The Myth Of The Covid-19 Enrollment Crisis

“Never let the facts get in the way of a good story” is a quip attributed to Mark Twain and through most of spring and summer the good story was that Covid-19 was going to decimate fall college enrollments, beginning a cataclysm of school closures and rampant sky falling.

In one widely reported example, the investor service company Fitch speculated that fall enrollment could be down “as much as 20%.” The New York Times wrote several times, asking, “Will Students Come Back?,” even citing that an unnamed, “higher education trade group has predicted a 15 percent drop in enrollment nationwide.”

It was a good story. And true to Twain, the facts certainly did not get in the way.

All along, there was plenty of evidence that the idea of a big enrollment drop was exaggerated or outright invented.

In March, I wrote about data showing clearly that no enrollment crash was coming, saying, “evaporation of existing students is exaggerated.” In May, I cited a different data set and said reports of a major enrollment drop were “unfounded” and that fall enrollment would probably see, “no change.” Also in May, the research and consulting firm McKinsey and Company released a report saying clearly, “total new full-time bachelor’s enrollment may remain unchanged.”

And now, the facts are in. Early fall enrollment numbers were released this week and, sure enough, no enrollment crush has transpired, no sky has fallen.   

The early report, based on 22% of colleges that had shared their data, showed “undergraduate student enrollment declining 2.5%” compared to last year. Overall college enrollment was down less significantly (1.8%), due to a boost in graduate enrollment. Most of the enrollment losses, the data show, were at community colleges.

Nonetheless, an overall dip of 1.8% is anything but calamitous. Significant, maybe. Doomsday, no. And definitely not the 15% or 20% fantasy that drove headline doomsaying for months.  

But, unfortunately not even the actual numbers slowed down the good story of Covid-19 enrollment drops. The Washington Post said the new report showing an actual 1.8% enrollment dip was, laughably, “confirming what many in higher education already suspected: that the public health crisis would lower head counts at the nation’s colleges and universities.” The Post headline was, “College enrollment takes a hit this fall amid coronavirus” while Google spectacularly lists that article with the headline, “Pandemic hammers college enrollment this fall, report says.”

Here’s the key point, though. Not only did Covid-19 not hammer fall enrollments, the numbers simply don’t support any link between Covid-19 and an enrollment drop at all.

While the early 2020 data show the aforementioned 2.5% undergrad drop and a 1.8% overall drop from 2019, that is exactly on pace with the drop in college enrollment that’s been happening for a decade now. The overall enrollment dip from 2018 to 2019, the year before Covid-19, was 1.3% — the eighth year in a row it was down. College enrollment dropped 11% over the eight years before Covid-19.

Put another way, 2020 is the ninth consecutive year of enrollment declines. Eight of those had nothing to do with Covid-19 and this year’s drop is right in line with the previous eight. Considering the trend, the impact of Covid-19 on fall enrollments has likely been essentially zero. Not hammered, zero.

Go a bit deeper in the numbers and you see that this fall’s drop was, in some ways, even less severe than in previous years. This year — 2019 to 2020 — the fall decline at public, four-year colleges was just .4%, according to the new, early data. The prior year, it was down 1.2%. When you count only those students seeking a four-year degree, removing those in certification programs, in community colleges or graduate school, the 2020 Covid-19 enrollment crisis was a dip of a paltry one half of one percent.   

That’s not to say Covid-19 has had no impact on college enrollments. There are deeply troubling signs in the community college numbers. But there are also deeply encouraging signs in the graduate-level numbers. Enrollments in Master’s degree programs, for example, are up 6% fall over fall.

The enrollment crash story was a good one, true. But it was never actually true. There was no mystery about that, the information was there for anyone who wanted to look. The mystery is why so many people kept repeating the story anyway. And why, now that we have some facts, they are still not getting in the way.