I'd like to suggest an exploration into changing how Entry Year is archived and/or what it means to be unpublished.
The issue we run into is that we want to leave Entry Year values listed under Core System Values so we can build groups, run reports, etc. of of them, but by leaving old values there our users can mistakenly select them when creating/editing student records.
I'd like to recommend/request that the archive feature removes a value from the list on forms, student records, etc. but leaves it as an option in the group builder, reports, funnel charts (though currently this wouldn't matter since they don't count inactive students).
This would work similarly to how disabled forms work, since they are still available interaction options in the group builder.