Saiqa Anne Qureshi, PhD MBA, Adjunct Professor at St Mary's College of California and Johns Hopkins University
As we consider early career hiring, and specifically first roles post-graduation, we need to think about the funnel of students and how some demographic changes and choices will affect the talent pool available. There are changes afoot, with a decrease in high school graduates, therefore university graduates, a decreasing population overall, and changes to popular majors being studied.
There is a predicted “enrollment cliff,” and 2025 will begin a prolonged decline in high school graduates. Specifically, the steady 3.8-3.9 million graduates annually in the US will decrease by 13-15% by 2041. That will mean a significant, matching decrease in the university graduation rates approximately four years later. This reduction in population, and particularly in the population in higher education, could lead to a labor shortage and a lack of workforce, with an estimated 6 million fewer workers in 2032.
There is also a shift in the demographics of those enrolled in university, including a shift to “non-traditional” students being the majority. Non-traditional students include those who are not enrolled full-time or are not recent high school graduates. What that means is there will be a decreasing pool of entry career graduates, who look like the model of 22-24 year olds, who attended university full-time, directly after high school graduation, and are applying for their first job.
In addition to this overall decrease in population and change in the composition of who is studying, there is a shift in the areas of study and majors being undertaken. Of the 2 million bachelor’s degrees conferred in 2021-2022, the top seven majors, make up 58%, including business (18%), health (13%), social sciences and history (7.4%), biological science (6.5%), psychology (6.4%), and engineering (6.1%).
While business tops that list, the further breakdown is that just 17% major in accounting and 12% in finance, in total under one third of business majors. By contrast 26% are in management and 20% are in general business, with 13% in marketing, making up the vast majority of business majors. While many firms have historically focused on recruitment in accounting and finance, as there is a reduction in both the overall number of students and the popularity of those majors, there could be a shortage of graduates to recruit.
As businesses continue to think about recruiting early career talent, they may need to consider how to broaden that talent pool.
From Connections Newsletter (Food For Thought): August 2025
References:
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cta
https://www.coursera.org/articles/most-popular-college-majors
https://www.bls.gov/ooh/field-of-degree/business/business-field-of-degree.htm
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