Enrollment and Retention

While international student enrollment has remained relatively flat overall so far, student visa experts and university leaders say that might change as the Trump administration’s restrictive visa and immigration policies could deter new enrollment of this population.

Recent surveys and studies have shown declines in new international enrollees, indicating that the Trump policies could have affected their ability to enroll in U.S. colleges for the fall 2025 term. 

Shifts in U.S. visa and immigration policy have forced institutions to navigate “one of the most dynamic moments in international education,” Fanta Aw, executive director of NAFSA: Association of International Educators, said in an email. 

“The ripple effects of these policy changes are being felt across campuses and communities around the world,” she said. 

Finding ways to recruit and welcome international students — through efforts like diversifying outreach efforts to different countries and providing international students with flexibility on when they must start their studies or make payments — is crucial for many institutions, experts say. 

Large universities and state colleges with high shares of international students could be hurt by international enrollment losses — but not to the extent as smaller, often faith-based, institutions that enroll a high percentage of these students, said Dick Startz, an economics professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Augustana College, a small Lutheran institution in Illinois, saw its new international enrollment decrease to 140 students in fall 2025, 30 fewer students than the year prior, according to W. Kent Barnds, executive vice president for strategy and innovation. Applications from international students fell by more than 10%, Barnds said in an email.

Barnds attributed the decrease to Trump administration policies, including last summer's temporary pause on student visa interviews, as well as to students opting to pursue college elsewhere due to “a perception that the US is increasingly hostile to international students studying here,” he said. 

Some institutions have announced plans to cut spending due to losses in international students. 

In one example,  DePaul University — a Chicago-based Catholic institution —  saw international enrollment fall by about 755 students year over year for fall 2025, including a nearly 62% decline among new international graduate students, the university told faculty and staff in a September letter. 

"Because of the challenges to the visa system combined with the declining desire for international students to study in the U.S., we are seeing massive disruptions to our enrollments in many areas around the university," DePaul’s top leaders wrote. 

International students typically want to go to English-speaking colleges and universities, particularly ones in the U.S., Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom, said Startz. 

But Startz said he’s heard anecdotally that school guidance counselors in China were reaching out to English-speaking colleges in Hong Kong and Singapore as an alternative out of fear their students might not be able to get into the U.S.

“Right now, we would have a real opportunity to grow our market share, but we seem to be putting in policies to go in the other direction,” said Startz. 

Policies that could hurt enrollment

President Donald Trump has publicly supported making the U.S. more open to international students.

In a November interview on Fox News, Trump said that curbing such enrollment would put many colleges out of business. A few months earlier, he said he would allow 600,000 Chinese students to enroll at universities in the U.S. That’s more than double the nearly 266,000 Chinese students enrolled at American institutions during the 2024-25 academic year. 

But despite those comments, his administration’s policies have moved in the opposite direction. 

The Trump administration in May ordered consulate offices to stop scheduling visa interviews with international students as officials worked on a policy to more rigorously vet applicants' social media accounts. Officials eventually lifted the freeze in June, but the pause created a period when international students couldn't obtain a visa at all, followed by a backlog of applications awaiting approval, said Startz. 

Due to the pause, some students likely did not get a visa in time for the fall term, some may have decided to wait until the spring term to attend, and others might have been discouraged from attending completely, Startz said.

Since the second Trump administration took over, the State Department has also revoked about 8,000 visas from international students, including some who participated in pro-Palestinian campus protests.  This sent a discouraging message to students that they could lose their visas for protesting on campus, said ​​​Sarah Spreitzer, vice president of government relations at the American Council on Education. 

The administration has also cut federal research grants— totaling a loss of $1.4 billion in National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation grants in 2025, Nature found. And Trump has issued an executive order giving political appointees oversight on grant approvals to ensure they adhere to this administration’s priorities. 

The policies, Spreitzer said, have left some international students in U.S. graduate programs uncertain of whether they will continue receiving federal financial support — prompting them to consider leaving. 

Meanwhile, places like China, France, and the European Union are actively trying to recruit researchers and graduate students who are currently in the U.S., Spreitzer said.

Moreover, the Trump administration proposed a rule in August that would cap at four years the time international students are allowed to complete their program, with an option to apply for extensions and undergo "regular assessments" by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. That’s in contrast to the existing policy that allows them to stay for as long as they’re pursuing their programs. The change has not yet been finalized.

Many students can finish their undergraduate degree within four years, but the proposed policy could prevent international students from completing a double major, enrolling in a study abroad program or completing a co-op program open to their domestic peers, said Spreitzer.

“People who are expecting to spend six or seven years coming here and taking classes, working in labs — if they're told they can only get a visa for four years, that really could discourage people,” Startz said. 

New international enrollment drops

Overall, international student enrollment has remained flat recently, according to the most recent data, but it appears federal policies have had an impact on new student enrollees.

