Report: 1.3 Million Higher Ed Students Dropped Out Since Start of Pandemic

The Student Clearinghouse website reported that lockdowns and school closures have led to a loss of some 1.3 million student enrolled in higher education, a 7.4 percent drop in the overall student population.

The annual rate of decline in spring 2022 is greater than it was in the fall of 2021 (3.1 percent drop) and just below spring of 2021 (4.9 percent).

The Clearinghouse reported:

Meanwhile, total postsecondary enrollment of approximately 16 million students, which includes graduate students, has fallen a total of 4.1% from last spring, or 685,000 students, per the Spring 2022 Current Term Enrollment Estimates’ report. This follows a 3.5% drop last spring. All institutional sectors experienced varying degrees of enrollment declines this spring.

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“College enrollment declines appear to be worsening,” said Doug Shapiro, executive director, National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. “Although there may be some signs of a nascent recovery, particularly in a slight increase of first-year students, the numbers are small, and it remains to be seen whether they will translate into a larger freshman recovery in the coming fall.”

Other findings in the report include:

• The public sector, community colleges and four-year institutions combined, experienced the steepest drop, of more than 604,000 students or a 5 percent decline.
• Community colleges continued to suffer the most, with 351,000 fewer students or a drop of 7.8 percent. This decline represents more than half of the total postsecondary enrollment losses this term and amounts to a total loss of more than 827,000 community college students since spring 2020.
• There were more than 462,000 or 4.6% fewer women students this spring. This is more than double of the losses experienced the previous year, which leads to a two-year, total enrollment decline of 665,000 female students. Women declined the most at community colleges (-9.2% or 251,000 fewer women versus 100,000 or 5.6% fewer men). In all sectors, men declined by more than 220,000 students.

For the first time the Clearinghouse report looked at race and enrollment and found that Asian and Hispanic enrollment grew nationally over the spring of 2021, plus 15 precent and plus 4 percent, respectively. 

Black freshman enrollment declined by 6.5 percent or 2,600 students. The compounding previous losses results in a total of 18.7 percent or 8,400 fewer black freshmen than in spring 2020.

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