The user wants a single consolidated Markdown note that synthesizes all the filed notes into the current best statement of what is established about whether US universities grow or shrink due to AI over the next 20 years, with regional dependence.

Format requirements:
- Start with a # title
- Short paragraphs
- End with "What would change this: …"
- Keep sources or Unverified: tags
- Don't mention tools, sessions, or that I'm revising

Let me inventory the durable claims across all the notes (drawing from Note 13's reconciliation, which is the most careful inventory):

**Core answer:**
- "Grow or shrink" resolves as "both" — the system bifurcates/thins. Region- AND stratum-specific.
- Total enrollment drifts from ~19M toward ~14–15M by 2045 (Unverified forecast), mid-tier absorbs the loss.
- Degrees conferred roughly steady while institution count falls sharply — "thins, doesn't shrink."
- Median campus roughly halves in enrollment and research output.

**Demography:**
- Births 4.32M (2007) → ~3.59M (2023), ~17% decline (CDC/NCHS).
- HS grads peak ~3.9M/yr ~2025 (WICHE "Knocking at the College Door").
- Birth dearth hits college age 2029–2037.
- Northeast/Midwest/Plains lose 10–20% college-age (WICHE); TX/FL/TN/GA/Carolinas grow.
- Net domestic migration to Sun Belt (Census Bureau).

**AI's role:**
- Accelerant/sorter, not primary cause. Two-front squeeze: fewer 18-year-olds AND weakened degree signal.
- AI as accelerant of existing migration: compute-hungry industry follows cheap land/power/taxes south; university prestige follows industry funding.

**Signaling / demand:**
- Degrees lose signaling value asymmetrically by enforcement mechanism: licensed fields (statute-gated: nursing, law, accounting, teaching; catastrophic-failure: engineering, medicine) and super-selectives hold; mid-tier unlicensed BA premiums compress 30–50% real by mid-2030s (Unverified forecast).
- Fastest collapse in generalist white-collar fields where AI enables direct output verification.
- Degree replaced as screening instrument, not positional good; by 2035 median degree = positional luxury marker.
- Two brakes: AI application floods push employers back to crude degree filters; elite alumni-network/trust effects.
- Degree survives as insurance, not instruction.
- Demand migrates to "protected degree + AI skill stack."
- Pre-AI employer drift away from degree requirements (HBS "Dismissed by Degrees"; Burning Glass Institute "The Emerging Degree Reset" ~46% of middle-skill postings dropped degree requirements 2021-22).
- Stanford Digital Economy Lab "Canaries in the Coal Mine" (2025) — early-career employment declines in AI-exposed occupations.
- Compression from both ends.
- Signal bifurcation: elite degrees gain value BECAUSE verification makes mid-tier signals redundant; degree reprices from entry ticket to exit credential (durable residue in licensure, grad gatekeeping, late-career management).
- Agentic hiring stacks: work-sample simulators, skill attestations; "bachelor's required" listings fall 30–50% in AI-exposed occupations by late 2030s (Unverified).
- Degree decomposes into two products by ~2035: entry-ticket product (ROI goes negative as AI absorbs first-job tasks) and positional product (selectivity is what's bought). Mid-market contraction is buyer arithmetic, not demography.
- Mid-market enrollment contracts 25–40% by ~2035 (Unverified, forecast).

**Program mix × region:**
- Licensed vs unlicensed share of credit hours = dominant predictor; region governs whether winning mix is reachable.
- Licensed expansion takes 7–10 years — longer than declining-region runway → decline locks in.
- SEC/Sun Belt publics +10–25% seats through ~2040 as legislatures fund as economic development.
- Northeast small privates without licensed core: −30–50% by 2040.
- "Program mix picks the winners, regional demography picks which losers can still switch."
- Three stacked currents: demographic cliff (NE/Midwest), migration to Sun Belt, AI disruption landing on white-collar task clusters in legacy NE/Rust Belt metros (highest sticker prices exactly there).
- Flagship brands everywhere partially insulated (Michigan, UVa, Wisconsin).

**Regional:**
- SEC/Sun Belt states grow: flagships add 20–35% enrollment 2025–2045 (Unverified) on migration, employer relocation, state investment in AI/compute infrastructure.
- NE/Rust Belt shrink on three axes: college-age population decline (WICHE 10–20% by late 2030s