School enrollment in an extended demographic model

Abstract

This paper presents a demographic model for projecting school enrollment in a metropolitan area. A standard cohort survivorship model is disaggregated with respect to education allowing students to be ‘aged’ through the system of education according to calculated progression rates. Education as a life event is introduced through the concept of educational survivorship. The model is applied to the Chicago region and projections for the region are compared to actual enrollment data. It is argued that the framework makes the effects of demographic structure and assumptions concerning the rate at which students flow through the system transparent, facilitating the educational planning process.