Colleges have seen a recent increase in enrollment, but a variety of factors — from changes in the job market to this year’s Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) mess — mean the signs of hope may be short-lived.
The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center released data this month that shows an increase in enrollment this spring, but the numbers are still below pre-pandemic levels as universities face a tumultuous future amid changing work requirements and problems demographics.
Undergraduate enrollment peaked in 2010, with about 18.1 million students. In 2021, during the height of the pandemic, it had dropped to 15.4 million.
“Whether it is a fluke or not, there are a number of factors that indicate the downward trend may very well continue,” said Stephen Henn, associate professor of economics at Sacred Heart University.
The Research Center’s report found that undergraduate enrollment increased 2.5 percent this spring, the second consecutive annual increase after years of decline.
The most immediate issue that could affect those earnings in the fall is this year’s FAFSA forms. Although FAFSA season typically begins in October, applications were only available in January. Since then, there have been numerous delays, from problems with the website to incorrect amounts of aid sent to students.
“What we’re worried about right now is the FAFSA,” said Catherine Brown, senior director of policy and advocacy at the National College Attainment Network (NCAN), adding that difficulties for applicants could translate into “a problem for fall enrollment.” ”.
On May 17, NCAN found that 41.5% of the high school class of 2024 had completed FAFSA forms, a 15.5% drop compared to last year.
These “significant” declines, Brown said, are even “worse in high schools that serve large populations of students of color and students from low-income communities.”
But much bigger long-term problems for universities looking to increase their numbers are changes in the job market and the way students – and employers – view the need for degrees.
Job posting website Even released data in February showing that 52% of its listings had no formal education requirement. In the last four years, job offers without a degree requirement have increased by 4%.
“What we’ve seen is that educational requirements are gradually disappearing from job ads,” said Cory Stahl, economist at Even Hiring Lab.
“It doesn’t necessarily surprise me that in recent years […] we’ve seen increasing support for skills-based hiring, and that’s something that we’ve noticed is that employers are becoming much more explicit, much more willing to list skills in our job postings rather than just ‘let’s put a skill requirement in’. degree about this,’” Stahl said.
With a greater variety of non-degree job opportunities at their disposal, even as college costs continue to rise, advocates say fewer students feel the need to take on so much debt to wear the cap and gown.
Nor is the drop in educational requirements reserved for the private sector.
Several states, including Maryland, said they would drop degree requirements for thousands of government jobs.
“Through these efforts we are launching today, we are ensuring that qualified, non-degree candidates are regularly considered for these career-changing opportunities,” then-Maryland Governor Larry Hogan (R) said.
Other enrollment challenges schools face are even less within their control.
“Demographically, the birth rate, the overall birth rates in the U.S. have been declining as they have been in most industrialized countries, so we will see fewer and fewer college-aged students coming in and I think the overall demographics will continue to decline unless be replaced by other college students, such as immigrants,” said Henn of Sacred Heart University.
And where students choose to study is also changing. Community colleges accounted for half of the increase in enrollment, according to the National Student Clearinghouse report, even though their number represents less than half of those enrolled in higher education.
“I think there’s a lot of encouraging data in and of itself. If you peel back the onion a little further, you can also see that vocational programs are driving much of the growth at the community college level,” said Michael Hansen, CEO at Cengage Group, one of the largest educational technology companies in the world.
“I think students are asking, ‘Give me the skill set that I can bring to an employer so that I can, you know, with a high probability, get a job, make a decent living and earn more than I did before. ‘ – it’s a good return on investment,” Hansen said. “So this is being answered institution by institution. Some of them are being more active, more proactive, some of them are a little bit behind, but overall, I think we see the system moving, and I think that’s encouraging.”
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