Among 828 U.S. colleges surveyed last fall, international enrollment declined just 1%.  However, new international enrollment dropped a whopping 17% at those institutions, according to a report from the Institute of International Education and 10 partner higher education groups.

Another survey — from NAFSA,  the Oxford Test of English, and Studyportals —  found a 6% average decline in new undergraduate international students and a 19% drop among new international master’s students at some 200 U.S. institutions. 

Both polls linked U.S. visa policies to the declines. A majority —  85% — of institutions surveyed for the NAFSA report indicated that restrictive visa policies were major obstacles to enrolling international students. That is up from 58% in 2024. 

A recent National Student Clearinghouse Research Center report also revealed a year-over-year decline of 10,000 international students enrolled in U.S. graduate programs for fall 2025, though undergraduate international enrollment ticked up. 

How colleges are responding

According to the NAFSA report, 28% of institutions are anticipating budget cuts over the next year to adjust to the ongoing uncertainty over international enrollment. 

However, declines in international students won't be felt evenly across the higher education sector, as some institutions will likely see larger declines and budget impacts than others, said Spreitzer. 

This challenge, of course, isn't the only one colleges are facing. They are also grappling with losses in federal grants, uncertainty in overall federal funding and changes to student loan programs. Some are also experiencing enrollment declines due to a smaller pool of college-aged students, said Spreitzer. 

“International enrollment is one piece of the financial puzzle for our institutions,” said Spreitzer. 

Universities are adapting to international enrollment challenges by recruiting students in new markets, expanding online pathways, and growing their collaborations and partnerships with other universities, said Cara Skikne, head of communications and thought leadership at Studyportals, a foreign student recruitment firm that collaborated on the NAFSA report.

After losing new international students in the fall, Augustana College, for example, refocused its recruiting efforts on countries where more visa interview appointments were available, said Barnds. 

International enrollment from China has declined recently, spurring some institutions to recruit more students from other areas such as India or various African countries, said Spreitzer. China is the second largest source of international students in the U.S., behind only India, according to IIE. 

Roughly half of all U.S. institutions prioritized undergraduate recruitment outreach in Vietnam and India, and nearly 40% prioritized students from Brazil and South Korea, IIE’s fall snapshot found. At the graduate level, most colleges and universities, 57%, focused their recruitment efforts on India, while 32% focused on Vietnam, and 28% targeted both China and Bangladesh, the snapshot added. 

Over a third —  36% — of U.S. colleges plan to diversify their international markets over the next year, the NAFSA report stated. Another 26% expect to expand their online programs as an alternative enrollment pathway for international students. 

“Over-reliance on one or two major source markets makes universities vulnerable to sudden policy changes or economic shocks,” Skikne said in an email. 

Some institutions might also boost their international recruitment outreach, said Startz. But that work is expensive so the extent to which they can do so is limited, he said. 

Institutions can help students navigate last-minute visa processing hurdles at a low cost by offering hybrid start options — meaning they would start online and come to campus later — and extending payment deadlines, Skikne said. 

Last fall, 72% of institutions offered international students deferrals to spring 2026, while 56% offered deferrals to fall 2026, according to IIE’s fall 2025 snapshot.

Despite institutional efforts to make international students feel welcome, those students have also read about the Trump administration’s policies and political rhetoric, said Skikne. Plus, they're sharing stories in group chats about having their visas rejected or feeling unwelcome in the U.S., she said. 

Enrolling in the U.S. is an enormous financial decision for an international student, Spreitzer added. 

“If there is uncertainty around whether or not your visa is going to be valid the entire time, or whether or not you’ll be able to finish your degree before being asked to leave the country,” said Spritzer, “I think that you might start looking around to other places.”

Overall college enrollment ticked up 1% in fall 2025 compared to the previous year, a gain of 187,000 students, according to the latest data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. 

Undergraduate enrollment drove overall growth with a 1.2% year-over-year increase, as community colleges and four-year public institutions saw 3% and 1.4% bumps, respectively. In contrast, undergraduate enrollment declined 1.6% at private four-year nonprofits and 2% at four-year for-profits.

Other parts of the sector also dipped. Graduate enrollment sagged 0.3%, pushed by a 5.9% decline of international students in these programs, the clearinghouse found.

The higher education sector entered 2026 with a nervous eye on the international student pipeline, as the Trump administration continues to pursue policies limiting their ability to study at U.S. colleges.

Polling conducted mid-fall found that most surveyed colleges reported a drop in international enrollment, particularly in graduate programs.

The clearinghouse's latest fall enrollment report aligns with those findings. In fall 2025, about 10,000 fewer international students enrolled in U.S. graduate programs compared to the prior year, it found. 

The loss came after international enrollment experienced several years of strong growth, according to Matthew Holsapple, the clearinghouse's senior director of research. 

