Examines the economic & demographic characteristics of school age children in families, & (2) changes in these characteristics between 1980 & 1990. Focuses on national & state profiles of children in families with incomes below the poverty level. 65 charts, tables & maps.

"The economics of American higher education are driven by one key factor--the availability of students willing to pay tuition--and many related factors that determine what schools they attend. By digging into the data, economist Nathan Grawe has created probability models for predicting college attendance. What he sees are alarming events on the horizon that every college and university needs to understand. Overall, he spots demographic patterns that are tilting the US population toward the Hispanic southwest. Moreover, since 2007, fertility rates have fallen by 12 percent. Higher education analysts recognize the destabilizing potential of these trends. However, existing work fails to adjust headcounts for college attendance probabilities and makes no systematic attempt to distinguish demand by institution type. This book analyzes demand forecasts by institution type and rank, disaggregating by demographic groups. Its findings often contradict the dominant narrative: while many schools face painful contractions, demand for elite schools is expected to grow by 15+ percent. Geographic and racial profiles will shift only slightly--and attendance by Asians, not Hispanics, will grow most. Grawe also use the model to consider possible changes in institutional recruitment strategies and government policies. These "what if" analyses show that even aggressive innovation is unlikely to overcome trends toward larger gaps across racial, family income, and parent education groups. Aimed at administrators and trustees with responsibility for decisions ranging from admissions to student support to tenure practices to facilities construction, this book offers data to inform decision-making--decisions that will determine institutional success in meeting demographic challenges"--

This report is a demographic study of the United States education system from kindergarten through post-graduate education. Part 1 provides a briefing on the major demographic trends that form the framework of the analysis in terms of: (1) number of births in different groups; (2) rate of age increase in various groups due to varying birth rates; (3) changes in family status; (4) differences in educational needs by region; and (5) education, including educational supply and job demand, and the growing need for day care and early childhood programs such as Head Start. Part 2 concerns the retention of students through the school system to high school graduation. Part 3 concerns the accessibility of college to different socioeconomic groups. Part 4 discusses retention of students through college graduation in the context of the number of years it takes students to reach that goal. Throughout, suggestions are offered on how to deal with the impact of increased minorities in the educational system and how best to structure curricula to better educate the population as a whole. (CG)