First-Year Enrollments Take a Tumble

Higher ed institutions this fall experienced the steepest drop in first-year enrollment since the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the latest data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.

While overall postsecondary enrollment is up by 3 percent—the second straight year of growth—first-year enrollment fell by more than 5 percent, a drastic change from last fall’s small 1 percent increase. Enrollment among 18-year-olds declined by 6 percent, slightly more than for first-year applicants of all ages.

“It’s startling to see such a substantial drop in freshmen,” said clearinghouse research director Doug Shapiro. “It takes the size of the incoming class back to pre-2022 levels.”

Four-year institutions saw the largest decline, with an 8.5 percent drop at public colleges and a 6.5 percent decline at nonprofit privates. At institutions that serve the highest numbers of Pell-eligible students, first-year enrollment fell by more than 10 percent.

The declines appear to be part of the fallout from last cycle’s bungled rollout of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, which many observers predicted would result in a devastating setback to low-income and underrepresented student enrollment. FAFSA completion rates for incoming first-year students—who were high school seniors during the previous financial aid cycle—still lag about 9 percent behind last year, according to data from the National College Attainment Network.

NCAN senior director Bill De Baun has been sounding the enrollment alarm since the first delays were announced last fall. He said the fall enrollment numbers, unfortunately, seem to validate his early view.

“This really reconfirms the strong connection between FAFSA completion and enrollment,” he said. “The reason we pay so much attention to FAFSA completion isn’t for its own sake—it’s because these numbers move so tightly in line with one another.”

Enrollments diverged sharply along racial lines as well. But contrary to what many observers predicted in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ban on affirmative action in admissions, white students’ enrollment fell far more than other groups’. First-year white enrollment declined by a whopping 11.6 percent from last year, while the number of Black freshmen fell by 6.1 percent. Hispanic and Asian enrollment both remained relatively stable, with declines of around 1 percent each. The total number of Hispanic, Black and Asian college students all grew this fall, while total white enrollment fell by 0.6 percent.

One predicted outcome of the affirmative action ban that did materialize was a rise in enrollment at minority-serving institutions. First-year head count grew by 12 percent at historically Black colleges and universities and by about 6 percent at Hispanic-serving institutions, according to the clearinghouse data.

In contrast to enrollment at four-year institutions, community college enrollment grew slightly this fall, by 1.2 percent—the third straight year of growth in the two-year sector after a disastrous pandemic downturn. As in previous years, that growth was buoyed by a 7.2 percent boost in dual-enrolled high school students and a 3.4 percent increase in first-year part-time students.

But Shapiro said community college growth may also reflect enrollment changes caused by the FAFSA delays, which might have prompted students who otherwise would have chosen a four-year college to enroll in a more affordable two-year program because they didn’t receive their financial aid in time.

Overall enrollment in both bachelor’s and associate degree programs grew this fall, by 1.9 percent and 4.3 percent, respectively; graduate enrollment rose by 2.1 percent. Shorter-term credential programs continued their multiyear boom, with a 7.3 percent increase in undergraduate enrollment.

The clearinghouse report includes two new data points this year: a breakout of 18-year-old first-year students (previous reports included an 18- to 23-year-old category) and a breakdown of colleges by their share of Pell students.

Enrollment ‘Doughnut Holes’ Multiply

The compounding enrollment declines aren’t likely to reverse without significant shifts in the next few years, Shapiro said—a daunting prospect considering the traditional college-going population is predicted to fall off a cliff next year.

“The nearest precedent we have for this is fall 2020, when we saw a 7 percent plunge in freshmen,” he said. “We tracked them for the next two years and found an infinitesimal number of them coming back next year or the year after. Based on that, prospects of a rebound are low.”

It’s difficult to make a direct connection between this fall’s first-year enrollment declines and the FAFSA fiasco, considering the other enrollment challenges higher ed institutions faced last year, namely the Supreme Court’s ban on race-conscious admissions and growing doubts about the value of a college degree—what De Baun called the “triple threat” of the 2023–24 academic year.

But quantifying the effects of the latter two are difficult, De Baun said, and the FAFSA delays are much more strongly tied to the most important factor in students’ college decision-making process: affordability.

That makes improving this coming FAFSA cycle, and boosting equitable access to degrees, all the more important, he added. It also means colleges are under more pressure than ever to sell themselves as worthwhile investments to an increasingly skeptical consumer base.

“We’ve had three of the past five years be ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ FAFSA completion disruptions … We really need to get back to pre-pandemic progress,” De Baun said. “Unfortunately, we are probably looking at doughnut holes in long-run educational attainment for the Classes of 2020, 2021 and 2024. That has the potential to be a lasting issue for higher ed.”