College enrollment in Pennsylvania, U.S. slips further

College enrollments in Pennsylvania and nationwide continued to slip through the spring semester.

The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, which calculates enrollment numbers twice a year, for spring and fall, reported Thursday that college enrollments slipped by 1.7%, or about 300,000 students, between spring 2018 and spring 2019.

Although graduate student enrollment increased by 54,000 students during that time, that wasn’t sufficient to offset the decline in undergraduate enrollment, said Doug Shapiro, executive director of the research center.

“Colleges and universities in many regions continue to struggle from the combined effects of a strong job market and smaller numbers of high school graduates,” said Shapiro said.

Researchers said the losses were heaviest among four year for profit institutions that saw enrollments drop by 19.7%, while combined enrollment losses at -2 and 4-year public colleges and universities slipped 1.9%. A 3.2% enrollment gain at private nonprofit four year schools was not sufficed to offset the losses elsewhere.

Florida, California, Illinois, Michigan and Pennsylvania posted the largest declines in raw numbers, with more a total loss of more than 153,000 students. In Pennsylvania, enrollment slipped by 16,853 students.

Despite the declines, colleges and universities continued to enroll 17.5 million students during the spring semester.