American higher education enrollment declined in 2020: US Census

(First of two posts)

The number of students taking classes in American colleges and universities dropped last year, according to recently release US Census data. This is an important bit of news, given how crucial enrollment is for tuition-dependent campuses — i.e., most of them.

Higher ed wasn’t the main focus of the Census update, so let me extract the relevant bits for this post.

First, what happened to total enrollment? By 2020 the Census found “[c]ollege enrollment fell to the lowest level since 2007.”

Check out their graphic, showing enrollment since the 1940s by age and gender:

The peak I identified around 2012 is clearly visible, both on its own terms and in the broader historical context.

You can also see men dropping below women in every age group. In fact, the release adds this graphic which truly clarifies the point over time:

Men outnumbered women from the 1960s and through the 1980s. The crossover occurred in the early 1990s and was locked in from 2000 on, with women clearly outnumbering men in classes.