USA Today ran an editorial this week on college admissions. Their starting point is simple but scary: the biggest high school graduating class ever (the class of 2007) is applying for college at a time when the percentage of high school graduates going to college is at it's highest level ever.

At colleges, admissions officers are working overtime to process the tsunami of applications. Over the past decade, the number of students sending out more than a dozen applications has doubled, reports the Higher Education Research Institute.

And with the proliferation of applications comes an abundance of rejection letters. At the more selective schools, nine out of ten applicants get a rejection letter. At the top tier universities (the editorial mentioned the University of Virginia) more get in, but over half still get rejected...

On top of it all, the budget for higher education is shrinking (note recent stories on Florida, California, and Kentucky) and many university systems are just cutting seats.

The USA Today piece is interesting and insightful. You can read the whole piece here.