Argues that policymakers should be skeptical of forecasts that predict faculty shortages and surpluses according to population trends and analyzes an economic model of the academic labor market. Concludes that forecasts from such models do not support policies designed to offset the impact of cohort size on the academic labor market. (Author/CH)

The use of the cohort-survival method for projecting student enrollments is widely known in educational finance literature; however, the limited information provided by the model impedes planners in making future operational decisions. The cohort-survival method employs historical rates of usage to predict future patterns of usage and produces a…