Beyond the skills gap: Surviving the demographic talent crisis
By: John Fuchko, President, Dalton State College
Key points:
- • Demographic decline threatens college enrollment as demand for skilled workers grows.
- • Georgia’s enrollment growth highlights the value of education and industry partnerships.
- • Flexible learning pathways and employer collaboration are essential to workforce development.
October 2026 — Dr. Nathan Grawe, writing in “Demographics and the Demand for Higher Education,” proved the brilliance of simplicity and data-informed insight as he explored the impact of demographic decline on higher education. While overly simplistic, my takeaway from his work was that we were facing an enrollment cliff driven by many factors, but most notably by a declining number of high-school graduates, itself driven by a fertility rate of approximately 1.6 that is well below the replacement rate of 2.1.
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For those unfamiliar with the concept, replacement rate refers to the average number of children necessary to maintain a stable population. The exact rate varies by country because mortality and other factors can affect it. The calculation does not include immigration. The fertility rate is the actual average number of children born to a woman. A rate below replacement equates to long-term demographic decline.
With that technical explanation out of the way, what are the long-term implications of a declining population? They are legion. The Thucydides Trap suggests that a declining power and a rising power are bound to conflict, so demographic decline could contribute to armed conflict. Countries facing population decline may act before their economic power contracts. Over time, the number of workers and customers will fall. Technology, including artificial intelligence, will blunt the edge of these declines. Even so, the coming population bust may be one of the defining forces of the 21st century.
Maybe this is the bad news. What about the good news?
Workforce demand
Every technological enhancement has been seen, at the time, as the harbinger of the end of labor, work, and employment. Nevertheless, we continue to need entrepreneurs, farmers, teachers, public servants, artists, writers, welders, plumbers, linemen, and electricians. In short, people remain at the center of our economy as soon as we peel back the reality of our existence.
Yet, some forecasts suggest that higher education institutions will decline in enrollment even with postsecondary attainment near 50% nationally and lower in many parts of the country. We also know that demand for many jobs requiring a postsecondary credential is projected to grow. Put another way, demand for a prepared and educated workforce continues to rise while college enrollment across much of the country is largely stagnating.
The experience in Georgia
Georgia has had a different experience over the past four years. Enrollment in the University System of Georgia has grown by approximately 17%, with some institutions, including Dalton State, growing by more than 27% during the same period. Comparable national growth appears substantially lower.
Why has Georgia’s experience been different?
There is no single answer, and it would be foolish to suggest that demographic forces stop at the Georgia state line. They do not. But demographics establish the conditions in which we operate. They do not dictate how we respond.
Georgia has maintained a sustained focus on educational attainment and the connection between education and economic opportunity. Our multiyear designation as the best state in which to do business and student success efforts reflect a multistakeholder, across-the-board approach to strengthening the connection between higher education, industry, government, and prosperity. We have recognized as a state that substantially more people need postsecondary credentials and that meeting the challenge requires collaboration among higher education, state government, schools, communities, and employers.
At Dalton State, that idea is tangible. We serve Northwest Georgia, a region anchored by manufacturing but also facing significant needs in healthcare, education, business, and other sectors. Our job is not simply to ask students which majors they would like us to offer. Nor is it to ask employers what narrowly defined technical skill they happen to need this year. Our responsibility is harder than either of those things.
Formation. Knowledge. Transformation.
Higher education should do all three.
Students need knowledge and technical competence. They also need the ability to communicate, think critically, solve unfamiliar problems, work with others, and continually acquire new knowledge. In an economy being reshaped by artificial intelligence, those capacities become more important, not less.
This is where the business community enters the equation.
Conversations about the skills gap often resemble a tennis match. Employers question graduates’ preparation; colleges emphasize transferable abilities. Each side has data and doubts the other fully understands.
That will not be good enough for what comes next.
If the pool of available workers grows more slowly, the relationship between employers and higher education must become more intentional. Businesses cannot simply wait at the end of the educational pipeline and evaluate what comes out. They must help shape the pipeline itself. At Dalton State, we chose to deliberately engage our business community on the front end to not only drive incremental curriculum change but to inform our entire strategic plan.
To be clear, that does not mean choosing the books faculty assign or turning colleges into corporate training departments. It means something more useful: telling us what you are actually seeing. What capabilities distinguish your best new employees? Where are talented people struggling? Which technologies and positions are changing? What can students learn through work-based experiences that a classroom cannot replicate? Which abilities will matter five or 10 years from now?
Those conversations can shape programs, internships, credentials, and institutional investment. Georgia has increasingly built these connections into its workforce strategy through employer-aligned education, training, and partnerships among industry, schools, colleges, and universities. At Dalton State, our four academic schools develop partnerships that connect students with their professions and communities.
But none of us should declare victory. The demographic math will not allow it.
A region with low educational attainment and high workforce demand does not merely have a problem. It has an enormous opportunity. There are adults with some college but no credential. There are high-school students who have never imagined succeeding in college. There are working people who need a credential but cannot organize their lives around a traditional college schedule. And there are businesses that understand where their industries are headed but lack a meaningful role in higher education conversations.
We need all of them.
That requires higher education to become more flexible without becoming less rigorous. We must provide multiple entry points, clearer pathways, and stronger connections between learning and work. At the same time, we must protect the coherent core of what higher education does best: developing human beings who can reason, communicate, adapt, and participate meaningfully in their communities. Really, it means human beings fully living their calling as humans.
A call to business leaders
How can business and industry leaders help drive necessary change? First, do not just tell higher education what we are doing wrong. Help us define what getting it right looks like.
Get involved with your local college or university. Invite faculty and academic leaders into your business. Serve on advisory groups. Create internships and work-based learning opportunities. Talk honestly about what you need from graduates, not simply for openings today but for the organization you expect to lead five or 10 years from now. And listen when educators explain what students will need over a lifetime, not merely for their first job.
The demographic challenges ahead are real. We cannot manufacture more 18-year-olds, and artificial intelligence will not eliminate our need for capable, educated, and adaptable people. What we can do is become much more deliberate about developing the talent we already have. Georgia and Dalton State show what can happen when institutions, communities, and employers treat this work as a shared responsibility.
That is the opportunity hiding inside the enrollment cliff.
Demographics matter. But they do not have to be destiny.
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