Here's how Utah's higher education system can grapple with a declining college-age population
by Logan Stefanich ksl · KSL.comKEY TAKEAWAYS
- Utah's college-age population will rise until 2028 then decline for two decades, according to projections.
- A University of Utah report suggests strategies for adapting to demographic shifts.
- Key strategies include retention improvements, resource reallocation and regional collaboration among institutions.
SALT LAKE CITY — Utah's higher education institutions have enjoyed a growing college-age statewide population that has acted as the driving force for steady enrollment growth over the past decade.
But that trend is coming to an end, with updated projections showing Utah's 18- to 24-year-old population increasing through 2028 before declining for nearly two decades.
It goes without saying, then, that lower rates of college-going Utahns pose challenges for higher education.
But a recent report from the University of Utah's Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute outlined ways institutions can navigate these changes to strengthen higher education across the state.
"Utah's demographic landscape is changing," Heidi Prior, senior public policy analyst at the Gardner Institute and lead author of the report, said in a statement. "The approaching decline in college-age residents reflects a broader shift in Utah's age structure, with important implications for higher education."
While the dwindling college-age population is the focus of the report, it also notes that demographic shifts aren't the only challenge to higher education enrollment.
One of those challenges has to do with the changing public sentiment around higher education.
Less than half of Americans (42%) report confidence in higher education, according to a 2025 Lumina Foundation-Gallup survey — declining from 57% just a decade ago.
And a Pew study found that 7 in 10 Americans think higher education in the U.S. is "going in the wrong direction."
College-age population attrition won't look the same for every institution, either.
Of the more than 162,000 students enrolled in Utah System of Higher Education schools, about 71% are between ages 18 and 24, while about 29% are 25 and older.
Schools like Salt Lake City Community College, Southern Utah University and the state's technical colleges enroll significantly higher shares of adults age 25 and older.
"The diverse age demographics at these schools may lessen the impact of the projected decline in Utah's 18- to 24-year-old population. Conversely, Utah's research universities, along with Snow College and Utah Tech University, primarily serve 18- to 24-year-olds and may experience greater impacts," said the report.
Despite all of these factors, there are ways Utah can (and has already started) preparing for the demographic dip.
Perhaps the biggest came with the passage of HB265 in 2025, a massive higher education cut commonly referred to as the "strategic reinvestment" bill.
The bill required USHE degree-granting institutions to reallocate resources toward high-priority programs aligned with workforce needs and student outcomes.
And in 2026, the Utah Board of Higher Education extended a similar strategic reinvestment process to technical colleges, encouraging institutions across the system to evaluate programs and better align resources with changing demands.
The report also pointed out areas where Utah can build on existing efforts to help institutions adapt.
One area is retention.
Between 2023 and 2024, USHE institutions retained 68.7% of first-year students, with about 7,000 full- and part-time students from the cohort not returning to their institution the following fall.
Even incremental improvements in retention, the report noted, could keep hundreds or thousands of additional students enrolled each year.
Aside from student retention, the report pointed to another area that has been a key priority for Utah's higher education system — coordination and collaboration.
Passed in the 2026 legislative session, HB352 directed the state higher education system to organize institutions into regions that include at least one degree-granting institution and one technical college and to "facilitate greater horizontal and vertical integration among institutions," according to a USHE memo.
The proposed framework of the plan would establish five unique educational regions throughout the Beehive State, each with its own strengths, partnership opportunities and regional workforce needs to address.
"Understanding the timing and scale of these changes gives policymakers and institutional leaders time to prepare and think strategically about the future of higher education," Andrea Brandley, senior education analyst at the Gardner Institute, said in a statement. "Approaching this transition as a statewide system — not simply institution by institution — can help Utah expand educational opportunity, improve student success, and better meet evolving workforce needs."
The full report is available here.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
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Logan Stefanich
Logan Stefanich is a reporter with KSL, covering northern Utah communities, education, business and tech news.