The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center's monthly releases on year-over-year enrollment trends, updated with data as they come in from institutions, give a sense of how things are going in a semester policymakers and student advocates worried
about all summer.
We were right to worry. The news is grim.
The latest release is updated with all of the data NSCRC had from institutions through Sept. 24. At the risk of being melodramatic it’s essentially impossible to find good news in this report:
Overall postsecondary enrollment is down by 3%, led by a 4% decrease in undergraduate enrollment and buoyed somewhat by graduate enrollment, which is up 2.7%.
Losses to undergraduate enrollment are being led by the community college sector, which is down 9.4%. Public and private, nonprofit four-year institutions are down 1.4% and 2%, respectively. Private, for-profit four-year institutions are up 3%, which,
given their completion and student loan outcomes, is hardly a silver lining.
Students pursuing certificates and associate degrees are both down nearly 9%; pursuit of bachelor’s degrees is down just 0.7%.
As bad as that was, the numbers on first-time beginning students are even worse. (See figure 4.)
Overall, first-time student enrollments are down 16.1% through Sept. 24 compared to last year. Broken down by institutional types and age, we see double-digit declines, often into the 20% range, for most student groups. For example, four-year public institutions
saw 40.5% declines in first-time students aged 21-24. Overall that sector declined 13.7%. Two-year public institutions were somehow even worse, declining 22.7%.
Looking at undergraduate enrollment by race and ethnicity, White students’ enrollments declined 6.3% compared to 4.7% and 2% for Black and Hispanic students, respectively.
The data aren’t surprising, but they are still disheartening. They show the incredible supports students need and the role NCAN members across the country will play in getting students to enroll, helping them persist, and reconnecting them with postsecondary
pathways where circumstances have forced them off.
The NSCRC will keep up the drumbeat of these data over the course of the fall. In December, we will see enrollment data tied to the high schools from which students matriculated. Unfortunately, based on what we’ve seen above, they are likely to paint
a picture of inequitable pursuits of postsecondary pathways.
Email to a Friend