News, California fall undergraduate enrollment declines have slowed, but still ‘troubling’ : detailed suggestions and opinions about California fall undergraduate enrollment declines have slowed, but still ‘troubling’ .
Colleges nationwide and in California continue to lose undergraduate students, but the declines have slowed compared to the last two years, when the pandemic upended education, a national report shows.
California saw a 1.1% drop in undergraduates, a slower decline than last fall when enrollment dipped 5.9%, according to preliminary fall 2022 data released Thursday by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Nationally, the rate of undergraduate declines also slowed to 1.1%, a significant slowdown from fall 2021, when enrollment dropped 3.1%.
“I certainly wouldn’t call this a recovery,” said Doug Shapiro, the research center’s executive director. “We’re seeing smaller declines, but when you’re in a deep hole, the fact that you’re only digging a tiny bit further is not really good news.”
For the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic, the declines nationwide are steeper at four-year schools than at community colleges, which have benefited from double-digit increases in high school students dually enrolled in college-level classes. While highly selective colleges saw a small increase in students, less selective colleges had greater losses, the report said.
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