According to Holsapple, international enrollment has increased about 50% since fall 2020 — when the sector experienced a significant decline in these students amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

During a Jan. 14 call with reporters, Holsapple described this past fall’s downturn as "a pretty meaningful shift after that long period of expansion."

Undergraduate international enrollment still grew in fall 2025 but at less than half the rate it did in fall 2024 — a 3.2% year-over-year increase compared to an 8.4% uptick.

Dual enrollment students are another key group for college leaders.

Of the fall enrollment increase at community colleges, 38.4% came from students age 17 years or younger, according to Sarah Karamarkovich, a research associate at the clearinghouse. The clearinghouse uses this age range as a proxy for dual enrollment students — those taking college classes in high school.

The bump translates to 66,000 more students under the age of 18 who took community college classes in the fall compared to the previous year, Karamarkovich told reporters.

Community college enrollment increased overall by about 173,000 students.

Among different types of academic programs, shorter-term offerings such as associate degrees and certificates continued to outpace the growth in four-year degrees.

Enrollment in associate degree programs rose 2.2% compared to fall 2024, while the number of students seeking undergraduate certificates increased 1.9%. 

Bachelor's degrees saw more modest year-over-year growth, of 0.9%.

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By Encoura

Higher education is at a pivotal moment. After a year of disruption and debate, institutions face mounting pressure — from policymakers, from the public and from within — and now, the question is not whether to respond, but how to lead.

For the past year, institutions have largely focused on public relations and communication strategies that respond to mounting criticism. In an attempt to reset relations and formalize higher education’s priorities, the current federal administration even put forward a (widely rejected) compact in the fall.

Higher education’s challenges are complex and deeply felt, but so are its strengths: innovation, resilience and the lives transformed every day on our campuses.

With this in mind, many colleges and universities are launching a comeback for higher education this year by recommitting to fundamentals, reframing contested issues and finding a firmer footing in our fracturing world. Rather than focusing on reactive public relations strategies or priorities set by the federal government, these leaders are taking the initiative to change the higher education narrative — embracing their industry expertise and daily connections with students and communities.

Higher ed’s most strategic and contested topics

Specifically, college and university executives and senior leaders are focused on these urgent enrollment and retention topics that have come to the center of public concern: class-conscious admissions (pivoting away from affirmative action); workforce development and AI; institutional brand storytelling; navigation of the political landscape; and creation of a new campus climate.

As policies, technology and student behaviors continually shift, higher education leaders are stepping up on these issues to drive the nation’s postsecondary priorities and strategies. Not only are leaders taking the initiative to solidify these narratives at their own institutions, but presidents, provosts and vice presidents across the country are realizing the urgency for collaboration.

While institutions can often look to others with a competitive attitude given the shared audience, higher education has frequently been an industry that shares knowledge and strategies with the goal of professional development, networking and the strengthening of education as a whole.

In a similar manner, college and university leaders are leveraging opportunities for deeper conversation around the industry’s most pressing issues to intentionally shape its narrative and renew its purpose. These opportunities include in-person connection points, like Eduventures Summit 2026, higher education’s premier thought leadership event taking place June 15-17 in Chicago. The annual event’s goal this year is to host thought-provoking keynote speakers, engage bold thinkers and confront urgent questions — empowering college and university leaders to take control of higher education’s narrative and pave the way for a brighter future.

Higher education still has a great story to tell. Degree attainment continues to grow as a share of the adult population, college graduate unemployment and underemployment rates are stable, adults with a bachelor's degree or higher are by far the most likely to have well-paid jobs and alumni loyalty to “my” college is as strong as ever.

With this strong delivery on its promise, higher education leaders are seeking to ensure these successes shine over criticisms. However, colleges and universities are not only counting on shifting the narrative by generating more attention on these truths, but also through preparing for and leading higher education into the future.

As Eduventures Chief Research Officer and host of Eduventures Summit 2026 Richard Garrett stated, “It’s time for higher education not only to tell our story better, but to tell a better story.”

Wisconsin’s public universities are set to use a new measure to evaluate and potentially eliminate undergraduate programs at a faster rate as the university system navigates enrollment and financial pressures. 

A committee of administrators and faculty from the Universities of Wisconsin developed the metric, which flags programs with an average of 15 or fewer juniors and seniors enrolled annually in a three-year span. The system’s policies are currently being revised to include the recommendation, Regent Joan Prince said at a board meeting in December.

The change could lead to some 65 programs — about 10% of the system’s undergraduate offerings — being reviewed for potential elimination, according to a presentation.

The new method for evaluating programs within the Universities of Wisconsin's 13 institutions could substantially increase how many programs go on the chopping block each year. 

The current rubric, which flags programs that confer fewer than 25 degrees over five years, has identified from 41 to 54 programs for review in recent years, according to a task force on program elimination that presented the committee’s findings. 

