College enrollment is dropping at a “concerning” rate, according to new data.
Data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center shows enrollment of 18-year-old freshmen has dropped by 5% this fall semester. The data reflects enrollments reported for 1.4 million 18-year-old freshmen as of 31 October 2024.
The decline is most significant at both public and private, non-profit four-year colleges, which have seen a more than 6% decline in enrollment. For 46 states, Inside Higher Ed noted, the average drop was almost 7%.
At prestigious universities with lower acceptance rates, the largest drops in enrollment were among freshmen of color. Black freshmen, for example, enrolled 16.9% less at highly selective public and private, non-profit four-year schools.
The primary reason for the drop, experts say, is more complicated.
Julie J Park, an education professor at the University of Maryland, cited “a national conversation that’s been going on for a while” about a “potential ‘enrollment cliff’”.
The enrollment cliff concept came about within higher education after years of declining birth rates in the US, triggered by […]
Students are making rational decisions regarding their own future and how they will invest valuable time and money. The return on investment on many college majors is and has been horrible. Industry has come to require a college degree as an entrance card when the degree is not really required at all. When I see the debt levels for recent grads who I have contact with it is stunning. They have given up all hope of buying a home or owning property. They are deferring marriage and children. Once out of school they see their futures as degraded. College professors, you see, are tasked with keeping the seats full as most institutions are tuition driven. They will lie to you, and will paint beautiful, fantasy based pictures of what life will be like after graduation. Don’t like your prospects now? No problem, go to graduate school ( gotta keep the seats filled). The dirty little secret of the process is that schools have zero skin in the game. The student increasingly borrows more money, the school gets paid up front, and the government hold the risk for default. Schools and their administrators have grown fat feeding at the student loan trough no matter the cost of their programs or the outcomes their students face. The whole process has to be re-engineered to force schools to have skin in the game tied to outcomes.