Answer
This means that the number of college students equaled 24,500 in 2015.
Work Step by Step
We are asked to find when the number of students reaches 24,500.
We use the quadratic formula
$$x= \frac{-b \pm \sqrt{b^2-4ac}}{2a}$$
Where b is the coefficient of the term with a variable raised to the first power, a is the coefficient of the squared term, and c is the coefficient of the term without a variable in front of it. When we plug in the given values for a, b, and c, we get:
15
This means that the number of college students equaled 24,500 in 2015.