“While the current metric has been useful in determining an academic program’s performance based on the conference of degrees, it represents a lagging indicator,” the task force said. “In addition, by focusing on graduated students rather than enrolled, the current metric does not fully represent the instructional workload associated with providing curriculum for a program.”

While the group honed in on a numerical measure of a program’s health, members also highlighted that metrics don’t capture its whole value. 

Along with quantitative rubrics, “the value of a program is also reflected in its qualitative contributions,” the task force said. “Both measures should be included in a thorough and fair monitoring process that looks at the totality of contribution of an academic program.” 

The task force and its work grew out of a 2024 review by Deloitte consultants of the Universities of Wisconsin, which found several of the system’s campuses were suffering from enrollment declines and structural deficits. However, the system overall logged its third straight year of enrollment growth this fall, with increases at nine of its 13 institutions. 

Along with the new metric, the task force recommended that the system increase reporting about enrollment trends to the regents, quickly investigate how campuses might share their courses and programs, and to standardize term start dates across the system. The regents said new task forces will be formed to address the last two recommendations.

Several states and public college systems are using enrollment or graduation trends to determine which programs to keep and which to cut.

Regents for Oklahoma’s public universities and colleges recently voted to eliminate 41 programs and suspend another 21 using metrics based on degrees conferred and enrollment. 

In its latest review, State University System of Florida institutions flagged 18 academic programs for elimination last month after identifying more than 200 deemed underperforming. The system began reviewing programs roughly fifteen years ago using minimum thresholds for degrees conferred. 

In 2025, both Indiana and Ohio passed laws that mandate that programs be eliminated at public colleges if they fall short of graduation quotas. Those laws have so far led to dozens of planned program cuts in both states.

S&P Global Ratings on Dec. 2 issued a negative 2026 outlook for U.S. nonprofit colleges, with analysts writing that institutions “will struggle to navigate through mounting operating pressures and uncertainty that will require budgetary and programmatic adjustments.”

The credit ratings agency pointed to federal policy changes, competition over enrollment, rising costs and financial disruption from new revenue-sharing arrangements with college athletes. 

S&P analysts expect weak operating margins at nonprofit colleges as they balance rising costs with revenue pressures. Institutions will continue shutter at higher rates than usual in 2026 as they come under mounting financial struggles, with small, regional private colleges especially vulnerable, the analysts wrote.

S&P joins Moody’s Ratings in its gloomy view of higher education’s financial prospects in the new year. 

Moody’s issued a negative outlook for the overall sector in November, citing similar woes: enrollment disruption from demographic changes, Trump administration policies, and continued — albeit slowed — operating cost increases. 

Last year around this time, S&P analysts split their outlook for the sector in 2025, leaning negative for “highly regional, less-selective institutions that lack financial flexibility” but positive for larger colleges with ready demand and ample resources.

However, the Trump administration has since waged a painful campaign against many of those large, previously well-positioned institutions. 

The federal government has frequently frozen the research funding of the high-profile colleges it is investigating. It has also broadly curtailed college research funding, long a source of revenue and jobs at universities and innovation and knowledge for the country. 

Next year could bring more cuts to research funding as federal agencies push for limiting reimbursement for overhead research costs. However, federal courts have so far blocked those moves. 

“We believe that a continued contraction in funding could not only threaten the financial health of institutions across the country, but could also jeopardize graduate and postdoctoral programs, and overall research capabilities,” S&P analysts wrote. They added that many of the large institutions navigating research cuts are financially strong overall and have “robust” liquidity, helping them to weather the disruption. 

S&P expects additional challenges for the more regional and less selective colleges. The population of high school graduates has been forecast to peak in 2025, leaving fewer traditional-age students for colleges to compete over.

“Schools with a highly regional draw will likely face continued diminishing enrollment, unless they can attract students through expanded programmatic diversity — from master’s and doctorate programs to certificate programs,” analysts wrote. They noted, however, that it can take years for colleges to see the benefits of expanding academic offerings.

Add to all those disruptions a rapidly evolving financial landscape for college sports. This year’s House v. NCAA antitrust settlement paved the way for paying college athletes a portion of the revenue Division I institutions make from athletics. That, in turn, has created pressure for universities and athletics departments to raise money to support athletes and athletics operations. 

“In a number of cases, this is also affecting academic budgets at a time of considerable stress in higher education,” S&P analysts wrote.

Many U.S. colleges are experiencing declines in undergraduate and graduate enrollment amid tightening visa policies, according to a new study released by NAFSA: Association of International Educators and other groups. 

U.S. colleges reported a 6% average drop in new international bachelor’s enrollment and a 19% drop in new international master’s enrollment for the fall. Of some 200 surveyed U.S. institutions, 48% saw declines in their international bachelor’s students, and 63% experienced a drop-off in international graduate enrollment. 

Canada suffered even more dramatic declines, while international student enrollment rose in Asian and European countries, according to the NAFSA study. Both U.S. and Canadian institutions primarily blamed restrictive government policies for the decline.

