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Readers write in about caring for the elderly, what's in store for colleges

Sandra Batra Needham Taking Attendance As we confront shrinking college enrollments and a looming talent shortage, we must be proactive in cultivating the next generation of STEM workers ( Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Dr. Bonnie Bertolaet Executive director, Science Club for Girls Advertisement I think that AI has come at the right time. With [fewer] educated workers, more productive use of AI may prevent the dive over the demographic cliff. Notmdny posted on I don't buy it. We have known for decades that the demographic cliff was coming. I've been reading articles about it since 2000 at least. And everyone understood at the time that the solution was to have a higher percentage of students attend college. That required making college less expensive and more useful. Instead, colleges have gone the other way, turning themselves into pricey resorts. Working Wizard posted on Every country that becomes more educated and more wealthy ends up having fewer children. . . . You can see this in Japan and in wealthier countries in Europe — they saw this drop in children before the US did and it had nothing to do with any economic downturn, people simply chose to have fewer children. Is this a bad thing? The world is full of people who want to come here for work and college. NicksterNH posted on [America's low birth rate] can and does lead to problems because, as the population ages, we won't have enough people working and paying taxes to support a vibrant society. This is where immigrants can help tremendously. Even temporary workers help the US because they pay taxes, including FICA, from which they may well never earn enough points to collect anything from Social Security. So, it's not just schools that will be hit by a drop in population; schools need students just as business needs workers and there's going to be a shortage of both. garymichael posted on Advertisement CONTACT US: Write to magazine@ or The Boston Globe Magazine/Comments, 1 Exchange Place, Suite 201, Boston, MA 02109-2132. Comments are subject to editing.