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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Enrollment at Utah's colleges and universities is expected to grow little over the next 12 years as the number of residents age 18 to 24 remains relatively flat in that same time period, a new study predicts.
Those projections concern state policymakers who fear declining college enrollment may limit the state's economic growth.
University of Utah economist Pam Perlich studied enrollment trends and found college enrollment growth isn't expected to make significant gains until about 2018.
That's the largely the result of a lack of residents who will be 18 to 24 years old, when most students attend college.
The last surge in that population group hit colleges in the 1990s, and members of that group now are forming households, Perlich said.
"That college wave is gone and their children are starting to push into Utah elementary schools," she said. "If all goes well, they will begin to hit higher ed 12 years later."
But the percentage of the total population enrolling in college already is declining. That trend promises to continue because much of the state's population growth is made up of immigrants with low levels of educational attainment whose children traditionally have been less likely than non-immigrants to finish high school and attend college, she said.
Hispanics, for example, make up an increasing percentage of the state's population. They have high rates of population growth compared with other groups due to high immigration rates coupled with the fact that they tend to have more children than other groups, according to Perlich's study.
Lacking education, Hispanics often work in lower-paying jobs, making it difficult for them to pay for college even if they are prepared, the study said.
Enrique Aleman, an assistant professor in the University of Utah's Department of Educational Leadership, is familiar with the trends. He's working with other educators to find ways to keep minorities in school and steer them toward college.
"There are a number of factors contributing to the dropout rates for Latinos, including large class size, lack of opportunity and poor access to advanced courses and teachers who put high expectations on them," he said. "Too often people look at these kids as having some kind of a deficit ... It's a troubling and systemic problem."
Utah Higher Education Commissioner Richard Kendell said higher education officials will work to maintain public colleges' current enrollment of 140,000 students through recruitment and retention of students, including those returning to college because they never finished a degree.
"We don't plan to lose any students," he said.
Yet his counterparts acknowledge they have work to do. Deneece Huftalin, Salt Lake Community College's vice president for student services, calls the shrinking college participation rate "alarming." SLCC already is getting out to middle schools and telling students they "can and should" go to college, "so start planning now," she said.
------ Information from: The Salt Lake Tribune, http://www.sltrib.com
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