Since taking office, the Trump administration has launched a suite of aggressive policies that have made it difficult for many international students to study in the U.S. 

Among other moves, dramatically slowed visa processing raised concerns this summer that tens of thousands of students might be stymied from coming to the U.S. for college. On top of that, the administration has revoked thousands of visas for international students already studying here and proposed a four-year cap on student visas, which could hit doctoral students particularly hard. 

In the U.S., restrictive government policies were by far the No. 1 obstacle to international enrollment, with 85% of surveyed colleges citing them in the NAFSA study. That’s up from 58% of colleges that said the same in 2024. 

“We are navigating one of the most dynamic moments in international education, driven in no small part by shifts in U.S. visa and immigration policy,” NAFSA Executive Director and CEO Fanta Aw said in a statement. “The ripple effects of these policy changes are being felt across campuses and communities around the world.”

The distant No. 2 concern was tuition and living costs, with 47% of U.S. respondents citing them as an obstacle this year. 

As international enrollment declines take a toll on college finances, 36% of colleges surveyed by NAFSA said they plan to expand into new markets to adapt. Another 28% are planning budget cuts, and 26% intend to expand online programming to gin up enrollment. 

To be sure, the U.S. isn’t the only country where government restrictions weigh on foreign enrollment. In Canada — where new international bachelor’s and master’s enrollment fell by 36% and 35%, respectively — 90% of polled colleges listed restrictive policies as the top obstacle to enrollment. European colleges, excluding those in the U.K., also listed restrictions as the primary obstacle. 

The survey was conducted in October and drew on responses from 461 institutions across 63 countries, including 201 U.S. colleges. 

The NAFSA study adds to mounting evidence of international enrollment drop-offs this fall. A survey of more than 800 colleges found that their international enrollment declined overall by 1% in fall 2025, with their graduate student enrollment plummeting by 12%, per the annual Open Doors report from the Institute of International Education and the U.S. Department of State released earlier this month.

New international enrollment fell even more overall — by 17% — this fall, according to the Open Doors survey.

The State University of New York’s fall 2025 enrollment rose 2.9% over last year, marking the third straight year of growth at the public system after a decade of steady student losses.

Enrollment in the 64-college system reached 387,363 students this fall. SUNY also experienced outsized first-time undergraduate enrollment growth this fall, with new students increasing by 3.1% to 70,401.

However, SUNY's recent enrollment growth — up 6.5% since 2022 — is still well below the 500,000-student goal New York Gov. Kathy Hochul set that year.

From 2012 to 2022, SUNY's enrollment steadily declined, losing more than a fifth of its students. Hochul has made changing SUNY's fortunes, and the state’s public higher education more broadly, a policy priority since taking office in 2021.

SUNY Fall Enrollment

The university system lost roughly 100,000 students between fall 2012 and fall 2022.

In that time, New York made completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid a high school graduation requirement beginning in the 2024-25 academic year, a move SUNY supported publicly.

SUNY has also introduced direct admissions at community colleges and guaranteed admissions at its selective colleges. Direct admissions programs offer students college acceptance without them first needing to apply, whereas guaranteed admissions programs generally promise students a spot if they submit an application and meet certain conditions.

In fall 2025, headcounts at SUNY's 30 community colleges jumped 5% to 173,893 students. Their first-time enrollment also grew, rising 4.8% to reach 34,425 students.

Hochul on Nov. 18 partly attributed the enrollment growth at the system's community colleges to the SUNY Reconnect initiative, launched earlier this year. 

The program, also known as the Opportunity Promise Scholarship, allows New York residents ages 25 to 55 with no prior degree to attend community college for free if they study certain high-demand fields, such as nursing and engineering.

As of Nov. 13, 5,608 people enrolled at SUNY community colleges through Reconnect, according to institutional data. Hochul's office said each student in the program saves an average of $2,000 per year.

Transfer enrollment also increased at SUNY in fall 2025, up 4.7% to 26,301 students.

Like overall enrollment, however, the number of transfer students, first-time students, and students at community colleges still fell well below 2015 numbers.

In contrast to SUNY's overall growth this year, international enrollment dipped amid federal attacks on foreign students and an increasingly complicated visa landscape.

Overall international enrollment at SUNY’s colleges declined 3.9% to 20,608 students. 

The recently released annual Open Doors report found that international enrollment in the U.S. reached an all-time high in fall 2024.  But its preliminary fall 2025 survey of 825 colleges shows their international enrollment dropped 1% this term, driven by a 12% decline in foreign graduate students.

SUNY's institutional data aligned with these findings. Declines were steepest at doctoral degree-granting universities, where enrollment fell 6.9% to 15,352 students. International graduate enrollment decreased 13.8% compared to fall 2024, according to Hochul's office.

