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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BS! It’s not a “warning to America” - it’s a warning to libtard universities and their libtard profs!
Eliminate the SAT and fill those seats with 3rd worlders on government student loans.
Problem solved.
Which is why the Feds need to dismantle Social Security.
It should be up to the states to take care of the elderly. And it should be needs only Social Security, if you have assets, you're not going to get it.
I’m #64 commenter, including author, I’d be 65, I’m minority of minority to believe abortion has something to do with this. This is God’s judgment playing out in real time. Assyria and Babylon came at the fiery end, but ancient Israel and Judah rotted for hundreds of years
“the charter school down the street has to do a lottery and test system because so many want to send their child there.”
Great post! This identical story is playing out all over the country. Small charter schools focusing on traditional or classical learning, no expensive sports, etc., are doing great and are luring the smart students away from the mainstream public schools in droves.
There is still the problem of the enrollment cliff and birthrates that the article discusses. It is indeed compounded though by other issues, including the one you describe.
Lots of families are self-deporting and being deported too. Colorado is a hot-mess of illegal immigration. Has been for generations.
Lots of families are self-deporting and being deported too. Colorado is a hot-mess of illegal immigration. Has been for generations.
I are you smoking some weed this morning?
I are you smoking some weed this morning?
They forgot to add as more and more taxes appear and go up, parent delay or have fewer children while subsidizing the welfare kids.
So we got more low level one parent future problems.
I bet if I go through a typical college catalog I'd find probably 50% useless majors. Useless in the sense of finding solid employment in their field. For many, the only solid employment in the field is teaching their nonsense to others, and a Ph.D. is required to even do that.
Count of illegals in Colorado schools? Having lived there and worked with State and local government, more than half of Denver schools would be anchor babies.
Before the JFK/democrats mass immigration changes took hold and knowledge of it spread through the world, there was a few years of these same stories during the early 70s, that schools would shrink, a threat to the teacher’s national unions and democrat party coffers, it didn’t take long before that turned into build, build, build, because the floodgates have opened and they will be arriving by the tens and tens of millions.
mammas and pappas killed their own kids
mammas and pappas killed their own kids
“It should be up to the states to take care of the elderly.”
I don’t think Florida could fund its old folks.
“And it should be needs only Social Security, if you have assets, you’re not going to get it.”
An offset to the interest deduction might be made.
If you permit people to game a system, they will.
Don’t know if you watch Tim Pool’s podcast on Rumble. He’s one generation behind me and said when he should have been starting a family around 2007-2008 he was sleeping on a friend’s couch. He said he applied for job after job but no offers.
Eventually he became an independent reporter and covered the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street and then Antifa.
Now he lives in West Virginia and has a family, though the timing was late.
So yes 2008 hurt a lot of younger Americans.
Ya think it’s because the state became “Mini California”, only WORSE??????
Colorado Ping ( Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from the list.)
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