New numbers released on Thursday showed college enrollment in the United States increased in the fall of 2024, for the first time surpassing pre-pandemic levels.
Total postsecondary enrollment was up 4.5%, to about 19 million students, which is above pre-pandemic levels. Undergraduate enrollment neared 16 million, only 1% below 2019 levels, while graduate enrollment grew to about 3 million, according to data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center (NSCRC).
The research center incorrectly noted in last fall’s data that the number of 18-year-old freshmen saw a large decline. This was mainly due to a methodological error that mislabeled freshmen as dual-enrolled students, or high school students taking college courses. This led to a number of freshmen not being counted in the data. NSCRC said it has addressed this methodology to avoid future errors.
This fall, the data showed overall freshmen had an enrollment increase of 5.5%, with the most growth coming from community colleges, and 18-year-old freshmen saw enrollment gains of 3.4%.
Public four-year institutions have risen above pre-pandemic levels after a 3.2% growth in fall 2024. Private nonprofit four-year institutions increased by 4.5% and remain above the 2019 level, the data showed.
The enrollment numbers for Black and Hispanic students continued to increase for the third consecutive year. After four years of decline, white students also showed a small increase in enrollment. The research center also mentioned that there was an increase in freshmen who chose not to disclose their race.
“That means that the remaining details about how many freshmen we’re seeing in each of these specific categories among students for whom we do have a race or ethnicity, we need to take those with a certain amount of caution,” noted Doug Shapiro, executive director of the NSCRC.
At a time when many Americans are questioning the worth of college, this data comes as a welcome surprise.
In a report by the Gallup and the Lumina Foundation released in July 2024, 67% of Americans said they think college is headed in the “wrong direction,” compared with just 31% who felt it’s going in the right direction.
And there have been other reports suggesting that fewer people believe that college is worth the money; the job uncertainty that may follow graduation, and the burden of student loans, supposedly causing a decrease in college enrollment.
However, the NSCRC’s data showing a positive trend refutes that narrative, as it shows that students are increasingly going to college, which may ease concerns over the future of postsecondary schooling. This comes at a time when the economy is expected to create more jobs requiring higher education, and the hope is that an increase in college enrollment means that more people will be prepared to take those jobs.
