Nationwide, few high-school seniors are choosing to enroll in college immediately after graduation. In some states, according to the latest available data, even half of high school graduates do not pursue higher education.
For many states, this shrinking number comes as another serious indication for college-enrollment prospects and future workforce – especially when students who do not enroll are less likely to earn a college degree.
Students have “more options than ever before.”
Recent state reports in Indiana, West Virginia, Arizona, Kansas and Tennessee highlight the significant drop in college attendance rates, reflecting the percentage of public high-school graduates enrolled in college within a year. The drop on board is even greater for low-income students, black and Hispanic / Latino students and men.
Last week, the Indiana Commission for Higher Education revealed that college attendance rates for 2020 high school graduates have dropped by 6 percentage points since 2019 – the sharpest one-year decline in at least a generation. More than half of the class enrolled in college immediately after graduation, and less than half of the men did, first for the state.
These big drops were also seen in Tennessee, where a report released in May found that by mid-2019, college going rates had dropped by nine percentage points to 53 percent.
And 2021.
According to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, while college attendance rates have been steadily declining over the past decade, this trend has become “unprecedented” during epidemics. National college attendance rates for 2020 graduates dropped by four to 10 percentage points, with high poverty secondary schools experiencing a more serious decline from 55 percent to 45 percent between 2019 and 2020.
The Chronicle He spoke with admissions experts, state higher education officials, and college counselors to find out why the shortage is happening and what can be done. They point to barriers such as costs, lack of support in high school, mental-health concerns, competitive options, and attitudes toward changing college benefits – all of which unequally affect disadvantaged students.
“A lot of people are deprived of the opportunities they get with some training and education outside of high school,” said Chris Lori, commissioner of higher education in Indiana.
Winners and losers
David Strauss, an enrollment specialist in the arts and sciences group and college adviser, said colleges were facing a “triple hamie” when it came to higher education.
“The first shock is that the number of students graduating from high school has been declining and has been declining for some time in most parts of the country,” Strauss said. “The double whammy is college going rates: if the percentage goes down, the pool shrinks even more. And triple whammy is something that the epidemic has off track for, or forced people to think about alternatives because of the epidemic.”
Nominations are becoming a game of winners and losers, Strauss said. Demand for this specialty has grown significantly as more and more public universities and community colleges are losing students.
In Indiana, almost the same number of high-school graduates went to private or out-of-state colleges in 2020 as in 2019 – meaning the drop in college attendance was almost completely absorbed by the state’s public and community colleges.
In Kansas, community colleges are also taking the biggest hit. Cheryl Harrison-Lee, chairman of the Kansas Board of Regents, said it signaled a larger equity issue.
Most students who have not served higher education “traditionally – our first-generation, our colored students, our rural students – have their point of entry into community college,” Harrison-Lee said. “So, we need to make that community college entry point easier, and an easier way for them to get into a four-year degree.”
College counselors who work closely with high school students report that epidemic-related stress is playing a role, said David A. Hawkins, chief education and policy officer for the National Association for College Admissions Counseling.
“Sources of stress undoubtedly stem from the traumatic effects of the global epidemic, from social isolation to financial hardship to educational burnout and more,” Hawkins wrote in an email. “All of these factors are linked to a difficult economy that can make transitioning to college more difficult and less feasible for many students.”
Brian Pisetsky, a college counselor at Marana High School in Arizona, noted that many students in his school’s 500-person undergraduate class are not choosing to enroll in college immediately.
The first hurdle is money, he said. But the main factor, he believes, is that students have “more options than ever before.” The school district of Pisetsky offers strong technical-education programs in partnership with local community colleges, and they have been gaining popularity in recent years.
“Our students are graduating with certificates in dental hygiene, medical aid, automotive, cooking – so they go into the workforce with certificates in hand and make really good money. Many of them can make more than I can,” Pisetsky said. “So, you know, it’s more attractive to them than graduating with a loan of thousands of dollars.”
But technical education programs can have a long waiting list. Kelly Pitkiewicz, a scholarship coordinator for the Middle Tennessee Community Foundation and a former college counselor, said some Tennessee students have had to wait a year to get into the automotive program.
And until a place is available, going back to college is no longer an option.
“If you graduate and start working and your family depends on that income, but you will get a place in school, it will be very difficult for you,” Pietkiewicz said. “They’re just going to stay on one level with a high-school degree and not be able to go up because they can’t rest at that point in their lives.”
‘Competitive Preferences’
There is a great deal of debate as to whether formal education after high school is financially necessary in the context of high school students’ choices. Research shows that college degrees leave people well, but young people are not so sure.
In Indiana, Lori sees this suspicion out. “One of the perceptions people get is to leave the college with a सबै 150,000 loan and not all students can find a job,” he said.
While having more options for students is not a bad thing at all, experts say that if a few disadvantaged students go to college, the equity gap could widen.
The high-school-graduate population is diversifying, with more Hispanic and Latino students, Strauss said. But these students also face the biggest barriers to getting into college. “College attendance rates are declining because of who’s in the pool right now,” Strauss said.
In Indiana, for example, the decline in college attendance for black students in the 2020 class was the largest among all ethnic and racial groups, with a seven-percentage-point decrease. For Hispanic / Latino students, there was a six-percent-point reduction. The college attendance rate for low-income students dropped by six percentage points compared to a four-percent drop for higher-income students.
Students who do not have a support system to help through the college admissions process are left even further behind, Pietkiewicz said. In Tennessee, Pietkiewicz examined federal data and found that the student-counsel ratio in public high schools in almost all states is more than one in 250.
College counselors are taking on more responsibilities, such as supporting students’ mental health, so they have less time to focus on college admissions. And while both parents and students are facing complex difficulties due to the epidemic – economic, social, health-related, and more – college is also a back burner for them, Pietkiewicz said.
“Kids only have competitive preferences, and if they don’t have someone to guide them through the process, why are you going to take something that seems impossible when you don’t have the confidence to take it because you don’t have the knowledge of the system?” She said.
The primary way to increase college attendance, experts say, is through financial support.
In Indiana, Lowry said authorities are working to increase enrollment in the state’s 21st Century Scholarship program, which provides free or reduced tuition to low-income students and guides them through the college-application process beginning in middle school. Eighty-one percent of the students enrolled in the program are enrolled in college immediately, but only about half of the eligible students sign up. Lowery is pushing for an automated recruitment system.
In Kansas, Harrison-Lee is pushing for streamlined general-education requirements that will give students a “clear path” to community college, and then to a four-year degree. The state is expanding college-counseling programs in high schools to ease that transition. Kansas colleges will also refrain from using standardized-test scores in admissions decisions, she said.
Colleges hoping to stay competitive in a market with low demand need to develop a unique experience that can offer students, Strauss said. And they need to figure out how to support the growing diverse pool of high-school graduates.
That would probably not increase the overall rate of college attendance, or allow every college to succeed, Strauss said. “But it also gives organizations that successfully do this a great opportunity to make a big dent in the compressed pie.”