College Enrollment Up 176,000 Undergraduates, According To New Report

Undergraduate enrollment at U.S. institutions of higher education increased 1.2% – about 176,000 students – in the fall of 2023, according to the National Student Clearinghouse’s latest report, which updates an estimate of a 2.1% gain the NSC made last October.

The news comes as a relief to college administrators, who’ve battled numerous enrollment headwinds over the past several years, but it still leaves about 900,000 fewer undergraduates enrolled in college than just five years ago. If not a full-fledged turnaround, it’s at least a stabilization of enrollment.

Growth was the greatest at community colleges, which gained 118,000 students, a 2.6% increase, after suffering years of tumbling enrollment during the Covid-19 pandemic. Undergraduate enrollment increased .6% at both public four-year and private, nonprofit institutions, equating to gains of 38,000 and 16,000 students, respectively.

Among the relatively small private, for-profit sector, undergraduate enrollment was up 3.8%, but it was down 3.5% at HBCUs, although the researchers cautioned that some of that reduction may be due to a smaller number of HBCUs reporting their numbers.

More than two-thirds of states saw their undergraduate numbers increase this fall. Enrollment increased in every region of the country except for the Northeast, which was down a slight .4%. Colleges in the West led the way with a 2.3% increase, followed by the South (1.4%) and the Midwest (.7%).

Enrollment of graduate students edged up slightly (+0.6%), an increase of 17,000 students. As a result, total postsecondary enrollment for undergraduates and graduate students combined increased 1.1% (+193,000).

“The number of students in college has finally turned the corner after years of decline,” said Doug Shapiro, Executive Director of the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center (NSCRC), in a news release. “The small uptick this fall is a welcome change for higher education, but there are still over a million empty seats on campuses today that were filled five years ago.”

A Small Freshman Increase

The report also found that freshman enrollment grew last fall, but only at the rate of .8% (18,000 more students), meaning that continuing and returning students accounted for most of the overall undergraduate gain.

Freshman growth was strongest at community colleges (up 2.3%) and among freshmen age 21 and above (6.3%). There was no change for freshmen 20 years old and younger, whose enrollment is still 5.3% below 2019 levels. Enrollment at community colleges with a high vocational program focus grew 16.0%, dramatically greater than the .2% increase seen at the more academically oriented, transfer-focused community colleges.

Freshman enrollment growth at public four-year institutions was largest at “competitive” (up 1.7%) and “less selective” (up 3.0%) four-year schools, but among private nonprofit four-year institutions, it was strongest at highly selective institutions (up 1.8%).

Differences By Program Level

Enrollment in associate programs experienced the greatest growth (2.2%). Its increase of 96,000 undergraduates was the first time since the Research Center began tracking enrollment by credential level in 2015 that enrollment in associate programs increased. Bachelor’s programs grew by .7%, equal to about 63,000 more students.

However, even with these improvements, associate degree enrollment is still 14.2% lower than fall 2019 levels, and bachelor’s enrollment remains 3.3% below 2019.

Undergraduate certificate programs increased for the third straight year, albeit at a slower rate (1.8%) from its high in fall 2021 of 9.8%. Certificate enrollment is now 15.6% higher than in 2019.

Dual enrollment of students 17 and younger continued to increase at community colleges (5.2%), far outpacing the enrollment growth of the oldest students (age 30+) at those schools (2.2%).

Student Differences

Undergraduate enrollment increased for all ethnic/racial subgroups, except white students (-2.0%) and Native Americans (-1.0%). Students classified as multiracial increased by 4.2%, followed by Asians (3.7%), Hispanics (3.6%), internationals (3.4%) and Blacks (.7%).

These percentages also need to be viewed cautiously because 35% of freshmen declined to indicate their race/ethnicity.

Enrollment By Major

Among the largest majors, computer and information sciences consistently showed large enrollment gains, increasing 9.1% at the two-year level, 9.5% among four-year undergraduates, and 13.3% among graduate students.

At two-year institutions, health majors grew 2.4% after four years of decline. Mechanic and repair technologies had the largest enrollment increase at two-year colleges with an 11.3% gain. At four-year institutions, health majors were down .9%, including registered nursing programs, which declined by 1.1%. Engineering majors increased 2.6%.

About The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center

This NSCRC report contains additional fine-grained results for enrollment by ethnic/racial groups, undergraduate majors, graduate programs, and regional and state trends. It also includes analyses for student’s neighborhood income background, HBCU enrollments, community college enrollment by program focus (transfer or vocational), enrollment trends by institutional location, enrollment in major field subgroups and breakouts of enrollment by credential level and by age.

The NSCRC is the research arm of the National Student Clearinghouse. It collaborates with higher education institutions, states, school districts, high schools, and educational organizations to gather accurate longitudinal data that can be used to guide educational policy decisions. NSCRC analyzes data from 3,600 postsecondary institutions, which represented 97% of the nation’s postsecondary enrollment in Title IV degree-granting institutions in the U.S., as of 2020.