursing board that nurses have more control of.
The 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
The 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
Doctors 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.
The doctors cannot send in men with guns, the government can if it feels that’s against the law, and you’re not going to be killed for just “resisting”.
In the software world we also take on zero fucking liability for just building software on the street or is your circle full of people who commonly carry Software Malpractice Insurance?
FYI, the men with guns come for software engineers as well if the rich want it. Look up Sergey Aleynikov
The odds of getting collared for practicing medicine without a license/credentials are orders of magnitude higher than getting collared for writing software, or even practice engineering even though that's sometimes a licensed field.
Yes, the odds of getting arrested for breaking the law are higher than if you don’t break the law.
Look you’re obviously against the AMA, and there’s arguments against their guild and its practices that I’m amenable to, but trying to pin the financial problems with our healthcare system on them is ludicrous given how many other large problems are in the system. Insurance middlemen are undoubtedly a bigger cost
We live in a country where many complain that there aren't any jobs to be had, especially jobs with good wages/salaries. It's disingenuous, or at least very confused, to state that "we have a looming, massive shortage of medical workers". These two thoughts aren't really mutually compatible. Sure, there is a training/education issue, but pretending that it's just intractable and that we have to import workers is absurd.
> 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).
This is because Republican fascists overthrew the United States of America and threatened to kidnap and torture overseas students attending domestic universities.
It is unclear to me why anyone in the comments here is under another impression. These were newsworthy events.
Somewhat related data point - our local elementary school used to have 5 first grade classes a few years ago and now they are down to 3. It's a large % drop over just a few years. This is going to move like a wave through the rest of the years all the way through to university.
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.
>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-healt...
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Population_Bomb
The 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.)
There'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.
And 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.
It 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.
US 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.
Immigration can easily cover that though. If you can get past the widespread anti-immigrant sentiment.
Historically, America has grown its population via immigration.
Whoops!
The 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.
# 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
There's already a massive shortage when it comes to medical care.
In 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.
> 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.
It's not just this. It's also that the career is starting to suck.
Over half the doctors I know who I met while they were in medical school/residency are now out of the practice. They counted down the days until they had their student debt paid off and bounced to non-patient care roles outside the medical system.
The entire profession has been captured by the administrative and managerial class. Doctors have had most of their agency stripped from them, and it's an exhausting career choice for someone who generally has a ton of options at their disposal.
I expect the trend to get even worse as more and more pressure gets applied to the medical system both due to demographics and the endless march of making everything corporate.
>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.
NPs are starting to get around this by getting independent or mostly independent practices in many states. The Doctors can still kick PAs in the teeth because they are usually under the medical board, but they can't do nearly as much to get their greedy claws on NPs because they are governed by a separate nursing board that nurses have more control of.
The 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
The 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
It 100% is one of the reasons. We pay medical personnel way higher wages than peer states.
US healthcare is so expensive because basically every single part of it costs more than it "should", by quite a bit. Including, yes, doctors.
Doctors 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.
Anyone with a phone can do that
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatting#Injuries_or_deaths_du...
The doctors cannot send in men with guns, the government can if it feels that’s against the law, and you’re not going to be killed for just “resisting”.
In the software world we also take on zero fucking liability for just building software on the street or is your circle full of people who commonly carry Software Malpractice Insurance?
FYI, the men with guns come for software engineers as well if the rich want it. Look up Sergey Aleynikov
The odds of getting collared for practicing medicine without a license/credentials are orders of magnitude higher than getting collared for writing software, or even practice engineering even though that's sometimes a licensed field.
AMA is the biggest gatekeeper in getting there.
Yes, the odds of getting arrested for breaking the law are higher than if you don’t break the law.
Look you’re obviously against the AMA, and there’s arguments against their guild and its practices that I’m amenable to, but trying to pin the financial problems with our healthcare system on them is ludicrous given how many other large problems are in the system. Insurance middlemen are undoubtedly a bigger cost
There's already an artificial shortage when it comes to medical care.
We live in a country where many complain that there aren't any jobs to be had, especially jobs with good wages/salaries. It's disingenuous, or at least very confused, to state that "we have a looming, massive shortage of medical workers". These two thoughts aren't really mutually compatible. Sure, there is a training/education issue, but pretending that it's just intractable and that we have to import workers is absurd.
> 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?
This is because Republican fascists overthrew the United States of America and threatened to kidnap and torture overseas students attending domestic universities.
It is unclear to me why anyone in the comments here is under another impression. These were newsworthy events.
> overthrew
They weren't elected?
One man, one vote - one last time.
They were elected, proceeded to break the law and ignore it. Now they are trying to figure put how to get rid of the pesky voting.
Somewhat related data point - our local elementary school used to have 5 first grade classes a few years ago and now they are down to 3. It's a large % drop over just a few years. This is going to move like a wave through the rest of the years all the way through to university.
Not surprising. There are 3 main causes here:
- general anti-immigrant attitudes, policies, and policing (ICE)
- deportations of students exercising free speech rights (to criticize Israel)
- forcing colleges to change policies (again, to protect Israel from criticism by students and student groups)
Alt url: https://www.npr.org/2025/08/27/nx-s1-5498669/trump-college-i...