Well following Chicago’s bombshell (and Brown and Johns Hopkins) some other numbers are coming in: STANFORD apps are up 5% to about 32,000, and PRINCETON apps are up 19% to 26,166 Duke University: More than 26,400 high school seniors have submitted applications for admission to Duke University this year, eclipsing last year’s record by 2,500, or 11 percent. Why do we act surprise when we know more 18 year olds are on the planet than ever before. Moreover, more of them want to go to a four year college as this graph from the Pew Foundation illustrates:

The part I want to stress that while there are more young people-more WANT to go to college:

Between 1967 and 2008, the number of 18-24-year old enrolled in college more than doubled from 5.1 million to 11.5 million. This is an increase of 6.4 million students, or 125%.

Sizemore conlucdes that “The numbers point to roughly seven years of declining demand ahead. College administrators, take note.” But I am not convinced–International student continue to clamber to go to top colleges in the USA>

Taking a look at the numbers,

In 1967: 23.4M college aged * 21.7% attendance rate = 5.1M students
In 2008: 23.4M (assuming zero population growth) * 42.4% attendance rate = 9.9M students

So, as it would turn out, 4.8 million of the 6.4 million increase since 1967 was due to increased attendance rates, not demographics. That works out to 75%, with the remaining 25% of the increase due to demographics changes and foreign born students.