College Enrollment Dropped Again in Fall 2021, Despite Vaccines

U.S.|U.S. assemblage enrollment dropped again successful the autumn of 2021, contempt the accomplishment of vaccines.

• Jan. 13, 2022, 6:31 a.m. ET

The enrollment situation astatine U.S. institutions of higher learning continued a 2nd twelvemonth into the pandemic, adjacent arsenic coronavirus vaccines became wide disposable for students past fall, according to the latest numbers from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.

Total undergraduate enrollment dropped 3.1 percent from the autumn of 2020 to the autumn of 2021, bringing the full diminution since the autumn of 2019 to 6.6 percent — oregon 1,205,600 students.

“Our last look astatine autumn 2021 enrollment shows undergraduates continuing to beryllium retired successful droves arsenic colleges navigate yet different twelvemonth of Covid-19,” said Doug Shapiro, the enforcement manager of the probe center, which collects and analyzes information from 3,600 postsecondary institutions.

Even earlier the pandemic, assemblage enrollment was declining nationally arsenic the fig of college-age students leveled off. At the aforesaid time, precocious tuition costs discouraged prospective home students, and the highly polarizing migration statement drove distant planetary students.

That diminution past accelerated steeply erstwhile Covid-19 forced galore classes online and restricted field life. The economical disruption caused by the pandemic besides forced galore prospective assemblage students into the workplace.

The caller figures amusement that undergraduate enrollment declined astatine each benignant of college, but nationalist two-year colleges stay the hardest-hit, with U.S. assemblage colleges disproportionately hurt.

Tens of thousands of students, galore of them low-income, were forced to hold schoolhouse oregon driblet retired due to the fact that of the pandemic and the economical situation it has created. The caller information showed that enrollment successful assemblage colleges was down 13.2 percent, oregon 706,000 students, compared with 2019.

The fig of students seeking subordinate degrees astatine four-year institutions besides fell, arsenic did the fig of students aged 24 and over.

“Without a melodramatic re-engagement successful their education, the imaginable nonaccomplishment to these students’ net and futures is significant, which volition greatly interaction the federation arsenic a full successful years to come,” Mr. Shapiro said successful a quality release.

There was 1 agleam spot successful the data: The enrollment of first-year students stabilized, up astir 0.4 percent, oregon 8,100 students, from 2020 to 2021.

Even so, first-year enrollment is 9.2 percent little than prepandemic levels successful autumn 2019.