Why Is Enrollment Of 18-Year Old College Freshmen Down 5% This Fall?

Enrollment of 18-year-old college freshmen decreased by 5% this fall compared to last year, and now the focus is turning to understanding why the decline occurred and how it can be reversed.

The drop-off is a sharp turnaround from last year’s growth in freshman enrollment according to a new analysis, commissioned by the National College Attainment Network.

The analysis by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center is a follow-up to its earlier report released in October that showed a 5% drop in freshmen overall and a 6% drop in 18-year-olds at the same time there was an overall 3% year-over-year increase in undergraduate students.

The first NSCRC Stay Informed report was based on data as of September 26, 2024. It covered roughly nine million undergraduate and graduate students, as reported by 51.9% of postsecondary institutions in the U.S. that participate in the clearinghouse. The updated information focuses on the enrollment patterns of 1.4 million 18-year-old freshmen from 79.7% of those institutions as of October 31, 2024.

Main Findings

Overall, enrollment of 18-year-old freshmen was down 5% compared to last year, when it increased 3%. The decline was widespread, occurring in 46 states.

The enrollment decline was sharpest for white students (-10%), followed closely by multiracial students (-8.3%) and Black students (-8.2%). Asian (-5.7%) and Latino/a (-2.1%) students experienced smaller declines.

The results also varied based on how selective institutions were in their admissions policies. The biggest decline took place at “very competitive” colleges that accept at least half of their applicants (-8.7 %). “Competitive” institutions, which accept more than 3/4s of applicants saw a 7.4% decline. “Highly selective” institutions, which accept less than a third of applicants, dropped 3.4%, and the least selective institutions declined 3.3%.

The declines tended to be larger for colleges serving the most students from low-income backgrounds (i.e., Pell Grant recipients). High-Pell-Serving four-year private nonprofit institutions saw enrollment decline 10.1% compared to 5.5% and 5.8% respectively for moderate and low Pell-Serving categories. At public 4-year schools, enrollment declined by between 6% to 7% at all levels of Pell admissions. Public two-year and primarily Associate Degree granting baccalaureate institutions saw declines ranging from 0.9% to 2.7%.

Young freshmen enrollment decreased at both public 4-year (-6.4%) and private, nonprofit 4-year institutions (-6.2%), more than triple those seen public two-year institutions (-1.7%).

The largest enrollment decrease occurred for Black 18-year-old freshmen at highly selective institutions, plummeting by 16.9%. By contrast, enrollment of white students dropped only 5% at highly selective institutions.

Black freshman enrollment dropped sharply at both highly selective public institutions (19.6%) and highly selective private schools (13.8%). Multiracial students also had steep declines of 14.8% at highly selective public institutions and 13.7% at highly selective private ones. Hispanic freshman enrollment dropped 8.9% at highly selective public institutions and 6.7% at highly selective private ones.

Why did the drop occur?

Speculation about the reasons for the decline in young freshmen focused on several possible factors, with particular attention directed to the problematic introduction of the revised Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) this year.

In a blog post, Bill DeBaun, NCAN’s Senior Director for Data and Strategic Initiatives, wrote, “these declines took place in the context of a semester following the disastrous rollout of the 2024-25 FAFSA, which opened late and then experienced many technical difficulties throughout the past spring. The delayed FAFSA opening set off a chain reaction that fouled up the entire college application process and resulted in award letter delivery being late or occurring after decision deadlines.”

DeBaun also pointed to possible negative effects from the Students for Fair Admissions Supreme Court decisions, which found the consideration of race as one of several factors in college admissions to be unconstitutional.

Others have suggested that a relatively strong labor market and increasing skepticism about the value and necessity of earning college degrees were contributing factors.

Whatever the reasons, the net result was a very discouraging year in terms of the enrollment of traditional age college freshmen. As NCAN CEO Kim Cook observed in DeBaun’s blog post, “This semester’s enrollment numbers for high school graduates should be frightening for practitioners, policymakers, and the public alike. Our progress toward increasing college enrollment coming out of the pandemic has been stymied, and we will have to work much harder to help many of these students to rediscover college pathways in the future.”