In addition, this report includes projections of public elementary and secondary enrollment and high school graduates to the year 2008 at the state level. These projections were produced to provide researchers, policy analysts, and others with state-level projections developed with a consistent methodology. They are not intended to supplant detailed projections prepared in individual states.
The projections presented in this report reflect revisions influenced by the 1990 census. The revised population projections developed by the Bureau of the Census also reflect the incorporation of the 1996 estimates and latest assumptions for the fertility rate, net immigration, and mortality rate.
This report contains a methodology section describing models and assumptions used to develop the national projections. The projections are based on a cohort survival model, an age-specific enrollment rate model, exponential smoothing models, and econometric models. The enrollment rate model uses population estimates and projections from the Bureau of the Census. The exponential smoothing models are based on the mathematical projection of past data patterns into the future. The econometric models use projections of exogenous variables from the WEFA Group, an economic forecasting service. Therefore, assumptions regarding the population and the economy are the key factors underlying the projections of education statistics.
Most of the projections include three alternatives, based on different assumptions about growth paths. Although the first alternative set of projections (middle alternative) in each table is deemed to represent the most likely projections, the low and high alternatives provide a reasonable range of outcomes.
In the forecast summary, key demographic and economic assumptions are presented in chart 1 and selected education statistics are shown in figure 1. A summary of the projections is available in a pocket-sized folder, Pocket Projections 2008.
Martin Orland, Associate Commissioner for
Data Development and Longitudinal Studies
April 1998
