Published in June 2024

There is a healthy debate within our community about when, where, if and how university leaders should speak out. Less controversial is the idea that higher education leaders have a legitimate role in public conversations (seeking to influence opinion and action) about policies, events and trends that directly impact universities and colleges.

This debate about the role of university leaders as public intellectuals and thought leaders was on my mind as I read Berg and Wiseman’s excellent book What Are Children For?: On Ambivalence and Choice. For those of us who make our living by working for a college or a university, the answer to the question “What are children for?” is relatively straightforward. To get students (at least 18- to 22-year-old students, but eventually all students), we first need children. Children become college students. All things being equal, fewer children will mean fewer students.

Sure, there is room to increase the percentage of high school graduates (now around 61 percent) attending college. In South Korea, three-quarters of high school completers enroll in university. Many of us in the online learning game spend time developing programs for adults who started college but did not finish or are returning to school for an advanced degree. But, as every college president and admissions dean knows, demography is destiny for most schools. (Hello, demographic cliff.)

If university leaders decide to wade into the debate about America’s declining fertility rate and the impact of fewer babies on the long-term health of our industry, then reading (and talking about) What Are Children For? is a reasonable point of entry. After all, talking about books is one thing that higher ed people love to do.

What Are Children For? works well as an opportunity to integrate conversations on fertility and postsecondary demand because the book assiduously avoids pushing a pro- or anti-natalist agenda. Instead, Berg and Wiseman are primarily concerned with the economic, social, medical and cultural barriers that inhibit individuals and couples from fulfilling their fertility desires. The book provides a good framework for discussing whether to have or not have children, given the gap between stated preferences and observed fertility outcomes.

Many individuals and couples would like to have a child or have more children but are constrained by the high direct and opportunity costs of childbearing. Direct costs range from childcare to college tuition and everything in between. Opportunity costs include lost earnings, time out of the workforce to care for children and attenuated paths for career advancement.

As today’s children are tomorrow’s college students, it has always struck me as incumbent on our institutions to do whatever we can to enable the people who work at our schools to have the number of children they desire. Translating that goal into action would significantly increase our investments in creating affordable childcare options for faculty and staff. Ensuring that all employees have robust fertility treatment options is essential, as is adoption assistance and generous paid parental leave. Programs to help university employees pay for their kids’ college tuition wouldn’t hurt.

If universities want to make the connection between today’s babies and tomorrow’s applicants, we should ask people in our communities what they would need to reach their desired family size. This discussion should be open and positive, with support and solidarity across those colleagues who desire no children to those who would like many.

Reading and talking about What Are Children For?, perhaps paired with Nathan Grawe’s Demographics and the Demand for Higher Education, is a great place to start.

What are you reading?