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Drop in Spring-2022 Enrollment Is Worse Than Expected By Audrey Williams June May 26, 2022

New data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center provides a final tally on enrollment for the spring of 2022 — and reveals a persistent trend: College attendance continues to decline.

Undergraduate enrollment fell 4.7 percent from a year earlier, a shortfall of more than 662,000 students. Since the pandemic began, the undergraduate student body has dropped by almost 1.4 million students.

The worsening enrollment picture was unexpected, said Doug Shapiro, executive director of the research center

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New data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center provide a final tally on enrollment for the spring of 2022 — and reveal a persistent trend: College attendance continues to decline.

Undergraduate enrollment fell 4.7 percent from a year earlier, a shortfall of more than 662,000 students. Since the pandemic began, the undergraduate student body has dropped by almost 1.4 million students.

The worsening enrollment picture was unexpected, said Doug Shapiro, executive director of the research center, in a call to the media. “I thought we would start to see some of these declines begin to shrink a little bit this term,” he said, “particularly because I think there’s a general sense that we should be coming out of the effects of the pandemic at this point.”

But also in play, he said, are students who increasingly question the value of college, are wary about taking out student loans to pay for it, and who have options to join the labor market instead.

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