Format requirements:
- Start with # title (the claim in one line)
- Short paragraphs
- End with "What would change this: …"
- Keep sources or Unverified: tags
- Don't mention tools, sessions, revising

Let me assemble the durable claims inventory from all the notes, dropping repetition, keeping the strongest statements:

**Core answer:** Both — the system bifurcates and thins. Total enrollment drifts ~19M → ~14–15M by 2045 (Unverified). Degrees conferred roughly steady while institution count falls — "thins, doesn't shrink." Median campus roughly halves. AI is accelerant/sorter, not primary cause — two-front squeeze: fewer 18-year-olds AND weakened degree signal.

**Demography (load-bearing, sourced):**
- 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
- NE/Midwest/Plains lose 10–20% college-age (WICHE); TX/FL/TN/GA/Carolinas grow
- Net domestic migration to Sun Belt (Census Bureau)

**Signaling:**
- Screening vs insurance decomposition: screening dies first (AI-verified work samples cheaper than proxy); insurance (blame-shifting/liability) is sticky residue, persists in regulated/litigation-exposed sectors through 2040s. Post-2035 degree demand tracks a sector's legal/liability regime before it tracks region.
- Licensed/statute-gated fields hold (nursing, law, accounting, teaching; engineering, medicine); super-selectives hold
- Mid-tier unlicensed BA premiums compress 30–50% real by mid-2030s (Unverified)
- Fastest collapse in generalist white-collar fields (business, communications, generic liberal arts)
- By ~2035 median degree = positional luxury marker; degree reprices from entry ticket to exit credential
- "AI doesn't kill the degree; it kills the undifferentiated degree"
- Credential-value decay hits by major before by institution — compositional churn; campus fates track program mix
- Pre-AI drift: Burning Glass Institute "The Emerging Degree Reset" (~46% of middle-skill postings dropped degree requirements 2021–22); HBS "Dismissed by Degrees"
- Stanford Digital Economy Lab "Canaries in the Coal Mine" (2025)
- Total degree-seeking enrollment falls 15–25% below demographic baseline by 2045 (Unverified)
- Mid-market enrollment contracts 25–40% by ~2035 (Unverified)
- Micro-credentials are a middle-market illusion — complement at top, fail to stabilize bottom

**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 (clinical placements, faculty pipelines, state approvals) — 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 (Unverified)
- "Program mix picks the winners, regional demography picks which losers can still switch"
- Flagships everywhere partially insulated (Michigan, UVa, Wisconsin)
- Region sets the demand floor; program mix sets the slope — nursing/engineering-anchored campus in Ohio can outperform generic-BA campus in Georgia

**Regional:**
- SEC/Sun Belt flagships add 20–35% enrollment 2025–2045 (Unverified) on migration, employer relocation, state AI/compute investment
- NE/Rust Belt shrink on three axes: college-age decline, AI-linked employer/tax-base outmigration, consolidation — small privates/regional publics in PA, OH, NY, MI, New England close/merge/convert at 3–5x national per-capita rate, roughly one in four four-year institutions in that belt by 2045 (Unverified)
- Endowed Northeast privates (Ivies, top SLACs) hold as premium scarce brands
- AI flattens teaching, not place — durable advantages become networks, land, brand, state funding willingness
- Compute-hungry industry follows cheap land/power/taxes south; university prestige follows industry funding

**Cost structure:**
- AI attacks variable instructional labor (grading, sections, office hours, intro lecturing); fixed costs intact
- Savings capped at contingent