Replicating Freeman's recursive adjustment model of demand for higher education

During the 1950s and 1960s, most colleges and universities enjoyed rapid student enrollment increases and liberally expanded their programs and physical facilities accordingly. But the economic, fiscal, and social developments of the 1970s have reduced income sources, increased costs, and diminished traditional student populations. Richard Freeman's work on the demand for higher education and the future worth of a college degree has become a major source of controversy among academicians. To establish a relationship between college attendance and the college job market, Freeman employed a three-equation model to analyze the causative supply and demand determinants. In this paper, we examine the viability of Freeman's Recursive Adjustment Model as a management tool for explaining and predicting enrollments and the job market using macro and micro cases.Presented at the Nineteenth Annual Forum of the Association for Institutional Research, San Diego, California, May 1979.