Community college enrollment increased by 3 percent, the highest of any type of institution.
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Last year marked another 12 months of steady growth in U.S. higher education enrollment, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center’s final report on fall enrollment, released today. Enrollment grew 1 percent from fall 2024, to 19.4 million students, and community colleges saw the largest increase, at 3 percent.
Building on insights from the organization’s preliminary fall data, which revealed increases in students seeking undergraduate certificates and a drop in computer science majors, this report detailed changes in international student enrollment, private institution attendance, dual enrollment and more. Here are the top five insights from the report.
- International enrollment declines were driven by graduate students.
NSCRC found that international enrollment decreased by about 5,000 students this fall, mirroring the findings of other sources, such as the Institute for International Education’s survey from November. The decline comes after years of growth in international student enrollment.
However, that dip was exclusively caused by a nearly 6 percent decrease—about 10,000 students—in international graduate enrollment; at the undergraduate level, international enrollment actually rose 3.2 percent.
Those shifts come amid the Trump administration’s ongoing attacks on international students, which included a pause on visa appointments last spring that caused a backlog, making it challenging for some prospective international students to secure visa interviews throughout the summer and fall.
It’s unclear why those attacks may have impacted graduate students more than undergraduates, but some government policies and proposals are likely to have an outsize impact on graduate students. For instance, the Trump administration has indicated it plans to restrict Optional Practical Training, a program that allows international students to stay in the U.S. to work after graduation; 70 percent of OPT employees are master’s degree holders.
- Adult enrollment dropped significantly.
New undergraduate students over the age of 25 decreased by 15.5 percent this fall compared to last year, representing over 35,000 students, while enrollment of students in the 21-to-24 age group fell by a more modest 5.2 percent. While all types of institutions saw some decline along those lines, the dip was the largest at private four-year institutions, where new undergraduate enrollment of those over 25 decreased by a whopping 28 percent.
The decreases come after several years of strong growth among adult learners. From fall 2023 to fall 2024, the number of first-year students over the age of 25 increased by 18.7 percent.
The NSCRC report doesn’t explore why adult student enrollment dropped so significantly. The shift comes as many universities are seeking to entice adult students to attend in order to ease the impact of the so-called demographic cliff, an expected decrease in the number of high school graduates. However, the decline in adult learners doesn’t account for re-enrollments—adult students who returned to college after stopping out.
- Private and public four-year enrollments saw a rare split.
Though overall enrollment is up, one sector—private four-year institutions—experienced a 1.4 percent decline.
That’s not entirely unusual on its own. But in a press briefing about the data, senior research director Matthew Holsapple said that private and public four-year institutions tend to “rise and fall in tandem.” This year, however, they moved in opposite directions: Public institutions’ enrollment increased by 1.2 percent.
By contrast, over the prior four years, the two sectors’ ups and downs have remained within 0.5 percentage points of one another.
“We’ve seen them moving together, not in opposing directions like they have this year, and it’s a clear departure from the broad-based growth we’ve seen in recent years and something we’ll certainly be keeping an eye on moving forward,” Holsapple said.
- Total enrollment has reached pre-pandemic levels.
Total enrollment in the fall was about 1 percent higher than it was in fall 2019, indicating recovery from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and 2020 campus shutdowns. But the number is still short of 2011’s peak nationwide enrollment of 20.1 million.
“It looks like we’re getting close, so stay tuned over the next few years,” Holsapple said. “As we expect to see the demographic cliff, which I think a lot of people think of as a demographic slope at this point … we may see those numbers decreasing more naturally, but we’ll stay tuned.”
- Dual enrollment and short-term credentials boosted community college enrollment.
Community colleges saw a 3 percent increase this fall, representing about 173,000 students. But a significant portion of that group came from dually enrolled students and those seeking short-term credentials, rather than full-time students.
NSCRC researchers shared in the press briefing that about 38 percent of that increase was composed of students under the age of 17, the large majority of whom are likely dual-enrollment students. That correlates with a nationwide boom in dual enrollment; as of the 2022–23 academic year, 2.5 million high schoolers were enrolled in college courses, up from 300,000 in the early 2000s. Multiple states are seeking to increase the share of high school students who graduate already holding college credits.
Short-term credentials also contributed increased community college enrollment; the number of students enrolled in a short-term credential program at a community college increased 6 percent this fall. The overall increase in undergraduate certificate enrollment was 1.9 percent—lower than what the NSCRC reported in its preliminary figures in November.
