Dive Brief:
- Undergraduate enrollment rose 2.5% year over year in spring 2024, the second semester in a row higher ed has seen such gains, according to a new report from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.
- The overall increase — representing about 359,000 additional students — came largely at community colleges, where regular and dual enrollment both rose, the report said.
- But even with the gains, higher ed enrollment is still well below pre-COVID levels. Doug Shapiro, the research center’s executive director, called the pandemic's lingering effects "a continuing kind of hangover" in a call with reporters Tuesday.
Dive Insight:
Colleges are slowly recovering from sharp pandemic-induced enrollment declines, as well as broader demographic challenges plaguing the sector. The clearinghouse found that enrollment among undergraduate students rose 1.2% year over year in fall 2023 — the first such increase in over a decade.
While undergraduate enrollment hasn't returned to pre-pandemic numbers, colleges have reason to be optimistic, Shapiro said.
"This is especially true for community colleges which, of course, were the hardest hit during the pandemic," he said.
Enrollment increased 4.7% year over year at these institutions this spring, an addition of about 200,000 students. That represents almost half of the higher education sector’s overall gains, despite community colleges making up just a quarter of postsecondary enrollment, the clearinghouse said.
Dual enrollment students — high schoolers who are also taking community college classes — also boosted headcounts, increasing for the third year in a row. An additional 101,000 of these students enrolled in college courses this semester compared to the year before, an increase of 10%. That accounted for 28.1% of all undergraduate enrollment growth.
Graduate enrollment was especially strong this spring, outpacing undergraduate gains, the report said. Enrollment at this level rose 3% — an increase of about 88,000 students — reversing the 2.4% year-over-year decline seen in spring 2023.
Shapiro also addressed how the bumpy debut of the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid could affect undergraduate enrollment.
The U.S. Department of Education released a simplified version of the federal aid form at the end of December, about three months later than usual.
Congress mandated the agency to make the notoriously difficult form easier for students and their families to fill out. But delays and persistent glitches in the new form left many students confused and unable to submit the form.
As of May 10, just 40.2% of high school seniors had completed the FAFSA, down from 49.6% at the same time last year, according to the National College Attainment Network.
Shapiro said FAFSA woes are likely to hurt fall numbers.
"We just don't know how much," he said. "This is potentially another blow that's just come out of left field for higher ed, much like the pandemic."
Challenges with the FAFSA are likely to impact some prospective students more than others, Shapiro said.
"I think students who really planned to go to college in the fall will get through the FAFSA," he said.
The glitchy rollout most likely will impact students who were on the fence about attending college, Shapiro said. "My guess is many of them have probably already made other plans," he said.
