"This fall, there were nearly 250,000 fewer students enrolled in college than a year ago, according to new numbers out Monday from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, which tracks college enrollment by student.
‘That’s a lot of students that we’re losing,’ says Doug Shapiro, who leads the research center at the Clearinghouse.
And this year isn’t the first time this has happened. Over the past eight years, college enrollment nationwide has fallen about 11%. Every sector — public state schools, community colleges, for-profits and private liberal arts schools — has felt the decline, though it has been especially painful for small private colleges, where, in some cases, institutions have been forced to close.
‘We’re in a crisis right now, and it’s a complicated one,’ says Angel Pérez, who oversees enrollment at Trinity College, a small liberal arts school in Hartford, Conn." …
^Most of the decline is from for-profit and community colleges. Given the abysmal graduation rates at those institutions, a decline in enrollment might be for the best.
Community college enrollment may be countercyclical to the availability of jobs (particularly lower skill ones). During recessions, community colleges may get surging enrollment from those who cannot find lower skill jobs looking to learn some skills to help find jobs, and those who lost their jobs and do not believe their jobs will come back, so they want to learn something else that they hope will get them a job later.
Given that the US population aged 18-24 has dropped by over a million in the last several years, and the many articles such as “ U.S. Colleges Are Facing a Demographic and Existential Crisis” from several years ago, this should come as no surprise.
As noted, a low unemployment rate also keeps many out of college.
Fewer customers is never good for any business. The result has already been seen - significant closings and mergers among colleges. I think that colleges going out of business matters, at least to some.
Does this at all mean that more students are going into trades instead? I hope this was one of the reasons for the decline. I firmly believe not everyone should or HAS to go to college. We have raised the bar so much now that everyone has to have a BS/BA to have a decent shot at getting decent job. This is one of the reasons college cost is so high and keeps getting higher.
For example - we used to have lab technicians at our company, those people did not have 4 year degree but had gone through proper training and became excellent lab analysts. Now, the minimum requirement is you have to have BS/BA degree to do the exact same job.
Same with coding - for some jobs we need coders, for other jobs we need real computer scientists. For coder the person doesn’t have to go to 4 year college, they can go through certification program and become a coder.
In Europe, only 25% of HS students go to “University”, which is equivalent to the US 4 year degree. The rest goes to trade school or vocational type college where they learn to be specialized at something, without the academic rigorous. This is one of the reasons their college cost is so much lower and anyone who meets the academic requirements to go to University of their choice, can (With a few very exceptions like Oxford, Cambridge, etc. which you need much higher entry criteria.).
The reasons are simple math. Fewer kids to attend college and too expensive to justify the cost. You might throw-in that many of the new jobs really don’t require a 4 year degree unless mandated by HR policy but that’s another discussion.
College enrollment always dips during times of economic growth and high employment. And it goes up during recession when people can’t find jobs and hope for further education to help them compete.
Why it matters depends on who you ask. If you’re in the higher education space you need growth. The U.S. economic model is based on growth. Without growth we can’t logically justify budgets and adding jobs. If you’re not growing then you’re shrinking. It’s always about the money.