American higher education enrollment: the decline declines?

How is higher education enrollment changing?

The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center just updated their fall 2022 enrollment numbers. Here I’ll summarize their findings and add some commentary, based on the report as well as a press briefing.

(Here’s their first data report from October. I’m hosting their director for a Forum conversation in a few weeks.)

tl;dr — American higher ed enrollment continued its decade-long decline, albeit less steeply than during the COVID years.

Now for details.

Overall undergraduate enrollment shrank 0.6% compared to fall 2021, or by “about 94,000 students.” Total undergrad numbers stand at just under 15 million. That’s a smaller decline than American campuses experienced during the pandemic.

The number of students taking classes not for credit actually increased. There were steeper declines for degree-seeking undergrads: 1.2% for those working on associates degrees, 1.6% for BA/BS.

Graduate student numbers also decreased, by 1.2%. That’s a shift after several years of pandemic-era grad student growth.

One bright spot: the number of first-year students increased across the board, after several years of decline.

Broken down by sectors, private nonprofit four-year schools “were essentially flat” due to a small downturn of -0.1%. There were larger declines in public…