Some of the biggest issues in higher education in 2023 — college access, leadership turnover, pressures on the business model, among others — will continue to play out in the new year. Here are five data points to keep in mind as you look to the months ahead.
1 million+
The number of Free Applications for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSAs, that were completed by high-school seniors in each of the last two financial-aid cycles, between October 1 — when the form has typically been released — and December 30
Comparable data for the same time period for the high-school Class of 2024 won’t exist, however, thanks to an overhaul of the FAFSA that has pushed back its release by about three months, to no later than December 31, 2023. According to a timeline from the U.S. Department of Education, applicants’ FAFSA data won’t get to colleges right away, so students are likely to receive financial-aid offers later than usual.
More than a dozen
The number of historically Black colleges and universities without a permanent leader just before the end of 2023
That means 2024 will be a year in which presidential searches get underway (and in some instances conclude) at institutions like Bethune-Cookman University, Tougaloo College, and Winston-Salem State University. Others, like St. Augustine’s University, are now led by an interim president and have yet to announce their search plans.
3.7 million
The number of students projected to graduate from high school this spring
This pool of potential college students, an increase from the previous year’s new high-school graduates, according to federal data, is expected to peak in 2025, rising by roughly another 49,000 students before starting to drop — the long-anticipated demographic cliff.
Although we haven’t yet reached the cliff, its effects have already surfaced at individual colleges and across some states. Many colleges will prepare by expanding their target audiences and focusing on retention.
16
The number of lawsuits or complaints filed since July by Students for Fair Admissions and another advocacy group over the use of race in admissions decisions and in targeted funding programs
After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that race-conscious admissions were unconstitutional — in response to a case brought by Students for Fair Admissions, or SFFA — challenges to affirmative action surged. That trend is likely to continue in the new year.
The court’s landmark decision excluded the nation’s military academies from its ruling, which spurred SFFA to challenge the exception in lawsuits it filed against the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and the U.S. Naval Academy (a federal judge recently ruled against the group’s request to temporarily halt race-based admissions at the Naval Academy).
Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has received a stream of complaints filed by the Equal Protection Project, an advocacy group that seeks “fair treatment of all persons without regard to race or ethnicity,” according to its website.
One complaint filed by the group said Western Kentucky University violated civil-rights laws by excluding white students from two scholarships. The group has also filed more than a dozen other similar complaints. Among the targets: a public-media residency program at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, an anti-racism workshop at New York University, and tuition-waiver programs at the University of North Dakota’s law school and Bismarck State College.
55 percent
The share of college students who said they plan to vote in the 2024 presidential election
According to a national youth poll by the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School, college students in the fall of 2023 were less committed to voting than in prior years. Just four years ago, in the fall of 2019, the share of college students who said they were planning to head to the polls was 13 percentage points higher, at 68 percent.
Young voters, critical in next year’s election, played a key role in getting President Biden elected in 2020. It’s too early to tell if they’ll do the same in 2024.
The top issues for 18- to 34-year-olds, per an early poll conducted by researchers at Tufts University: cost of living/inflation, jobs that pay a living wage, gun violence, and climate change. In a finding similar to the Kennedy School’s results, 57 percent of respondents to the Tufts poll said they were “extremely likely” to vote in the next election.
