Marvel at my willingness to jump on half-baked data to prove a nagging hunch I had a few months back.

In the midst of our many scintillating conversations about school enrollment and the general population’s assumption that the student-age population will continue to skyrocket until school-age children are living on their own in huge bungalow communes, I brought up birth rate.

And this morning, I was vindicated.  As reported in the New York Times, baby-making hit a 50 year high in 2007, but for the first time in a decade, the birth rate fell in 2008, especially in the second half of the year.

Why?  For the same reason you’re cutting back on eating out, new car buying, and jumping blindly into adjustable-rate mortgages.  Babies are expensive.

Now I’m not arguing that Decatur’s student population won’t continue to rise in the coming years.  It’s certainly possible that new families with kids could still outpace declining birth rates of the current population.  But don’t be surprised if I reemerge in 2014 to say I told ya so!