Clearinghouse Enrollment Insights
Annual Series of Enrollment Reports
Updated January 15, 2026
The Clearinghouse Enrollment Insights series is created to offer higher education institutions, policy makers, and researchers a continuous and cohesive understanding of enrollment trends. It includes three reports released throughout the academic year.
The Preliminary Fall Enrollment Trends report provides a first look at fall enrollment trends (released November). The Final Fall Enrollment Trends report (previously known as the Current Term Enrollment Estimates fall report, typically released in January) provides the final enrollment estimates for the fall term based on comprehensive data. The Final Spring Enrollment Trends report (previously known as the Current Term Enrollment Estimates spring report, typically released in June) provides final enrollment estimates for the spring term.
It is the same trusted research with an evolved structure for our enrollment report series to better serve the planning and decision making of educational leaders.
Highlights of the Final Fall Enrollment Trends 2025 Report
- In fall 2025, there were over 19.4 million postsecondary enrollments —16.2 million undergraduate and 3.2 million graduate students. Compared to 19.2 million students last fall, this is a 1.0 percent increase in total postsecondary enrollment, driven by undergraduate gains (+1.2%) while graduate enrollment remained stable (-0.3%).
- Growth in undergraduate enrollment was driven by a 3.0 percent increase in community college enrollment, compared to a 1.4 percent increase at public 4-year colleges. Private 4-year institutions saw declines in undergraduate enrollment this fall (-1.6% at nonprofit and -2.0% at for-profit institutions).
- Enrollment in undergraduate certificate and associate degree programs continues to grow at a faster pace than bachelor’s program enrollment (+1.9% and +2.2% compared to +0.9%). After four years of consecutive growth, there are now 752,000 enrollments in undergraduate certificate programs at community colleges, a total increase of 28.3 percent from fall 2021.
- Graduate international student enrollment declined 5.9 percent after years of steady growth (-10,000). At the undergraduate level, there was an increase in international enrollment (+3.2%, +5,000) but at less than half the rate than last fall (+8.4%).
- Freshman enrollment remained stable this fall (-0.2%) at 2.5 million students. Public 4-year institutions experienced a 1.9 percent increase in freshmen (+18,000 to 971,000 students) while private 4-year institutions saw declines (-10,000 at each sector). There were 965,000 freshmen at community colleges, an increase of only 4,000 students (+0.5%) after three consecutive years of strong growth.
- Enrollment in Computer and Information Science programs declined across all award and institution types, ranging from -3.6 percent at undergraduate PAB institutions to -14.0 percent at the graduate level.
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