Other institutional types — the system’s comprehensive and technology colleges — saw increases, though they only enroll a combined 2,216 international students. 

The average tuition and fees paid by students and their families after aid rose slightly for the 2025-26 academic year but remain well below historic peaks, according to the latest higher education pricing study from the College Board. 

At public four-year colleges, net tuition and fees for first-time, full-time students increased just 1.3% to $2,300 from last year, when adjusted for inflation, according to the College Board’s estimates. That figure is down 48.3% from the peak in 2012-2013. 

At private nonprofits, net tuition and fees for first-time, full-time students rose 3.7% annually to $16,910 in the 2025-26 year, when adjusted for inflation. By comparison, that’s down 14.6% from the peak for private colleges in 2006-07.

Despite widespread debate over the cost of college, in real terms those costs have largely decreased for students over the past two decades. Grants from both public and institutional sources can defray those costs and often significantly reduce college sticker prices. 

In 2024-25, grant aid rose an inflation-adjusted 5.4% to $173.7 billion, according to the College Board. Much of that increase comes from a 19% spike in Pell Grant aid, which went to nearly 1 million more students during the 2024-25 year. Enrollment in the program rebounded and eligibility expanded under the FAFSA Simplification Act. 

Last year’s 7.3 million Pell recipients still fell well below the program’s height of 9.3 million in 2010-11. Total government spending on Pell, at $38.6 billion in 2024-25, was down about one-fourth from its peak in 2010-11 after inflation. 

Institutional aid plays a significant role in reducing sticker prices as well, and increasingly so as colleges wrestle with enrollment pressures and competition. Grant aid from colleges made up 33% of the $205.2 billion in total student aid, which includes federal loans, for undergraduates in 2024-25. That’s compared to 23% a decade earlier, according to the College Board study. 

That has reduced the burden for students. Average student debt for bachelor’s degree recipients in 2023-24 was $29,560, about $6,000 less than it was 10 years prior, according to the report.

While sticker prices have been rising, adjusting for inflation tempers the price growth. Before inflation, tuition and fees for residents rose 2.9% at four-year public colleges in 2025-26, while sticker prices rose 4% at private nonprofits. After factoring in inflation, those sticker price increases were 1% and 1.4%, respectively. 

Still, the public often focuses on sticker price, and tuition discounting often muddies the college cost picture. Although tuition discounting often helps colleges recruit students, some experts say high sticker prices can scare off those not attuned to the complexities of college pricing and can distort the public conversation around cost. 

The College Board also found that college enrollment has rebounded from a pandemic-era dip. Fall enrollment hit 18.9 million students in 2023, up from 18.5 million in 2022 and 18.6 million in 2021. However, that figure is down 9.6% from peak enrollment in 2011. 

Enrollment pressures are likely to increase amid projected declines in high school graduates in the coming years.

Qualifying high school seniors in California will be automatically admitted to a California State University campus for fall 2027 and beyond under a bill Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law in October.

Under the program, eligible students will automatically receive letters notifying them that they have been directly admitted to Cal State campuses with enrollment capacity based on their academic records. 

The program expands a pilot announced in 2024 limited to high school students in California’s Riverside County. Out of 17,000 students who received admission offers to Cal State for the fall 2025 term, 13,200 completed the required paperwork, according to state Sen. Christopher Cabaldon, who co-sponsored the bill.

California’s new legislation, called SB 640, aims to boost college access and help reverse enrollment declines at some of Cal State’s 23 campuses. 

A September news release from Cabaldon’s office noted two campuses with the biggest declines were in his district: CSU Maritime Academy — which recently merged with Cal Poly San Luis Obispo — and Sonoma State University, which announced deep budget and program cuts at the beginning of this year.

“Direct admission removes the applications hurdle that stops some students from going to college, and relieves the fear that they won’t get in anywhere,” Cabaldon said after SB 640 cleared California’s Legislature last month. 

The lawmaker cited a 2022 academic study of Idaho’s direct admissions program, implemented in 2015, that found the initiative increased first-time undergraduate enrollments by 4% to 8% — an average increase of 50 to 100 students per campus. It also boosted in-state enrollment levels by approximately 8% to 15%, the study found. 

Enrollment gains from the direct admissions program were concentrated mainly in community colleges, though it had “minimal-to-no impacts” on the enrollment of Pell Grant-eligible students, according to the study. At the time of publication, one of the researchers noted the lack of change was not surprising, given that the program did not focus on any particular student group.

Meanwhile, a 2023 study of 33,000 students found a Common App direct admissions initiative geared toward marginalized student groups increased applications among Black, Latinx, multiracial, first-generation and low-income students.

California joins a growing number of states incorporating direct admissions into the acceptance process for their public colleges. That list includes North Carolina, which this year offered 62,000 public high school students admissions into one of dozens of institutions through the NC College Connect Program, an expansion of a pilot launched last year.

