An article from The coming decline in high school graduate counts, in 5 charts

A recent forecast dove deep into the demographics and number of future traditional-aged college prospects. The news wasn’t all bad.

Published Jan. 27, 2025 Ben Unglesbee Senior Reporter

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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. 

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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. 

High school graduates expected to peak around 3.8 million in 2025 Reported numbers of graduates from 2009 to 2023 and projections from 2024 to 2041 !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r