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 the Great Recession. Earlier this year, the CDC released data indicating that the US had hit a historic low in its annual number of births – declining 2% from 2022 to 2023 and then 3% in 2023.
“Since the most recent high in 2007, the number of births has declined 17%, and the general fertility rate has declined 21%,” the August 2024 data shows.
While Park said an seeing an enrollment cliff isn’t occurring just yet, there are other factors with dropping enrollment rates – particularly when it comes to the cost of higher education.
“It could be any number of issues. There are issues related to Fafsa,” Park explained.
The US Department of Education, which administers federal student aid, made changes to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or Fafsa, to simplify it last year, but efforts backfired. Technical difficulties and glitches caused massive delays in rolling out the application, leaving many without any idea of the kind of financial aid package they might be entitled to and how much college might cost them.
And Fafsa isn’t the only problem.
Park also cited last year’s supreme court ruling as a potential roadblock, referencing the nation’s highest court ruling against Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan.
Under that loan forgiveness plan, up to $20,000 of an individual’s federal student debt could have been forgiven for borrowers who were also Pell grant recipients; up to $10,000 of debt could have been forgiven for other borrowers. More recently, Republicans have gone after Biden’s other debt relief effort, the Saving on a Valuable Education, or Save, repayment plan. That plan would have cut undergraduate loan payments in half and ensured borrowers would never see their balance grow from unpaid interest.
Millions signed up for the plan, only to see it challenged in court. The move created yet another roadblock for graduates with debt as well as for aspirational college students who hoped to see a more affordable way to pay for an education.
Park noted that there’s also “the competing pressures of the labor market” for prospective students to contend with.
“As work becomes more attractive to some students or individuals, it’s a lot to give up not working and that way to help support your family. And so that’s something that also might be at play,” she said.
The cost of college is the number one barrier to enrolling in higher education for adults not enrolled in such a program, according to a 2024 report from Gallup and the Lumina Foundation. That report also found that for more than three-quarters of the more than 3,000 unenrolled adults polled, cost and the need to work were preventing them from pursuing further education.
Most notably, nearly all adults without a college degree polled said that they felt at least one type of credential is “extremely” or “very” valuable.
Jenny Rickard, the CEO of Common App, one of the websites most widely used by students to apply to colleges every year, echoed this sentiment.
“This new data showing a 5% year-over-year decline in enrollment for 18-year-old freshmen is concerning, but it is not due to students’ declining interest in higher education,” said Rickard, who also served as the chief enrollment and communications officer at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania.
Rickard noted a “continued growth in applications” as something that “underscores that students remain eager to pursue a four-year degree”. She also pointed to “an admissions year wrought with uncertainty” and the aforementioned Fafsa and other affordability concerns as reasons why enrollment is down.
The College Board found in-state tuition at public four-year colleges and universities costs an average of $11,610, which is $300 higher than last academic year. Out-of-state tuition at the same schools is an average of $30,780, a whopping $940 higher in just one year.
Rickard pointed to Common App’s end-of-season report for the 2023–24 application cycle, which showed a 7% increase in students applying to four-year colleges. This includes a 12% rise in applicants from low- and middle-income backgrounds.
“It’s crucial that we, as a higher education community, double down on our commitment to supporting students,” she said. “That means not only ensuring they feel welcome on campus, but also addressing the affordability and accessibility obstacles that stand in their way.”
