“College confidence is coming back, but it’s tentative,” said Courtney Brown, who studies public opinion about colleges for the Lumina Foundation, an Indianapolis-based nonprofit focused on improving higher education.
“The public tells us that cost, flexibility and career relevance shape their view of the value of college,” says Brown. “So people aren’t giving up on education — they’re just getting more specific about what kind of education they want.”
That may reflect uncertainty in the economy and news of a hiring slowdown, said Jeff Strohl, director of Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce. He says when job prospects feel shaky and the economy struggles, people go back to college, especially community college.
“If you think about what’s been going on in the U.S. economy lately, especially the growing economic uncertainty, it kind of follows that pattern,” he says. “It’s easier to test the waters at a community college than to necessarily go through the steps of enrolling in a four-year program, especially if the student really doesn’t know what they want to do.”
Big drop in international students at tertiary level
Although the number of international students enrolling in undergraduate programs rose this academic year by 3.2%, this was overshadowed by a significant drop at the higher education level, by around 10,000 students.
This decline at the tertiary level – mostly in master’s programs – followed several years of strong growth in which the number of international graduate students increased by around 50%. The decline reflects federal policies that have limited or disrupted the student visa process and the billions of dollars in rescinded federal dollars that have flowed to research universities, disrupting the process.
Another key finding from recent enrollment data is a big drop in students studying computer and information science. The decline in both graduate and undergraduate programs came after years of steady expansion.
In addition to the fallout from fewer international students, the Clearinghouse’s Holsapple explains that the shift away from CS majors has also been influenced by the rise of artificial intelligence.
“Students see the same trends we all see,” he says. “They see the same news about tech layoffs. They see the rise of AI as we do.”
But he is encouraged by these trends. “Students are making different choices, which I think is really positive for the district and especially for students because they have these options.”
