to 2013, then peaked at 3.5 million. Liberal arts programs have been declining for decades. From 1967 to 2018, college students majoring in the liberal arts declined from 20 percent to 5 percent. Since 2011, enrollment in postsecondary education in the United States has declined by more than 2 million people. Researchers hypothesize that the primary factors leading to this drop in enrollment are low birth rates over the last couple decades, a more successful economy, and the increasing cost of postsecondary education coupled with a decrease in financial aid and student debt. Some potential students are also questioning the value of a college education and if it is necessary to gain employment, opting instead for vocational education. In 2018, the National Center for Education Statistics projected stagnant enrollment patterns until at least 2027. Demographer Nathan Grawe projected that lower birth rates following the Great Recession of 2008 would result in a 15 percent enrollment loss, beginning in 2026. In 2019, the National Center for Education Statistics continued to project that higher education enrollment would remain stagnant, but white enrollment would drop 8 percent from 2016 to 2027. The report projected black enrollment to increase by 6 percent, Hispanic enrollment to increase 14 percent, Asian/Pacific Islander enrollment to increase 7 percent, and American Indian/Alaska Native enrollment to decrease 9 percent during the same period. In March 2019, Moody's warned that enrollment declines could lead to more financial problems for the higher education industry. In a 2019 survey by Inside Higher Ed, nearly one in seven college presidents said their campus could close or merge within five years. In "The Higher Education Apocalypse", U.S. News & World Report education reporter Lauren Camera speculated that recent closings of schools in New England might be the beginning of a rash of college closures. An analysis of federal data from The Chronicle of Higher Education shows "about half a million students have been displaced by college closures, which together shuttered more than 1,200 campuses." In a 2021 Wall Street Journal article titled "Hobbled for Life," Melissa Korn and Andrea Fuller found that many master's degrees at elite schools did not pay off. Admission process Students can apply to some colleges using the Common Application. With a few exceptions, most undergraduate colleges and universities maintain the policy that students are to be admitted to (or rejected from) the entire college, not to a particular department