Posted on 09/06/2026 6:10:38 AM PDT by MinorityRepublican
American colleges and universities are panicking, for good reason.
Enrollment across all of academia has been dropping for years, and starting now, there will be fewer and fewer college-aged people every year for the forseeable future.
Colleges are scrambling for a way to survive. Big schools are slashing their course offerings. Small schools are making desperate plays to find a niche in a shrinking market.
The bitter irony is this: American colleges and universities brought this crisis on themselves.
The Baby Bust has a thousand causes, but some of the most significant anti-natal cultural and economic trends were created by America’s colleges and universities.
From anti-family feminism to extended adolescence, through unreasonable expectations and mountains of debt, colleges created conditions that put their own survival at risk by turning out graduates who were indisposed to creating the next generation.
In 2007, the public had 4.32 million babies, and a Total Fertility Rate of 2.12 babies per woman — right about the “replacement level” at which a population can hold stable. Since then, the number of babies born has dropped nearly every year, reaching 3.61 million in 2025, giving us a Total Fertility Rate of 1.79.
As a result, there are fewer Americans under 18 than there were a decade ago. We’ve passed Peak Child as a country.
The Baby Bust began 18 years ago, which means that last Spring’s high school graduating class was the largest one for the foreseeable future. Basically, every year for at least the next 18 years, the number of potential college freshmen will fall. The high school class of 2044 will be about 16% smaller than the class of 2026 was.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
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Maybe young people are getting the message that it isn’t a great idea to take out and be saddled with loans of around $100,000 or more.
In the abstract, I think the national economy would be perfectly fine with a declining population. Growth does not necessarily require a growing population — especially with robots and AI systems starting to have an impact.
The big problem seems to be tax revenue. Lots and lots of older people collecting Social Security and Medicare. That money has to come out of the paychecks of younger people, and if the ration of Young-to-Old is too skewed, then it’s a problem.
I’m not sure how, but we need to revisit the concept of government taking care of retirement for people. Sure, if you have paid in for decades, you deserve what was promised. I think it would be a ripoff if the plug suddenly got pulled. But long term, for younger workers, a different system needs to be set up.
I see “retirement” and “tax revenue” being the real problems, not “population”.
No reason to have kids if you can collect Social Security when you get old.
But where are the scholars going to come from who will study the 47 genders?
Live with your parents, go to college and acquire an immense debt for a useless degree, stay unemployed, play on your computer all day, take art classes and do whatever you ‘feel’ like doing (thanks Nancy Pelosi), don’t date the opposite sex, explore your sexuality with anything other than the opposite sex, protest anything that seeks to keep civility in society, become ‘trans’ confused, ignore God and Jesus - and when people are whining that the child replacement needs are not being met, bring in replacement Americans from third world countries.
If you want taxes then tax the robot workers.
Warning—if the robots decide to have a tax revolt they might burn every human at the stake.
Lol.
The populace is still having way too many babies. They don’t know what’s about to hit them.
AI is going to destroy 80% of the population’s chance at having a normal employed productive happy life. Add to that illegals, outsourcing, unsustainable debt, all the usual stuff and you’ll see the current birth rate is still dangerously high except for governments needing you taxes and corporations needing desperate cheap labor.
JBU continues enrollment growth with record incoming class
Staff reports
September 2, 2026 by Staff reports
John Brown University topped last year's record enrollment when it welcomed a record 473 new students to the Siloam Springs campus for orientation Aug. 19.
The incoming class includes a record 401 freshmen, 60 transfer students and 12 students returning after one or more semesters away, bringing undergraduate enrollment to 1,487 students, according to a university news release.
For the last four years, JBU has set a series of enrollment records: the largest freshman class in 2023, the largest new student class in 2024 and a record undergraduate enrollment of 1,423 students in 2025, according to the release."Families are looking for a university that offers a strong sense of community, academic excellence and a return on their investment," said Ryan Ladner, D.B.A., vice president for enrollment management.
"JBU has always remained clear about its identity. We are an interdenominational Christian university dedicated to whole-person education, shaping graduates who are well-rounded, grounded in faith and prepared with the skills and character to lead and serve. Our continued strong enrollment, along with the success of our graduates in the workforce and beyond, demonstrates that families recognize the value of a JBU education."
Colleges work against their own interest of education.
They hate the educated. Hate people. Hate society. Hate, hate, hate.
Their math, biology and sociology departments could have warned them.......if they had one........
The answer is to import Chinese and Indian trash.
Big government is the original ponzi scheme. That is the only reason a declining population scares them.
Why would corporations need desperate cheap labor if they have AI and other automation?
You are just joking but you’re on to something.
I just saw a video on LinkedIn about how large corporations will be laying off thousands of employees in the coming months due to automation.
Therefore less revenue to pay off the $40 trillion FedGov owes.
So have the companies who use the robots send money to the treasury every two weeks just as if they had a person doing the job.
Focus on STEM and dump everything else. Students will flock to your school.......
If the robots could sue their employers for various infractions we could keep human lawyers employed as well.
Lol.
Not every kid wants to live in a Communist country.
The problem for universities is relatively easy to identify, and not so easily fixed. I went to night school after my military service in the late 1980s to early 1990s. I was paid roughly $270 a month from my GI bill benefit. I actually made money at the end of each term, and that included books! The cost of going to college is insane.
The other component that’s easy to see is the quality of the education. With all the crap courses they force students to take, and the focus more on indoctrination versus rigorous education, the perceived value of a college degree is very much diminished.
None of this can be fixed until the old hardcore liberals who run these establishments die off.
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