Colleges are continuing to make up ground lost during the pandemic, according to the clearinghouse’s latest report. While undergraduate enrollment this spring remained 2.4% lower than pre-pandemic levels, graduate enrollment grew 7.2% higher than in 2020. Spring enrollment at trade-focused colleges was up a whopping 20% since 2020, an increase of 871,000 students.

Historically Black colleges and universities saw their highest upticks since the pandemic, with year-over-year growth of 4.6% for undergraduates and 7.7% for graduate students, according to the clearinghouse.

Undergraduate enrollment grew among students in their 20s for the first time since the pandemic, with headcounts up 3.2% among students aged 21 to 24 and 5.9% for students aged 25 to 29, with community colleges leading the surge.

Every kind of higher ed institution saw enrollment growth this semester, with community colleges taking center stage.

Public two-year institutions accounted for a little over half of the sector’s undergraduate growth in spring 2024 while making up slightly more than a third of the total undergraduate population, Doug Shapiro, executive director of the clearinghouse’s research center, noted during a media briefing Wednesday. However, community college enrollment is still “well below pre-pandemic numbers,” he noted.

At about 4.7 million students, public two-year college enrollment this spring is still nearly 350,000 students under its 2020 high, according to the clearinghouse report.

Along with two-year program enrollment increases, community colleges drove 4.8% enrollment growth in undergraduate certificate programs.

“Students are voting with their feet in favor of shorter-term credentials at lower costs and with more direct job-related skills,” Shapiro said, regarding the trend in community colleges leading the surge in enrollment.

Four-year institutions also made progress this spring. Total spring enrollment was up 2.5% in public four-year colleges — compared to 1.7% growth in spring 2024. And private four-year nonprofits saw headcounts rise 1.4% — a slight deceleration from last spring’s 1.7% growth but still another mark of progress since the pandemic-era declines.

Most states in the U.S. experienced enrollment growth, with a handful of exceptions: Enrollment dropped 6.2% in Idaho, 3% in Alaska, 2% in Vermont, 1.6% in Oregon, 1% in Nebraska and 0.7% in Missouri.

Read the full article about higher education enrollment by Ben Unglesbee at Higher Ed Dive.