Data courtesy of the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.

Dear Commons Community,

The Chronicle of Higher Education yesterday had a featured article reporting that college enrollments increased slightly in Fall 2025.  Higher-ed enrollment increased by 2 percent this fall as colleges powered through concerns about prices, politicization, value, and visas.

This rising tide didn’t lift all boats equally, according to a report released by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.

Undergraduate enrollment climbed by 2.4 percent, buoyed by a 4-percent increase at community colleges. Graduate enrollment didn’t change substantially. Master’s programs sank by 0.6 percent. Doctoral programs picked up 1.1 percent more students.

Lower-income students posted the strongest growth. Enrollment increased by 3.3 percent from the poorest fifth of neighborhoods and by just 1 percent from the wealthiest fifth.

Nondegree programs just keep growing. Undergraduate certificates picked up 6.6 percent more students this fall, a year after posting a 7.6-percent increase.

Will the gains hold up? This is an early look based on information from about half of institutions, so all data is subject to change. We’re still waiting on several key data points the Clearinghouse considers too unclear to break out at this point — including international-student enrollment, which has faced stiff headwinds. A final picture for the fall is due in January.

Undergraduates appear to be growing more racially diverse. White undergraduate enrollment fell by 3.7 percent, Asian enrollment was flat, and all other racial demographics jumped by about 3 percent. But take the racial breakdowns with a grain of salt, because the share of students whose race wasn’t reported spiked by more than 20 percent for the second straight year.

But computer science is cratering. Four-year undergraduate enrollment in computer and information sciences plunged by 7.7 percent this fall — and it decreased almost twice as fast at the graduate level. The Clearinghouse data doesn’t say why, but it’s hard to ignore recent gluts of tech-company layoffs and questions about artificial intelligence taking coders’ jobs in a discipline that’s proven subject to ebbs and flows.

“This is a truly eye-opening decline,” said Matthew Holsapple, senior director of research at the National Student Clearinghouse. “This follows several years of notable increases in computer-science enrollment.”

The bigger picture: The enrollment cliff wasn’t yet due to arrive, because 2025 represents peak high-school graduate. Even so, the preliminary indications of the soft graduate-education market, listless growth among wealthy students, and swings in which programs are popular could mean major shifts reshaping higher ed.

Good news for now but the future is not particularly rosy!

Tony

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