Designed for educational planners and decision makers, this report reviews the principles and methods of demography. The first section discusses demographic rates and measures, including a basic demographic equation, crude rates, cohort measures, parity progression ratio, and life tables. The next three sections examine three demographic factors relating to educational planning. They are as follow: mortality; fertility (United States fertility in historical perspective, birth expectations, and differentials); and migration (biological and social characteristics of migrants, geographic patterns in migration, and urbanization and metropolization). The final section discusses general methods of population projections: extrapolation, ratio method, cohort-component method, and modeling. (Two related documents are available in ERIC: The Use of Mathematical Models of Student Flow in Educational Planning [CE 019 498] and State and Local Responsibilities for Planning Occupational Education [ED 133 479].) (JH)