In a recent conversation with tenured CS professors, they mentioned that grad student enrollment (in their experience) tends to follow the inverse of the economy. When the economy is doing well, grad student enrollment dips. When the economy isn't so hot, it increases.
This made me wonder, does enrollment affect the likelihood of getting tenure?
I would expect that having grad students working with you as a new assistant-professor would help make you more successful at getting tenure. If that is true, it would seem that if enrollment is down, it would be harder to get tenure. Any truth to this?