Student enrollment numbers are bleak.
At least, that’s what they’d have you believe. According to the National Student Clearinghouse’s January report, total undergraduate enrollment has declined by more than one million students since fall 2019.
In the wake of the lingering pandemic, undergraduate trends tell a consistently disheartening story. “Bachelor’s degree seekers fell by 3 percent this year, and have now fallen by 3.9 percent since 2019, a two-year decline of 333,900.”
Public four-year colleges bore the brunt of this, losing the largest number of students (more than 250,000) over the previous year – and private, nonprofit four-year institutions lost 58,700 students.
First-year enrollment continues to lag, with public enrollment declining by 6 percent since 2019 and private enrollment losing 3.6 percent in the same period.
Clearly, there are a multitude of problems facing enrollment in higher education. But despite these widespread challenges, MARKETview partner enrollment is thriving.
MARKETview partner first-year enrollment has increased by 7.1 percent since 2019.
We recently shared this fact with a partner and were met with an understandably curious, “why is that?”
Every partner and every goal is different, so there’s no one simple “why.” Instead, many things equip our partners for success, even in the face of these challenges:
- MARKETview provides a comprehensive, customizable view of national recruitment and enrollment data, allowing you to compare your real-time performance against competitors, relevant cohorts, and national trends.
- Every MARKETview partner has a dedicated data analyst and client success partner who monitors data trends and helps identify key areas of focus and attention.
- The data updates daily, providing unmatched visibility into how your class compares to relevant benchmarks.
- MARKETview offers a detailed look into future class composition – years before students file a FAFSA – allowing partners to segment messaging and communications.
There’s no doubt that we face an evolving world of higher education – and trends tell us that yesterday’s class-shaping methods likely won’t work tomorrow.
With MARKETview, though, our partners are well equipped to navigate the changing atmosphere and make data-informed decisions to reach their goals.
We will continue to closely monitor these shifting trends and support our partners to ensure they can reach their goals under any market conditions.