Dive Brief:
- College enrollment dropped by 930,000 students from 2011 to 2013—more than any other two-year period before the recent recession, the U.S. Census Bureau reported.
- The enrollment decline from 2012 to 2013 was split between students age 21 and younger, falling by 261,000, and students older than 25, falling by 247,000.
- Community college enrollment dropped 10% from 2012 to 2013, while four-year college enrollment climbed 1%.
Dive Insight:
The two-year decline follows a five-year enrollment decline of 3.2 million students. And the 10 years before that, from 1996 to 2006, recorded enrollment growth of 2 million. Of the 19.5 million students attending college in 2013, 5.3 million were in two-year schools, 10.5 million were in four-year schools, and 3.7 million were in graduate school. Non-Hispanic white students made up 58.2% of the college student body, with Hispanic students at 16.5%, black students at 14.7%, and Asians at 8.1%.