The COVID-19 pandemic has brought unprecedented changes to the functionality of universities across the world. Many institutions have adopted fully online or hybrid in-person instruction for thousands of university students. This decrease in the quality of education from many universities has initiated the question: is college still worth it?
All forms of higher education, public state colleges, private universities, and community colleges, have all seen dips in enrollment for the Fall 2020 semester. CNBC reports that the data from the National Student Clearing House has shown college enrollment down 2.5%. Most public universities have seen little change in their enrollment with only a 0.4% decrease. Private colleges have seen a 5.7% decrease in enrollment. Community colleges have seen a 7.5% decrease in enrollment, making them among the hardest hit of higher-education providers during the pandemic. Although these numbers are bleak, experts had predicted that enrollment would be down 15% during the pandemic because they believed many students would be more inclined to take gap years. However, since the normal gap year plans like traveling and working have also been tarnished, the actual decrease was not as drastic as predicted.
It’s no surprise that the biggest decline in college enrollment has been from first-year students. A Forbes article has shown that first-year students have caused a total 16.1% decrease in national enrollment. For community colleges, there was a 22.7% decrease in first-year students compared to last year. In total, freshman students account for 69% of the drop in total undergraduate enrollment for Fall 2020.
The National Student Clearinghouse‘s reports show the breakdown of lower enrollments by demographic. Male students have had a 6.4% decrease in enrollment while female students have only had a 2.2% decrease. International students have seen the steepest drop: a 13.7% decline. They are followed by American Indian and Native Alaskan students, who have had a 10.7% decrease in enrollment. Furthermore, Black, Hispanic, Asian, and White students have each had between a 4% to 8% decline for the Fall 2020 semester.
However, this decline in enrollment is not solely the fault of the pandemic. College enrollment has been decreasing for many years now as students have been finding other paths to economic success. According to NPR, the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center has tracked that there are 250,000 fewer students enrolled in college compared to a few years ago. This sharp decline can be attributed to factors like the increasing cost of college, a strong economy, and lower birth rates have also accelerated this shrink. This decline has caused many small, private liberal arts colleges to terminate admission and close down their schools.
The compounding effects of already declining enrollment rates and the pandemic have put the future of college enrollment in jeopardy, especially for institutions whose main income comes from their undergraduate population. It is still unclear how these numbers will look for Spring 2021 semesters. Many schools have yet to announce their plans for the spring, making it difficult to predict the fluctuations in enrollment for 2021.
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