Dive Brief:
- The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center has released its 2014-15 Undergraduate Degree Earners Report, finding the total number of undergrads has stayed largely flat while the number of those graduates that had earned prior credentials rose.
- The Clearinghouse reports the number of students earning their first undergraduate degree fell 2.6% between the 2011-12 academic year and 2014-15, while the number of graduates with prior credentials rose by 12.4%.
- By age, the number of first-time graduates older than 25 dropped by 15% in the period studied while the number of students younger than 25 increased by 4%.
Dive Insight:
Just like community colleges have seen shrinking student populations as the economy recovered, the adult student population overall has gotten smaller. Historically, adults go back to school to retrain when they are out of work with few prospects. Now that workers are finding it easier to get jobs, they are returning to the workforce rather than going back to school.
The increase in students younger than 25 going to college is promising. Local, state and federal governments have all taken interest in Promise programs that offer the first two years of college for free for those high school graduates who choose to go directly on to community college or select four-year institutions. While President Obama hasn’t been able to gain much traction for his proposal in Congress, Tennessee and Oregon have statewide programs and municipalities across the country have followed suit.