“The process of applying to college, transferring between institutions, and navigating the maze of financial aid feels like an insurmountable series of hurdles,” Shun Robertson, the University of North Carolina's senior vice president for strategy and policy, told Higher Ed Dive earlier this fall. “Eliminating these barriers has been a high priority.”

Institutions in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Hawai’i, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Utah and West Virginia also offer direct admissions programs.

In the fall, North Carolina became one of the latest states rolling out a direct admission program that offers high school seniors acceptance to a range of public and private colleges. 

Through direct admissions, colleges proactively admit students based on high school academic performance metrics such as GPA, SAT scores, or the amount of credits they received. 

Around the start of the school year, more than 62,000 public high school seniors in North Carolina were offered direct admission to select colleges through the NC College Connect Program. Eleven of the University of North Carolina System's 16 colleges, 29 private colleges and all 58 of the state’s community colleges are participating. 

The UNC System first piloted NC College Connect in 2024 in partnership with state agencies, the governor’s office and North Carolina’s community college system. The system launched the program to increase access to higher education in the state, Shun Robertson, UNC’s senior vice president for strategy and policy, said in an email. 

For many high school seniors, “the process of applying to college, transferring between institutions, and navigating the maze of financial aid feels like an insurmountable series of hurdles,” said Robertson. “Eliminating these barriers has been a high priority.”

Over the past decade, direct admissions policies have increased the likelihood that in-state students both apply to college and apply to more colleges, said John Lane, vice president for academic affairs at the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association, in an email. In turn, that shift has effectively increased college enrollment, he said.

“Direct admissions policies and programs are impactful because they eliminate the complications and uncertainties of longstanding college application processes,” said Lane. “Instead, students are proactively admitted.”

UNC’s program

The UNC System piloted its direct admissions initiative in fall 2024 and notified over 70,000 high school seniors with GPAs of 2.8 or higher of their eligibility for the program, Robertson said. 

Those seniors could apply to six UNC institutions and all 58 state community colleges for the 2025-26 academic year by sharing on an online portal their email address, their potential major, and when they’d like to start college, he said. 

UNC System officials haven’t been able to review outcome data yet for the pilot program, a spokesperson said. But over 5,000 students responded to the letter during the pilot, the spokesperson said. 

The system simplified the program this past fall. Students won’t have to formally apply to get into one of the colleges on their list, rather they are provided direct admission to institutions based on their GPA and whether they meet the program’s requirements, Robertson said. Then they just need to submit a program form to accept their admission, he said. 

Students accepting admission to community colleges must still fill out applications, but they will already be admitted, according to the initiative’s website. 

The program also expanded to include private colleges in the state and added more UNC institutions, said Robertson. The University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, the system's highly selective flagship, remains excluded from the program.

Some of the private institutions in the program have additional direct admission qualification requirements, such as foreign language course requirements. 

UNC System officials hope direct admissions will help the state’s institutions enrollment numbers long term by tapping into a growing college-aged student population. 

Like most of the country, North Carolina is expected to see a decline in high school graduates between 2025 and 2030, according to a report last year from the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education. However, that pool of students is expected to grow again in North Carolina after that year. 

WICHE predicts that North Carolina will be one of 12 states, along with the District of Columbia, to have growing numbers of high school students between 2023 and 2041. Overall, North Carolina should see a 6% increase in high school graduates over that period, per WICHE projections.

“As more students and families choose to live in North Carolina, the UNC System is making sure that we serve as a gateway to opportunity for postsecondary education for them and building an educated workforce for our state,” said Robertson. 

An effective trend

Idaho launched the nation’s first state direct admissions program in 2015, hoping to improve enrollment at its public institutions. 

Research from 2022 on Idaho’s direct admissions program found a 4% to 8% increase in first-time undergraduate enrollment per campus. Those enrollments were driven by an increase in attendance at two-year institutions, the research found. 

Such programs have since expanded at institutions in more than a dozen states, including Minnesota, Wisconsin, Hawai'i, Connecticut, California, Illinois, Indiana, Utah, Oregon and West Virginia.

Direct admissions programs have also been attributed to increases in applications among Black, Latinx, multiracial, first-generation and low-income students, according to a 2023 study by researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 

That study also found that students offered direct admissions were more likely to apply to a college or university and twice as likely to apply to an institution that offered them guaranteed acceptance.

COLUMBUS, OHIO - Racial diversity in enrollment is arguably as politically charged a topic as it’s ever been. 

Since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down race-conscious admissions two years ago, some high-profile colleges have reported noticeable declines in the share of historically marginalized groups in their student bodies. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has launched an aggressive campaign to stamp out any whiff of proactive diversification efforts by colleges. 

At the same time, the population of traditional-aged college students in America is expected to become more diverse than ever. 

Yet amid all this, there’s a distinct lack of data on diversity throughout the admissions process. Researchers from the Urban Institute and the University of Southern California — who collaborated with the National Association for College Admission Counseling — have tried to fill that knowledge gap by looking at diversity from the recruitment process through admissions and enrollment. 

