COVID-19
Stay Informed with the Latest Enrollment Information
National Student Clearinghouse Research Center’s Regular Updates on Higher Education Enrollment
October 20, 2022
In the aftermath of the pandemic, colleges and universities are pressed to re-evaluate their long- and short-term strategies, particularly as they pertain to enrollment management and student support services. The Research Center’s Stay Informed report series continues to enable educational and policy leaders to make informed decisions through timely enrollment trend reporting that began with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Recognizing the urgency of COVID-19’s impact on students and institutions, the Stay Informed series has been delivering enrollment trend data in interactive data dashboards, starting with summer 2020. The dashboards will continue to be updated every term using the latest enrollment data available.
To highlight enduring enrollment impacts from the pandemic, 2019 and 2020 serve as the baseline to track the latest trends compared to pre-pandemic and the first year of the pandemic enrollment levels (see Methodological Notes for more details).
First Look Fall 2022 Enrollment (As of Sept 29)
Undergraduate enrollment continued to shrink this fall but the decline has slowed to nearly pre-pandemic rates, according to preliminary data. Institutions lost 1.1 percent of undergraduates this fall, leading to a total two-year decline of 4.2 percent since 2020. Graduate enrollment also declined (-1.0%), perhaps signifying the end of the pandemic-related influxes of post-baccalaureate students.
Undergraduate enrollment fell across sectors, especially among four-year institutions. Declines at community colleges have slowed substantially to 0.4 percent over last fall, driven entirely by the growth of both dual-enrolled high school students (+11.5%) and 18- to 20-year-old students (+1.4%). An increase in traditional-age community college freshmen (+0.9%) made up about one-third of the climb in the 18-20 age group.
Freshman enrollment fell in all four-year sectors, including highly selective private and public flagship institutions.
Undergraduate enrollment declined across all demographic characteristics, except traditional-age students (+0.5% for 18- to 20-year-olds) and Latinx students (+1.2).
First Look Fall 2022 Enrollment (As of Sept 29)
Navigate details for different institutions and students using the tabs at the top of the dashboard.
Download the Data Appendix (xlsx) and the Methodological Notes (pdf), and read the Press Release.
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| SPRING 2023 |
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