Updates on Higher Education Enrollment

on Enrollment

Amid various challenges that are shaping the higher education landscape, such as a shrinking enrollment pipeline of traditional-age students and the continued rapid pace of technological change, colleges and universities are pressed to re-evaluate their long- and short-term strategies, particularly those related to enrollment management and recruiting and supporting students from a broad spectrum of backgrounds and life experiences.

The series was first created in the summer of 2020 to help educational leaders and policymakers understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on postsecondary enrollments. The report’s dashboards continue to be updated within the first two months of every fall term to provide preliminary but timely enrollment updates to the education community using the latest enrollment data available through the Clearinghouse. The estimates provided in this report are preliminary and subject to revision. The Current Term Enrollment Estimates report, released every January, provides final enrollment estimates for the fall term.

The report’s dashboards feature national and state-level data on annual enrollment changes across the three most recent years, with additional levels of disaggregation by student demographics (including a measure of pre-college neighborhood income), field of major, and institutional characteristics. The fall 2024 edition includes a new indicator that enables dashboard users to look at enrollment trends across institutions by the share of the undergraduate population that receives Pell Grants.

First Look at Fall 2024 Highlights (as of September 26, 2024)

• Preliminary data for fall 2024 shows undergraduate enrollment increasing 3 percent. All sectors are seeing growth in the number of undergraduates this fall.
• Contrary to overall enrollment growth, freshman enrollment is declining, down 5 percent from this time last fall with public and private nonprofit 4-year institutions seeing the largest declines (-8.5% and -6.5%). An almost 6 percent drop in the number of 18-year-old freshmen (a proxy for those enrolling immediately after high school graduation) is driving most of the decline.
• Declines in freshman enrollment are most significant at four-year colleges that serve low-income students.  At four-year colleges where high shares of the undergraduate population receive Pell Grants, freshman enrollment is declining by more than 10 percent. At comparable community colleges, freshman enrollment is rising (+1.2%).
• Bachelor’s (+1.9%) and associate degree (+4.3%) programs are seeing enrollment gains this fall. The number of students pursuing shorter-term credentials is continuing to grow rapidly, with enrollment in undergraduate certificate programs increasing 7.3 percent.
• Undergraduate and graduate enrollments for Hispanic, Black, Asian, and Multiracial students are seeing strong growth this fall. Undergraduate White students, on the other hand, are continuing to see enrollment declines (-0.6%).
• Traditional-aged undergraduate students from neighborhoods of all income levels are seeing enrollment increases. However, freshman enrollment is showing the reverse trend, declining across all neighborhood income levels with those from middle income neighborhoods (lower middle, middle, and upper middle quintiles) seeing the largest drops at public and private nonprofit 4-year institutions.