Clearinghouse Enrollment Insights Series: Current Term Enrollment Estimates Fall Report

January 23, 2025

The Current Term Enrollment Estimates fall report is published every January and provides the final enrollment estimates for the fall term based on comprehensive data. This report will be known as the Final Fall Enrollment Trends report starting January 2026. It provides national enrollment estimates by credential type, institutional sector and other characteristics (e.g., locale, selectivity), enrollment intensity, student demographics (e.g., age, race/ethnicity, gender), and major field, as well as state-level enrollment estimates. Enrollment estimates are adjusted for Clearinghouse data coverage rates by institutional sector, state, and year.

This report differs from the Preliminary Fall Enrollment Trends report, which is designed to offer institutions, policy makers, and researchers an early look at enrollment trends for the fall based on a panel of institutions that consistently reported their fall term enrollments in each of the years included in the report. Hence, enrollment estimates may differ between the two reports due to the difference in methodology and institution coverage. Postsecondary institutions actively submitting enrollment data to the Clearinghouse account for 97 percent of the total enrollments at Title IV, degree-granting institutions in the U.S.

The expanded edition of the fall report that started in 2023, features analyses of student’s neighborhood income background, enrollment at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), public 2-year enrollment by transfer or vocational program focus, and trends by institution locale, along with more detailed information on enrollment by credential level, age, and major field. The fall 2024 report includes a new indicator capturing enrollment trends across institutions by the share of the undergraduate population that receives Pell Grants as well as a separate age category capturing 18-year-old freshmen. The dashboard-based report allows users to explore the longitudinal data through interactive visualizations. Specific major family-related data are available in the Data Appendix dashboard.

There is an additional Special Analysis of 18-year-old Freshmen dashboard that provides a focused look at 18-year-old freshmen in fall 2024 who most likely have graduated from high school in Spring 2024 and entered college immediately after.

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Fall 2024 Highlights

Postsecondary enrollment rebounded above pre-COVID levels (+0.4%, +83,000 from 2019).
Total postsecondary enrollment is up 4.5 percent this fall (+817,000; Figure 1.2). Undergraduate enrollment neared 16 million, just 1.0 percent below 2019 levels (+4.7%, +716,000 this fall), while graduate enrollment grew to 3.2 million (+3.3%, +100,000).
Undergraduate enrollment increased across sectors with community colleges (Public 2-year and Public PABs combined) in particular, seeing a 5.9 percent increase, or 325,000 additional students.
Undergraduate certificate program enrollment grew for the fourth consecutive year, up 9.9 percent in fall 2024 (+101,000; Figure 1.3) — enrollments are now 28.5% above 2019 levels. Enrollment in Bachelor’s and associate degree programs also increased (+2.9% and +6.3%, respectively) but remain below 2019 levels.
Freshmen enrollment growth outpaced overall undergraduate gains (+5.5%, +130,000; see Figure 3.1). Building on last fall’s increases, the growth was strongest at community colleges, which added 63,000 freshmen (+7.1%). Overall 18-year-old freshmen also saw enrollment gains this fall (+3.4%, +59,000).
Public 2-year institutions with high vocational program focus saw double-digit growth for the second year in a row (+13.6%; Figure 4.4). These schools now encompass 19.5 percent of public 2-year enrollment, up from 15.3 percent in 2019.
Enrollment increased across all regions this fall (Figure 5.4). Institutions in the Northeast saw a 4.7 percent increase, the first gains since prior to the pandemic. The South (+4.7%) and West (+4.6%) saw similar gains, followed by the Midwest (+3.1%).