Posted on 06/08/2026 4:33:29 AM PDT by MtnClimber
The empty desks appearing across Colorado today are the delayed consequence of decisions made years ago by politicians, educators, and cultural elites.
Colorado colleges are bracing for what education experts call an “enrollment cliff.” Fewer high school graduates mean fewer college applicants, shrinking tuition revenue, budget cuts, mergers, and even campus closures.
The same phenomenon is unfolding nationwide. After years of warnings, the demographic reckoning has arrived.
According to recent Colorado education data, public school enrollment fell by more than 10,000 students this year, the state’s largest decline since the pandemic.
State officials point to a simple explanation: there are fewer children. Birth rates have been declining for years, and those missing children are now becoming missing students.
Many analysts trace the problem to the 2008 financial crisis. As economic uncertainty grew, Americans postponed marriage, delayed having children, or chose to have fewer children altogether. Eighteen years later, right on schedule, colleges are seeing the predictable consequences.
That explanation is correct, but incomplete.
The enrollment cliff itself was largely set in motion nearly two decades ago.
But instead of addressing the underlying causes of declining family formation, policymakers have spent the last twenty years making them worse.
Colorado provides a revealing case study.
In 2008, the median Denver-area home price was about a third of what it is today, $225,000 then and $610,000 today.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
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My son is a middle school teacher in SE Texas. His class size is down significantly due to the illegals being deported.
Yet property taxes still increase.
Where is this?
I wonder how many illegal alien children are in the schools now. When you add them there is still a 10,000 student drop.
So anything that built capacity to match the high end of the Baby Boom has too much capacity after the Boom goes through. Understanding that should not require advanced education.
Good for them.
Quite.
Wonderful news.
Leftards then: “The coming population boom....”
Leftards today: “...this HORRIBLE ‘enrollment cliff’ (won’t someone think of our taxpayer slush-funds/donors/kick-backs...’cuz fark educating/test scores).”
Shame the State (R)N(C) has done d!ck all since the 70’s
Since 1990 I have owned a house in NH. I have lived in three different suburban towns. I have only had my real estate taxes go down once or twice.
School enrollment around here peaked around 2005-2010.
Since then it has changed due to people moving into towns with newer high schools. Which is what my wife and I did too. We moved to our second house because that town had a better school system than the previous town.
Generally, the more affluent towns have better schools.
In NH we only have real estate taxes to fund the school systems primarily. On average 80% of your taxes go to funding the schools in your town or the adjacent if you have a coop school. Which many of the smaller towns do.
Then you vote on proposed bonding. Like adding onto or building a new school. Those bond proposals have to pass by a 60% vote too. Same with buying a new million dollar fire truck.
It is the most basic form of Democracy in the country. Show up, show an ID, vote. Yet, at our town meeting where we bought a new fire truck this past March ONLY 33% of the registered voters bothered to come out to vote.
While 81 % showed up to vote in November 22. A record.
That’s because the left is pure unadulterated evil.
The Baby Boomers were pretty much out of the public school system by the early 1980s. This is a very recent drop. My thought is that it is from parents home schooling or sending children to private schools because they are afraid the public school teachers will try to transgender their children without parental knowledge.
This SHOULD lead to lower property taxes, but we know it won’t.
The tuition needed to go down. We really do not need administration heavy colleges and universities and “professors” earning over 100K. When I went to law school, the semesters were $1,500.00 and the books were $750 and the professors made about 50K for a super easy schedule (which by the way, the professors still have.)
There was a drop in the population attending public schools and it didn't really recover until the late 1990s (legal and illegal immigration). So we had a noticeable drop for 20 years. Now this is another drop (likely to be permanent unless we vote for another Democrat).
fewer young people - that is not limited to any form of governance - whether socialism or hyper capitalism or communism - whether christian or mohammedan or hindu or atheist - in all societies, the number of children per woman is falling.
Even in sub-saharan africa
Stop allowing mothers to murder their children, voila! more children.
I propose we stop using leftists' language.
You would never say, "I took my biological dog to the vet today," would you?
They are simply and unequivocally males, period.
The leftards will say the population is cratering - and therefore we need to bring in hordes of high-fertility 3rd world immigrants to make up the difference.
It’s the old tired argument of “who will pay for social security and take care of the old people?”
Enrollment has been decreasing in So Cal as well - in Los Angeles:
“The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) has lost more than 100,000 students since the 2015–2016 school year.”
That is a significant number over 10 years. The district wants to close and consolidate 1/2 empty schools - to great public outrage.
Welcome to our world of California.
I haven't heard English in my local CostCo for at least 20 years.
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