Presenting at the NACAC annual conference in September, the researchers described how their project had to shift with major developments, most notably the Supreme Court’s decision and concern over its impact on the diversity of student bodies. 

Other recent events in the college enrollment realm have also complicated the picture — from COVID-19 to last year's chaotic rollout of the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid application and the onslaught of new Trump administration policies — making it more difficult to isolate the decision’s impact. 

The fundamental problem the researchers sought to address was “a lack of understanding of what applicant pools look like from a diversity perspective, and what admit pools look like” from a diversity perspective, said Bryan Cook, director of higher education policy at the Urban Institute's Work, Education, and Labor Division, and one of the project leaders. 

Mismatches between applicants, admits and enrollees

Looking at the relationships among applications, admissions and enrollment can highlight where diversity efforts fall short, Cook said. For example, an applicant pool that is more diverse than the body of admitted students could point to issues in admissions practices.

From surveying 17 public and private research universities on enrollment and admissions data from 2018 to 2024, the researchers tried to put together a more detailed picture than what existing federal data or voluntary disclosures from colleges can offer. 

They found, for example, that the share of admitted Black students remained relatively flat at around 6% from 2021 through 2024. Meanwhile the share of Black students who actually enrolled at those institutions has climbed since 2022, reaching 5.8% in 2024 compared to 4.9% in 2018. Meanwhile, the share of Black applicants increased gradually from 2019 onward, reaching 8.7% in 2024. 

“While Blacks are increasing as a share of applicants, there is not a corresponding increase in the share of admitted students — yet they are increasing as a share of enrolled students,” Cook said. “And so this suggests, to some extent, that [the share of] Black applicants who are being admitted to these institutions is declining, but the yield for Black students is actually increasing.”

He added, “If you only look at the enrollment numbers, you would think that Black access to these institutions is going okay, even though they are a declining share of the admit pool.”

Data for Hispanic students also shows a mismatch between applicant and admissions numbers. In 2024, the share of Hispanic applicants at the sampled institutions, 17.5%, outpaced the share of Hispanic students who were admitted by a full 2 percentage points. Hispanic students’ share of total enrollment that year, however, stood extremely close to the applicant share at 17.1%.

A gap also existed between the share of Asian applicants and admits through 2023, but that divide closed in 2024, with both metrics at around 12.5%. Enrolled Asian students made up a smaller share, however, at 9.8%. That share has declined modestly since 2022, which contrasts with the pattern for Black and Hispanic students. Asian students could be choosing other colleges than those surveyed, however, Cook suggested.

Most of the above trends stand in stark contrast to those for White students, who have declined as a percentage of applicants, from 48.1% in 2018 to 40.7% in 2024. But as a share of those enrolled, White students made up 53% of the collective student bodies of the surveyed institutions in 2024 — more than 12 percentage points higher than their application rates.

White students are “the only group for which they're a larger share of the enrolled pool than the applicant pool,” Cook said. “So even though they're in decline, disproportionately White applicants are more likely to get admitted and enrolled than all of the other groups.”

And that trend held for every year of the study, both before and after the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision on race-conscious admissions. 

Pulling back the curtain on recruitment and admissions

 The Urban Institute-USC researchers also examined the recruitment and admissions process to gain insight into the driving forces behind enrollment trends. 

They found that the surveyed institutions “overwhelmingly prioritize academics,” said Julie Posselt, a professor at USC and co-director of the university’s Pullias Center for Higher Education. 

High school GPA led in importance for admissions factors, followed by the strength of high school students’ curriculum, according to their analysis. Essays and applicant character attributes came next, but ranked far below GPA on a scale of average importance to institutions. 

Posselt warned against “false inferences” and myths about admissions, such as that if a Black student with a lower GPA is admitted, it’s because of illegal discrimination or affirmative action.  

“If you work in admissions, you know that other factors, many factors, matter — as our data showed that race is definitely not the only way that applications are being contextualized,” Posselt said. 

She also highlighted the importance of changing demographics. “As we have more applicants from minoritized backgrounds, we ought to have more admitted students and enrolled students from those backgrounds, assuming academics are relatively close.”

Posselt also pointed to a popularly held myth among the public that there exists “a single, large hierarchy of merit” that determines who gets admitted to a given college.  

“We couldn't just line up everyone in this room and judge everyone as more and less admissible,” she said. Some majors are more competitive than others, she noted, and institutions also frequently have very specific needs in their admissions picture. 

“We know that there are multiple competitions that are happening simultaneously. This might be the year that we need a new oboist, or this might be the year that we need X, Y and Z in other critical places,” Posselt said. “Those competitions are happening outside the view of the public, but are definitely affecting the way that they understand or misunderstand the fairness of admissions or rejection decisions.