First Look At This Year’s College Enrollment Shows Continuing Decline

College officials hoping to see a rebound in their enrollments this year received some disappointing news. Initial data reveal that overall college enrollment for the fall semester is down once again, decreasing 2.3% across the nation. Added to last year’s drop, the two-year decline in enrollment has reached 4.6%.

The latest figures were unveiled by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center (NSCRC), which provides periodic updates on higher education enrollments as part of its Stay Informed series. These first NSCRC numbers come from 50.5% of Clearinghouse institutions, representing 8.4 million students, that had reported data as of September 23.

Beyond the overall decline are several substantial differences by type of student and institution. For example, while undergraduate enrollment continues to decline, falling 3.2% this fall on top of last fall’s drop of 3.4%, graduate enrollment has increased for two years in a row. The number of graduate students was up 2.1% over last year, for a total two-year increase of 5.3%.

Not only are undergraduate enrollments not recovering from last year’s hole, “we are still digging it deeper,” said Doug Shapiro, the Executive Director of the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, in a press release.

“A year and a half into the Covid-19 pandemic, we continue to see significant nationwide declines in undergraduate students, and community colleges remain the most adversely affected sector, experiencing a 14.1% total enrollment decline since fall 2019,” Shapiro said.

Sector Differences

Undergraduate enrollment declines were markedly different between the various higher ed sectors.

• Public two-year enrollment decreased 5.6%, which was not as steep a drop as last fall’s 9% decline.
• Public four-year enrollment decreased 2.3% this fall, a bit more than the .8% dip last year. A striking difference within this sector was that enrollment at selective state flagships increased 1.0% while less selective publics fell 5.2%.
• Private for-profit four-year college enrollment dropped a dramatic 12.7%, compared to only a .3% decline last year. However, the report warned that this percentage should be regarded cautiously because less than 40% of schools in this sector had reported their data.
• Primarily online institutions saw a large reversal from last year. Undergraduate and graduate enrollments dropped by 5.4% and 13.6%, respectively, wiping out most of the 8.6% gains that both levels saw last fall. 
• The one sector that fared comparatively better was private, nonprofit four-year colleges, which declined by only 0.7% this fall. Mirroring the pattern of their public counterparts, the most highly selective institutions in this group grew 4.3%, while all other selectivity categories reported declines between 1.8% to 2.5 % from last fall.   

Freshman enrollment

The number of freshmen fell by 3.1% this fall, a substantially smaller drop than last year’s 9.5% decline. As in the previous year, community colleges saw another large loss – a 6.1% decrease that’s resulted in a situation where this year’s community college freshman class is now 20.8% smaller than the freshman class of 2019. The private, for-profit institutions saw a 25.2% drop in their freshman class.

Student Differences

The size of the enrollment declines were associated with student demographic differences.

• White, Black, and Native American undergraduates declined more than other racial and ethnic U.S. student groups, falling 4.8%, 5.1% and 4.4%, respectively.
• Latinx student decreased 2.4%, and Asian students declined 2.2%.
• The largest declines in freshmen enrollment were for white (-8.6%) and Black (-7.5%) students. Latinx freshmen decreased 3.4%, while Asian students declined 1.8%.
• Decreases for male and female undergraduates were roughly similar (-3.5%) this year, but cumulatively, the male enrollment decline during the pandemic (2019-2021) is down 9.3%, much more than the female decline of 5.3%.
• Declines were largest among 25- to 29-year-olds (-8.3%). Traditional college-age enrollment declined across all sectors – 2.6% for age 18-20 and 3.1% for age 21-24. Dual enrollment of high school students increased .7% nationally after a 3.6% drop last fall.

International Students

The number of international students declined 8.2% at the undergraduate level. However, international enrollment was up a whopping 13.1% among graduate students.

State Differences

Regionally, the largest undergraduate decline was in the West (-4.4%), followed by the Midwest (-3.3%), Northeast (-2.8%) and South (-2.6%).

New Hampshire experienced the largest percentage increase in undergraduates (7.2%), with Hawaii (1.0%), South Carolina (.9%), Vermont (.8%), Utah (.4%) and Michigan (.2%) also seeing increases.

The largest percentage decline in undergraduate enrollment was in Indiana and West Virginia (-10.1%), followed by Mississippi (-9.5%) and California (-6.4%).

Graduate enrollment increases were reported in 30 states, led by Maryland (8.2%), Oklahoma (7.6%), Florida (6.7%), Maine and South Dakota (6.3% each).

Majors

Among the five largest majors for bachelor’s degree-seeking students, all of them saw fewer enrollments this fall.

• Biological/biomedical sciences and business and related majors were both down .4%.
• Engineering declined 2.9%.
• Liberal arts/general studies/humanities decreased 3.2%
• Health professions/clinical sciences dropped a surprising 3.3%. 

About NSCRC

The NSCRC is the research arm of the National Student Clearinghouse. It collaborates with higher education institutions, states, school districts, high schools, and educational organizations to gather accurate longitudinal data that can be used to guide educational policy decisions.

NSCRC analyzes data from 3,600 postsecondary institutions, which represent 97% of the nation’s postsecondary enrollment in Title IV degree-granting institutions in the U.S., as of 2018.

The next update to the Stay Informed with the Latest Enrollment Information research that tracks postsecondary enrollment changes during the pandemic is scheduled for late November.