According to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center’s latest enrollment report, undergraduate enrollment climbed by 2.1 percent this fall, its first total increase since 2020. Enrollment increases for Black, Latino and Asian students—by 2.2 percent, 4.4 percent and 4 percent, respectively—were especially notable after last year’s declines. However, freshman enrollment declined by 3.6 percent, nearly undoing last year’s gain of 4.6 percent and leaving first-year enrollment less than a percentage point higher than it was in fall 2021, during the height of the pandemic. Those declines were most pronounced for white students and at four-year institutions with lower acceptance rates, reversing years of growth trends for the most selective colleges and universities.
