The decline in college enrollment during the pandemic has slowed, but the state’s public colleges continue to see fewer students than in previous years.<\/p>\n
The trend is threatening to impede the state’s progress toward education equity, according to a new report from the Washington Student Achievement Council.<\/p>\n
“Although more students are heading back to post-secondary education than we’ve seen in the last few years, we still have a ways to go to recover to pre-pandemic levels of enrollment,” said Isaac Kwakye , the council’s senior director of research and student success. “It’s important that we continue to keep an eye on state enrollment trends to ensure an equitable recovery.”<\/p>\n
The report’s analysis provides insights on enrollment trends at Washington’s public institutions during the pandemic.<\/p>\n
Overall, enrollment fell by 25% at community and technical colleges between fall 2019 and fall 2022, the report said.<\/p>\n
Still, the year-over-year decline has slowed considerably over the past three years. Enrollment was 4% lower in fall 2022 than fall 2021, a smaller decline than the 9% drop in 2021 or the 13% drop in 2020.<\/p>\n
Undergraduate enrollment at public four-year institutions fell by 10% between fall 2019 and fall 2022.<\/p>\n
Enrollment trends also differed by race, financial aid status, part-time and full-time attendance and new student status, the report found.<\/p>\n
Enrollment at community and technical colleges declined for all racial groups during the pandemic. The largest drops were among American Indian\/Alaska Native students (-38%); white students (-31%), and Asian students (-24%).<\/p>\n
At public 4-year universities and colleges, enrollment declined most for American Indian or Alaska Native students (-27%); and white students (-15%).<\/p>\n
However, enrollment increased for Black\/African students by 25% and 27% for Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders.<\/p>\n
Monitoring trends and understanding differences among student groups can help target effective, equitable supports that help revitalize enrollment and recover from pandemic losses, the report concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Enrollment has picked up since the pandemic, but the lag threatens the state’s quest for education equity. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":603,"featured_media":65329,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65328"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/603"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65328"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=65328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}