American higher education enrollment declined again, continuing a decade-long trend

Enrollment in American higher education just declined. Again.

That means the total number of students taking classes in American colleges and universities during spring 2022 went down compared to the previous semester (fall 2021) and the prior spring term (2021). The numbers and analysis just appeared from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.

In this post I’ll unpack what the data show, then offer some reflections based on my work as a higher education futurist. I hope I can add to the discussion thus far.

A couple of caveats before proceeding: first, this is macro, sector-level data. It’s about the entirety of United States post-secondary education. Obviously there will be variations of all kinds between regions, states, localities, and individual campuses. Second, this is the first published data on spring 2022. The Clearinghouse usually follows up their initial releases with followups based on additional research. So consider this data provisional for now.

The Clearinghouse report

At the big picture level, “[t]otal postsecondary enrollment, which includes both undergraduate and graduate students, fell a further 4.1 percent or [by] 685,000 students in spring 2022 compared to spring 2021.” [emphasis added] The total number of students stands at 15,917,249. Comparing this semester to the one just before, “The declines this spring are also markedly steeper…