Fascinating report out on recent enrollment trends from creepily-named National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Could be the subject of twenty different posts, so much in it is riveting. This is my takeaway, though, because it is so dramatic:
Yes, we’re at Peak Demo, but removing the for-profits from the equation (imploding for different reasons) the main implosion we’re seeing here is in adult education. Better economy, perhaps. Possible also a cost-sensitive demographic responding to recent hikes. Happy to hear any theories.
BTW — blog this, people! Grab the report, find your own story in it and BLOG. I’m kind of sick of this lazy society we’ve fallen into where a report like this comes out and everybody dedicates less than 140 characters to it. BLOG, dammit! That’s how we see the stories in these things that hide from us, when we get a diversity of voices….
Hapgood 
One thing that this may not be capturing is the rise of non-institutional adult education. If much AE is for personal satisfaction, then the growth of MOOCs (at least in some subject areas) may be substituting for institutional AE. I have no idea whether this is a possibility, and I have no data and no idea how to get any. But the suppliers may be changing in ways that the data in this report do not–and cannot–capture.
Reblogged this on As the Adjunctiverse Turns and commented:
Because ABE educators are #adjuncts too. Adult Education includes/is associated with but not just for Basic Literacy skils, GED, learning center tutors and entry level VoTech — as well as non-transfer level courses like Developmental Math and Writing. Even if it didn’t, we are still #allinthistogether