Since 1979, the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education has studied demographic trends and projected the number and makeup of future high school graduates and possible cohorts of college enrollees.

Estimating future numbers of high school graduates is an important exercise. Projections are just that, and their certainty declines with how far into the future one looks. But prognostication can help policymakers and college leaders with resource management. Administrators also need a sense of the cultural and geographic makeup of their potential college student bodies to better serve them. 

WICHE released its latest edition of “Knocking at the College Door” in December. In it, the report’s authors predicted that this year will represent a peak in high school graduates. After 2025 comes a long-anticipated decline. 

WICHE looked closely at how high school graduate numbers and makeup will vary over the coming years. Here is a deeper look at some of the data and forecasts that examine changes to the pipeline of traditional-age college students.

High school graduates in decline

The headline number in WICHE’s report is that researchers expect the total number of high school graduates in the U.S. to peak this year at between 3.8 million and 3.9 million. 

After 2025, they expect the population to decline at varying rates of speed through the next decade and a half. 

When 2030 comes, the number of high school graduates is forecast to be 3.1% lower than 2023 levels. By 2041, the report authors anticipate about 3.4 million high school graduates, or about 10.5% fewer than in 2023 and 13% fewer than expected this year. 

The WICHE projections are calculated from data on births, grade 1-12 enrollment, and each state’s graduates. 

Described by the report authors as “broad and substantial,” the estimated decline in graduates largely depends on past years’ births, how quickly students progress through high school and earn diplomas, as well as migration and mortality patterns. 

The authors reference the often-invoked concept of a demographic cliff, pointing out that it might overdramatize the changes to come. 

“While the cliff metaphor is useful to illustrate the impending demographic shift for policymakers, the reality will be a slower and steadier decline, which has important implications for institutions of higher education, workforce training systems, and state and federal policymakers.”

The authors conclude that policymakers and higher education leaders have time to adapt — while warning that “future demographics do not call for a one-time adjustment, but rather a new and sustained approach to serving students.” 

State by state graduate decreases — and increases

One big asterisk to the decline in high school graduates: It won’t happen everywhere or at the same speed.

Across the U.S., 38 states are expected to experience declines — while 12 states and Washington, D.C., will actually see increases. 

High school graduate populations will rise by double digits in some states, including South Carolina, Tennessee, Idaho and North Dakota, according to WICHE estimates. In Washington, D.C., they’re projected to jump a whopping 31%. 

Among regions, the only increase is expected in the South, already home to the largest number of high school graduates. By 2037, the ranks of high school graduates in the region will rise by 3% to about 1.5 million over 2024.

Those projections for the South are slightly higher than WICHE estimated in 2020, which could be a result of population migration to Southern states, Patrick Lane, WICHE’s vice president of policy analysis and research, and one of the report’s authors, said at a December media briefing. But, he noted, the researchers couldn’t say so definitively. 

And there again, even the regional average in the South belies differences among the states. High school graduate numbers are projected to fall 16% in Mississippi and 26% in West Virginia, for example. 

The picture is much starker in the country’s other three major regions. High school graduate headcount is expected to decline 17% in the Northeast, 16% in the Midwest and 20% in the West. 

All of those numbers are based largely on birth rates and demographic changes, Lane noted. Some states can have declining graduate populations even as the share of high school students who finish their diplomas increase, he said.

The takeaway is that policy responses and institutional adaptation will need to be regionally focused to be effective. The WICHE authors tied the impact of graduate declines ultimately to workforce challenges occurring across the nation. 

“When we look around our region, and more broadly around the country, we see workforce shortages in virtually any important employment sector that you can think of, from healthcare, teaching, nursing, engineering to things that may not be as high on people's radar,” Lane said.

He added, “If these declining high school graduate numbers translate into even more downward pressure on enrollments, it'll be hard to meet some of these workforce demands.”

Where high school graduates come from

States themselves contain cities, suburbs, towns and rural areas. As such, it's worth noting the areas within their states from which high school graduates hail. 

Suburbs are home to the largest share of 12th grade students, and that isn’t expected to change anytime soon. In the 2022-23 academic year, 43% of 12th grade enrollment came from suburbs. The WICHE report projects that share will increase to 45% by 2033-34, amounting to 32,450 more 12th grade students from the suburbs.

Meanwhile, rural areas will slightly increase their share of 12th graders, from 15% to 16%, while cities’ share will drop from 31% to 29%, per WICHE’s projections. Towns’ share is expected to stay flat at 11%.

Shifting ethnic and racial backgrounds

Future cohorts of high school graduates will vary by their ethnic and racial makeup as well. 

The WICHE paper projects that the number of White, Black, and American Indian and Alaska Native public high school graduates will all decline between 2023 and 2041. 

Hispanic graduates are expected to increase steadily from 2023 levels through the next decade and a half, with their numbers growing 16% by 2041.

By far the largest increases will be in multiracial high school graduates, with that group’s ranks projected to nearly double from 2023 levels by 2034.

The increase in underrepresented graduates continues a trend seen since WICHE started issuing projections in the late 1990s, the authors noted.

“While this depicts only one aspect of this changing student landscape, it is a very important part of the overall demographic story facing K-12 and post-secondary education,” WICHE President Demarée Michelau said at the December briefing.

‘Demography need not be destiny’

Demographics and graduate numbers don't tell the whole story. Factors beyond the sheer numbers of high school graduates also determine college enrollment, which in turn has an enormous impact on the financial health and sustainability of the country’s higher education institutions.

Among other factors, the college-going rate plays a major role. The WICHE authors highlighted this in performing a sort of back-of-the-envelope calculation examining what happens when rates of attendance increase. 

The college-going rate has declined significantly over the past decade. Since 2016, the rate has fallen fairly steadily from 70% to 62% in 2022.

The health of the economy plays a strong role in that rate — with college attendance rising in downturns. Perceptions about cost and value can also be a factor, Lane noted in an interview.

Although an admittedly rough calculation, the WICHE report authors found that a mere 0.5% uptick in the college-going rate applied to their projections of high school graduates would actually lead to higher college enrollments in 2041 as compared to 2024. 

In other words, a 0.5% increase in college attendance rates would offset the entire forecasted downshift. 

The authors themselves describe this as a “purely hypothetical and perhaps overly optimistic scenario,” but it still shows the large impact that raising the college-rate could have on college enrollments. 

“Any approach to managing the expected decline in the number of graduates must involve improving the immediate college-going rate of high school graduates and improving the progression and retention of students who do enter college,” the authors wrote.

Or, as Michelau put it in the report’s introduction: “Demography need not be destiny. There are proven approaches to increasing student access and success, especially for those whom higher education has not historically served well.”