Student Slump

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Higher Ed’s Enrollment Crash Has Been Underway for Years By Audrey Williams June June 15, 2022

The news about college enrollment has been persistently bleak since the pandemic began, even as colleges have resumed in-person operations and the effects of the pandemic — thanks to widely available vaccines — have begun to wane.

But a recent report clarifies something important about the downturn, which has become one of the most widely discussed trends in higher education during the past two years: Undergraduate enrollment was already on the decline well before the pandemic.

Data from the “Report on the Condition of Education 2022,” produced by the National Center for Education Statistics, show that the slide in undergraduate enrollment began in 2011. By the fall of 2019 — before the pandemic had begun — the number of undergraduates had shrunk by more than 1.5 million students.

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The news about college enrollment has been persistently bleak since the pandemic began, even as colleges have resumed in-person operations and the effects of the pandemic — thanks to widely available vaccines — have begun to wane.

But a recent report clarifies something important about the downturn, which has become one of the most widely discussed trends in higher education during the past two years: Undergraduate enrollment was already on the decline well before the pandemic.

Data from the “Report on the Condition of Education 2022,” produced by the National Center for Education Statistics, show that the slide in undergraduate enrollment began in 2011. By the fall of 2019 — before the pandemic had begun — the number of undergraduates had shrunk by more than 1.5 million students.

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