Clearinghouse Enrollment Insights Series: Preliminary Fall Enrollment Trends

November 11, 2025

The Preliminary Fall Enrollment Trends report is published every November, providing preliminary enrollment estimates for the fall term. It is first of the Clearinghouse Enrollment Insights series, designed to offer institutions, policy makers, and researchers an early look at enrollment trends for the fall. Analysis is based on a panel of institutions that consistently reported their fall term enrollments in each of the years included in the report.

This report evolved from our previous Stay Informed reports that served the urgent needs of higher education community for timely enrollment updates, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. With refined methodology, the Preliminary Fall Enrollment Trends report is designed to create better connections between preliminary and final enrollment data to maximize the planning value for institutions.

The report’s dashboard features national and state-level data on annual enrollment changes across the three most recent years. Dashboard users can look at preliminary fall enrollment trends by institutional characteristics (including measures of sector, admission selectivity, and locale) and student groups (including measures of enrollment intensity, credential program, demographics, neighborhood income, and major).

The estimates provided in this report are preliminary and subject to revision. The Final Fall Enrollment Trends report will be released in January to provide final enrollment estimates for the fall term.

> Go back to Clearinghouse Enrollment Insights series page.

Fall 2025 Highlights

Preliminary fall 2025 enrollment data show total postsecondary enrollment increasing 2 percent over previous fall. Undergraduate enrollment is increasing by 2.4 percent with all sectors seeing growth (+4.0% for community colleges, +1.9% for public 4-year, and +0.9% for private nonprofit 4-year).
Graduate enrollment has remained steady this fall, increasing by just 0.1 percent.
Of all undergraduate and graduate credential programs, enrollment in undergraduate certificates programs is seeing the largest growth this fall (+6.6%), continuing strong gains from last year. Enrollment in other credential programs is also increasing modestly this fall (+3.1% for associate, +1.2% for bachelor’s, +1.1% for doctoral). The exception is master’s programs, which are the only credential type experiencing a decline (-0.6%).
Undergraduate enrollment is growing across all age groups. This fall, the number of 18-year-old students is up 3.2 percent. Adult students who are 25 or older are also continuing to see gains (+3.3% for ages 25 to 29 and +2.7% for 30 or older).
Hispanic, Black, and Multiracial students (both undergraduate and graduate) are continuing to see enrollment growth this fall. Undergraduate White students, on the other hand, are seeing declines (-3.7%).