Freshman enrollment declined 5 percent this fall, the first drop since the start of the pandemic in 2020, according to preliminary enrollment data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.
Four-year public and private nonprofit colleges saw the largest declines in first-year students (-8.5 percent and -6.5 percent, respectively) compared with the same time last fall. Meanwhile, freshman enrollment fell by 0.4 percent at community colleges.
The center’s data, released in a new report on Wednesday, provide a partial snapshot of an especially turbulent enrollment cycle defined by the disastrous rollout of the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). For months, technical errors with the form and numerous delays in the transmission of FAFSA data to colleges disrupted the admissions and financial-aid process at institutions nationwide.
The 2023-24 enrollment cycle was also the first since the U.S. Supreme Court banned the consideration of race in admissions, which injected further uncertainty into this fall’s enrollment equation. Demographic shifts continue to alter the racial and socioeconomic diversity of high-school graduates. And concerns about the cost of college and student debt remain top of mind for many lower-income students.
“It’s very hard to pinpoint any single cause of the changes, particularly in freshmen, this fall,” Doug Shapiro, the center’s executive director, said during a news conference on Tuesday. “There have been so many different headwinds, and so I hesitate to single any of these out.”
Despite the substantial decline in freshmen, the center’s new report reveals that undergraduate enrollment is up 3 percent over all — the second straight year that higher education saw an increase (last year’s was up 2.1 percent). This fall’s uptick, Shapiro said, was driven by gains in non-freshman undergraduates and high-school students participating in dual-enrollment programs (who are counted as undergraduates but not as freshmen).
Both bachelor’s- and associate-degree programs saw enrollment growth (1.9 percent and 4.3 percent, respectively) this fall. There was a 2.1-percent uptick in enrollment in graduate programs. And more students are seeking shorter-term credentials: Enrollment in undergraduate certificate programs increased by 7.3 percent over last year.
The center’s latest report includes two new features. One is a breakout of 18-year-old freshmen, which is meant to provide an estimate of the number of students enrolling in college immediately after graduating from high school. The enrollment of 18-year-olds dropped by 5.8 percent this fall, accounting for most of the decline in freshmen enrollment.
The new report also breaks out institutions in each sector according to the percentage of all their students who receive federal Pell Grants. The downturn in freshmen this fall was steepest at four-year institutions that serve relatively large numbers of low-income students. Among those with the highest shares of undergraduates receiving Pell Grants, freshman enrollment fell by more than 10 percent. But at community colleges with comparable populations of low-income students, the center found, enrollment increased by 1.2 percent.
The center’s findings so far reveal a slight decline in white undergraduates (-0.6 percent), but an increase among Hispanic (6 percent), Asian American (4.7 percent), Black (4.2 percent), and multiracial students (4 percent). Among freshmen, enrollment declined among all subgroups, most sharply among white (-11.4 percent), Black (-6.1 percent), and multiracial students (-6.6 percent). The declines were smaller for Hispanic (-1.4 percent) and Asian American students (-2.8 percent).
Enrollment of traditional-age undergraduates from neighborhoods of all income levels rose this fall. But freshman enrollment declined across all neighborhood income levels, and the sharpest drops were among students from middle-income neighborhoods attending four-year public and private institutions.
Historically Black colleges and universities saw a 5.9-percent gain in undergraduate enrollment, following a 5.6-percent jump at the same time last fall. Hispanic-serving institutions saw a 3.1-percent increase, compared with a 2.1-percent rise.
The new report, which reflects enrollments as of September 26, are based on 8.7 million undergraduate and graduate students at slightly more than half of the colleges (52 percent) the center expects to receive data from.
Shapiro cautioned that the results will change by the end of the fall semester, as more colleges submit their data. Indeed, according to the center’s preliminary findings last October freshman enrollment was down 3.6 percent. But the final numbers, gathered from all participating institutions, showed that freshman enrollment in the fall of 2023 increased by 0.8 percent.
