Veera Korhonen
Research expert covering United States data for society
The Enrollment Cliff in the United States- Statistics & Facts
The ‘enrollment cliff’, a phenomenon referring to a decline in college enrollment numbers in the United States, has generally been attributed to a drop in fertility during the Great Recession. Between 2008 and 2011, the birth rate in United States fell abruptly, and despite an economic recovery facilitated within the next decade, the birth rate did not bounce back. As a result, the college-age population has been in decline, with the total number of enrollment for the fall term in the United States falling from 19.9 million in 2017 to 18.2 million in 2022. Within this time period, the sector with the highest enrollment numbers in the U.S. was public 4-year colleges, which had 7.8 million students enrolled in the fall term in 2017. Demonstrating the tip of the enrollment cliff, this number fell to 7.6 million by 2022. Along with this decline in enrollment, the number of potential high school students wishing to attend college may have been further impacted by the recent COVID-19 pandemic, in which the switch to online learning was estimated to lead to an additional 1.1 million high-school dropouts in the United States.
Staying competitive
Projected numbers of college enrollment in the U.S. show that not only is enrollment declining, but factors such as race and ethnicity play a part. Although the projected number of White high school students enrolled in four-year colleges drops vastly from 2019 to 2029, the projected number of Hispanic high school students increases by approximately 20,000. It is therefore important for colleges hoping to maintain enrollment to ensure that they are providing an attractive environment for all students, especially as it has been shown that some students tend to be more negatively affected by factors such as discrimination or have other responsibilities outside of school, such as work or caregiving. For Black bachelor’s students, 72 percent said that receiving financial aid or scholarship was very important to being able to remain enrolled in their program while 59 percent highlighted the need for greater flexibility in their work or personal schedule.The good and bad for students
Although declining enrollment numbers may suggest that future high school students hoping to attend college will enter an era when schools are competing aggressively for more students, colleges are still refusing to resort to lowering the cost of education. It has also become clear that many are questioning the value of higher education in the United States. Although 44 percent of Americans believed that it was more important for people today to have a two-year or four-year college degree in order to have a successful career, only nine percent said that everyone in the U.S. could access a quality, affordable education after high school if they wanted it. In addition, current college students in the U.S. have been vocal about the negative impacts of attending higher education, with 76 percent of bachelor’s students saying that they considered dropping out of school due to emotional stress. Students who drop out of college tend to be worse off than when they started due to high levels of debt, and student debt has also shown to be a major factor on the financial decisions that students are able to make after college.
