New Enrollment Trends

What do the Institute of International Education (IIE), The College Board, and the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (nicknamed the St. Louis Fed) have in common? The answer? They all have recently produced data and research on a wide variety of topics that might affect college enrollment and operations, including admissions, financial aid, tuition pricing trends, and the rate and types of disability among U.S. workers.

This AGB Research blog focuses on these three entities to give boards, board professionals, and presidents a sampling of available resources. Note: The data and research were produced before the 2024 U.S. presidential election, the results of which might bring even more changes to college enrollment, costs, and operations early in 2025.

Open Doors 2024 Report on International Educational Exchange

The IIE has been providing annual data and information on international students studying in the U.S. since 1919; in 1972, it began receiving funding from what is now part of the U.S. Department of State to do so.¹ It also provides data on U.S. students studying abroad, international scholars in the U.S., and intensive English-language program offerings for international students in the U.S.

The 2024 report, covering international students and U.S. students abroad in the 2023–2024 academic year, was released in November 2024 (its usual annual release date). This particular report was rolled out on November 18, 2024, just after the U.S. presidential election. While campaigning, then-candidate Trump promised automatic green cards for all international students graduating from U.S. colleges.² The likelihood of this actually coming to pass is unknown, as is much of what may happen regarding student visa policy or broader U.S. immigration policy in 2025. Some critics have noted problems with the misuse of international student visas, which may play into any future immigration policy.³

Key findings in the November report are as follows:

• In 2024, the number of international students in the U.S. reached an all-time peak of 1,126,690, hailing from over 210 places of origin. The total increased by seven percent over the previous academic year.
• Forty-four U.S. states and territories had increased international student numbers.
• The majority of international students (56 percent) were in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields.
• Focusing specifically on engineering as a subdiscipline to illustrate how choice of major can vary by place of origin:
  • 45.8 percent of the 331,602 international students from India studied engineering.
  • 17.1 percent of the 277,398 international students from China studied engineering.
  • 17.0 percent of the 43,149 international students from South Korea studied engineering.⁴

By contrast, according to the IIE report’s U.S. study-abroad section, in 2022–2023, only 5.4 percent of U.S. students abroad were studying engineering and 27 percent were studying in STEM fields overall. The second-most-popular field of study for U.S. students abroad was business and management (21.0 percent) and the third-most-popular field was social sciences (17.7 percent).⁵

Given the increased numbers of international students in 2024, any change to broader U.S. immigration policy and specifically student visa policy would logically affect international students’ enrollments, particularly for those institutions with large numbers of international students. However, at this moment, it is unclear what may happen.

College Board Trends in College Pricing and Student Aid 2024 Report

The College Board has been tracking trends in financial aid, college pricing, and other educational data since 1983 (with the first publication of what was then a separate Trends in Financial Aid report).⁶ The mid-October release of the latest report has a plethora of data that board members, board chairs, presidents, and board professionals can use. This includes average published tuition and fee prices, average net tuition prices, borrowing trends, institutional revenues, and more.

While the average published tuition and fee price charts by sector and state are extremely useful comparative data, Trends’ latest average net-tuition-price data over time also allows comparisons between two- and four-year institutions, as well as admissions selectivity and family income.⁷

Some notable points include:

• Although the data include COVID-19-related Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund monies in 2020–21 and 2021–22, first-time, full-time in-district students enrolled in public two-year colleges have received grant aid totally covering their annual tuition and fees every year since 2009–10—more than a decade ago.⁸
• Inflation-adjusted net tuition and fee costs for first-time, full-time in-state students at public four-year colleges and universities were an estimated $2,480 in 2024–25. This cost peaked more than a decade ago, in 2012–13, at $4,340.⁹
• Inflation-adjusted net tuition and fee costs for first-time full-time students at private nonprofit four-year colleges and universities were an estimated $16,510 in 2024-25. In 2006–07, they were $19,330; in 2014–15, they were $18,680.¹⁰
• In 2019–20, full-time dependent students whose parental income was less than $40,000 had their tuition and fees fully covered at the following percentages, broken down by institutional type and selectivity:¹¹
  • Public two-year: 71% of such students
  • Public four-year, minimally selective or open admission: 54%
  • Public four-year, moderately selective: 56%
  • Public four-year, very selective: 79%
  • Private nonprofit four-year, minimally selective or open admission: 41%
  • Private nonprofit four-year, moderately selective: 26%
  • Private nonprofit four-year, very selective: 47%
  • For-profit: 5%

The expiration of COVID-19 emergency funding in the United States, combined with enrollment decreases and election results in the United States, might change the financial picture for boards and presidents in the near future. However, these data show that the popular narrative of “college is unaffordable” is actually more nuanced—and has been over time—depending on institutional type and selectivity combined with family income.

Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Blogs

Two summer 2024 blogs in the On the Economy blog series put out by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis draw attention to comparative data (pre-pandemic and current) on how the subpopulation of Americans with disabilities intersects with the overall U.S. working-age population. The takeaway for boards and presidents alike is that disabilities—particularly cognitive disabilities—have risen among the working-age population since the advent of COVID. This will affect everyday operations of institutions, systems, and foundations.

Although certainly not the only cause of disability, COVID continues to be both fatal—as of November 2, 2024, the CDC’s provisional estimate is more than 11,000 deaths across the United States in the past three months alone¹²—and disabling. A June 2024 JAMA data brief provides information on mounting evidence that approximately 7 percent of adults age 18 or older in the United States have had a post-COVID-19 condition, commonly known as long COVID.¹³ Further, the Census Bureau and National Center for Health Statistics are currently partnering to assess how prevalent post-COVID-19 conditions are, using the experimental Household Pulse Survey.¹⁴ The latest available estimate (from August 20 through September 16, 2024) reports 17.9 percent of adults have experienced long COVID.¹⁵

In July 2024, the St. Louis Fed On the Economy blog used Census data to compare the employment-population (E-P) ratio in February 2020 and February 2024 for working-age individuals with and without a disability. They found that the E-P ratio for individuals with a disability rose 5.8 percentage points between February 2020 (30.9 percent) and February 2024 (36.7 percent). By contrast, the E-P ratio for individuals without a disability in February 2020 was 74.8 percent, decreasing 0.2 percentage points to 74.2 percent in February 2024.¹⁶

The authors conducted a more in-depth analysis of the ratio components and concluded “… the U.S. working-age population with a disability grew faster than the working-age population without a disability. … [I]t is more likely that the pandemic increased disabilities among both the population and the workforce, resulting in higher E-P ratios for those with disabilities.¹⁷

This was followed by another blog post in August 2024, in which the authors dug into Current Population Survey data on different types of disabilities. They found that “since 2019, the E-P ratio has increased across all disability categories, meaning a greater percentage of America’s disabled population is working regardless of disability type; however, the most prominent increase has been among those reporting only a cognitive disability.”¹⁸

Takeaways

• Fallout from the 2024 presidential election is still unknown as this blog is being written. It is possible that both money flows and data sources will be upended.
• In 2023–2024, the number of international students studying in the U.S. was 1,126,690—the highest number ever—with a majority of those students in STEM fields. Any changes to immigration policy in 2025 may affect these numbers.
• The percentage of U.S. working-age people with a disability has risen, as has the overall size of the disabled population in the United States. The highest increase in workers with disabilities, however, has been among workers who only report having a cognitive disability. The long-term effects of this on institutions, systems, and foundations remains to be seen as COVID continues and other potential pandemics arise.

Lesley McBain, PhD, is AGB’s senior director of research.

The original version of this post referenced National Student Clearinghouse data that has been retracted.

Notes