Jordan Shanahan ’26
For the first time since 2020, freshmen enrollment across the United States has decreased by a staggering five percent, facing its largest decline since COVID-19. In 2020, with a pandemic sweeping across the country, the reason was obvious; however, there is more speculation than definite answers as to why a decrease in enrollment would happen now.
Many point to the failures of Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) as the explanation for the decrease in enrollment. Last year, the system delayed the process of sending families’ financial data to schools. Episcopal Academy College Counselor Chrissy Cerenzia explains that a lot of schools “weren’t able to predict because the FAFSA was delayed so long, so colleges couldn’t package a student. They couldn’t offer them financial aid or scholarships or loans or anything because they didn’t have the data.” As a result, schools did not give financial offers until well into summer. By then, some may have concluded that college would not be an economically viable option for their future. Chloe Islam ’26 thinks it was “unfair, and they should have sent it out earlier.” Yet, other factors may have also contributed to the decreased enrollment size.
Photo courtesy of villanova.edu
A strong labor market is also suggested as a reason. With the enticing offer of making money immediately, instead of long-term debt, getting a job may seem like the more favorable option to young people. Cerenzia explains that “students are choosing additional paths, the cost of college is not going down as well, so perhaps students might be taking a gap year and working or doing something a little bit different than the traditional graduate from high school and go on for four more years to college.” According to the New York Times, Doug Shapiro, the executive director of the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, has a similar view, explaining that people push off college, thinking that they will return in the future. However, he says, “Life happens, these students end up with jobs and sometimes families, and they find it harder and harder as time goes on to think about entering college again.”
The cost of college has also been labeled as a cause. The cost of tuition can seem insurmountable, especially with its average annual increase of eight percent. President Biden has called for reining in the cost of higher education so that college can be more viable for the middle class.
Not only is the freshman enrollment decreasing, but the overall number of kids attending college is as well. As Cerenzia reveals, “A very small percentage, but there is starting to be a decrease in students going to college as well.”
Yet this change does not definitively mean college admissions will change for every school. Cerenzia shares that admissions rates may not decrease, so that does not mean schools are “easier to get into. . . [and] in the most selective schools enrollment isn’t really declining.” And even in the prestigious schools, Cerzenia says that “applications were up. We always hear that applications are up in the schools that are in the top 25 schools.” Grace Murphy ’24, a freshman at Yale University and member of the women’s crew team, shares her perspective, saying “There hasn’t been anything that has stood out to me in terms of the freshman class being smaller. The only thing is that our freshman class on the crew team is smaller than all the other classes because spots got taken away.”
Yet, some smaller schools may be gravely affected as they rely on full enrollment in order to keep the school running. As a result, Cerenzia says that small schools have to “entice them with bringing them on campus or giving them additional merit aid or showing them the benefit of being in a smaller school” in order to keep the school operating and if not, they could shut down or merge, such as some of the state institutions in Pennsylvania have done. Max Rutherford ’26 comments on the enrollment discrepancy between schools, saying, “I think that would be due to the increase in access to these more selective colleges and would make people re-evaluate their choices when choosing where to apply, since smaller schools need applicants and may be more lenient with their decisions.”