Savannah Hulsey Pointer, FISM News
Institutions of higher learning across the country have seen a marked downturn in enrollment over the last couple of years with initial estimates indicating that colleges have almost a million fewer enrollments than in 2019 according to a new report from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.
“Higher education enrollment fell a further 2.7 percent in the fall of 2021 following a 2.5 percent drop in the preceding fall. Continued enrollment losses in the pandemic represent a total two-year decline of 5.1 percent or 938,000 students since fall 2019,” the Research Center reported just days ago.
Further analysis of the data showed that enrollment in undergraduate degrees has fallen by 3.1 percent or 465,300 students over last year and the interest in higher learning isn’t relegated to a particular area of learning or type of institution with enrollment in every sector getting hit hard.
The most aggressively impacted institutions in total enrollment were four-year institutions. Public four-year colleges lost the largest total number of students, down 251,400 students or -3.8%., while private, for-profit four-year colleges lost the highest percentage of learners, with a loss of -11.1% or 65,500 students.
Doug Shapiro, Executive Director of the research center, told National Public Radio that if the two-year undergraduate decline continues its trajectory to reach more than 6 percent, it would be the biggest two-year decrease in the last 50 years.
“It’s very frightening,” said Shapiro, “Far from filling the hole of last year’s enrollment declines, we are still digging it deeper. College is the best chance you have to get into well-paying jobs in this economy.”
“It’s not the only path, and it’s certainly not a guarantee, but it’s the best path we have right now. And so, if more students are thrown off that path, their families and communities suffer, and our economy suffers because businesses have fewer skilled workers to hire from.”
According to NPR’s report, college enrollment during recessions and/or depressed economic times have followed a pattern of enrollment in college, particularly community college, going up as students look to improve their chances of finding work, and as the economy gets back on track, the students leave their collegiate cocoon to join the workforce. But that doesn’t seem to be the case this time around:
“This time, that entire crest of that wave just didn’t happen — it got swallowed up by the pandemic,” explains Shapiro. “What we’ve seen instead is literally two troughs, one after the other. So, there was no upside from the recession. We just got the downside from the recovery, as the labor market recovers and jobs are going back up.”
Forbes early 2021 cost-benefit analysis outlined reasons kids aren’t going to college recently, with the sticker shock and lack of guaranteed high-paying jobs topping the list of potential drawbacks. Additionally, some students are being put off by the idea that it could take more than four years to get their degree, based on a number of factors.
Those concerns are compounded by the draw of trade schools and technical colleges that provide hands-on training in the student’s industry of choice and boast almost guaranteed employment. These schools also come with a cost of education that is a fraction of what one would pay at a traditional institution, and often have a considerably lower time-commitment.