Undergraduate enrollments for this fall are up again, with community colleges again seeing the largest rate increase, according to preliminary reporting to the National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) Research Center.
Overall undergraduate enrollment is up 2.4% so far, with increases in all sectors, though community colleges are leading with a 4.0% boost, compared to 1.9% at public four-year institutions and 0.9% at private, nonprofit four-year institutions. And, once again this fall, certificates appear to be a driving force — a 6.6% increase, compared to a 3.1% bump for associate degrees and 1.2% for bachelor’s degrees.
While enrollment in programs like computer and information science is seeing a large decrease this fall — down -5.8% at two-year institutions — trade majors continue to grow in areas such as engineering technologies (8.3%), mechanic and repair technologies (10.4%) and health professions (10.1%), according to the NSC Research Center report. National discussions about AI replacing workers, coupled with technology companies scaling back on their workforce, could be a driver in the drop in computer and information sciences, which other higher education sectors also have experienced — -7.7% among baccalaureate institutions and -15% at the graduate level.
“It’s a truly eye-opening decline,” Matthew Holsapple, NSC Research Center’s senior director of research, said in a call with reporters on Monday.
The center’s preliminary data is based on 8.5 million enrollments reported as of September 25 by 49.4% of colleges that send information to the NSC Research Center. A final report based on information from all the colleges will be released in January. It will include more detailed information as well as data on dual enrollments, for-profits and online institutions, which were not in the preliminary report.
Over the last two years
The NSC Research Center also looked at enrollment trends among sectors since fall 2023. Over the span, undergraduate enrollment has increased 5.7%, with community colleges leading the way with a 9.6% increase, followed by public four-years at 4.1%, according to the report.
While the report includes data on community colleges, it also breaks down numbers within the sector into public two-year colleges and primarily associate degree-granting baccalaureate institutions (PABs), which continue to expand. PABs saw a higher enrollment growth this fall than two-year colleges, a 4.1% increase compared to 3.9%. Since fall 2023, PABs have seen a 10.2% jump, compared to 9.4% at public two-years.
A look at the demographics
Only White students experienced a decline this fall in community college enrollment, sliding -3.0%. Multiracial students had the highest increase at 5.3%, followed by students who are Hispanic (4.4%), Black (4.3%) and Asian (3.8%).
But the center cautioned that the declines could be overestimated due to an increasing number of students choosing not to report their race/ethnicity. It observed that students with missing/unknown race comprise 17% of undergraduate enrollment, which is a 21% increase compared to last fall. Among community colleges, the increase is 22%. Since 2023, there has been a 64.9% increase in students reporting their race/ethnicity as missing/unknown.
While the center does not include dual enrollment in its preliminary report, it does have an enrollment breakout based on age. For students ages 17 and younger, enrollment increased 5.5%. Older learners also saw increases again, up 4.5%. Traditional college-age students (18 and 19-20 for community colleges) also saw increases of 5.2% and 3.8%, respectively.
However, the rates of increase are lower than last fall. In fall 2024, students 17 or younger at community colleges saw an 8.7% increase, and adults 25 to 29 saw a 7.4% jump. But traditional-age students saw higher increases than last fall. Holsapple cautioned about depending too much on the early findings, noting that not all colleges have reported their data. Findings in the final report in January could be different, he noted.
