First-time college enrollment is falling fast; down more than 5% last year

[Anonymous]

My question is this:

What does this mean for college admissions for next year?

[Anonymous]

Admissions will get easier for the next decade. Come back in 2035 and people will be talking about Brown as a safety.

Just kidding. Mostly likely the T10 schools will continue to be just as selective, but below that, schools will be increasingly less selective to desperate for students.

[Anonymous]

They are looking for full pay everywhere - esp schools hit hard with the 8% tax (see the other thread).
Expect massive (10%) tuition hikes.

[Anonymous]

The American Dream is over. America is no longer a meritocracy where through hard work you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps and make a future for you and your family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The American Dream is over. America is no longer a meritocracy where through hard work you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps and make a future for you and your family.

Baloney. I work with (legal status) refugees where they come not knowing the language, plucked out of refugee camps where they have never even seen a cell phone contract or bill. Within 5-10 years all of my families have managed to buy a house, kids are fluent and being educated, everyone is working and getting by even with lower paying jobs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Admissions will get easier for the next decade. Come back in 2035 and people will be talking about Brown as a safety.

Just kidding. Mostly likely the T10 schools will continue to be just as selective, but below that, schools will be increasingly less selective to desperate for students.

Please.

More like the T100 will continue to be just as selective. If you think this is going to start making it easier for kids to get into schools like Georgetown, Vanderbilt, UNC, etc., you're kidding yourself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The American Dream is over. America is no longer a meritocracy where through hard work you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps and make a future for you and your family.

Right. So, go back to the video games in your mom's basement. It's all over anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Admissions will get easier for the next decade. Come back in 2035 and people will be talking about Brown as a safety.

Just kidding. Mostly likely the T10 schools will continue to be just as selective, but below that, schools will be increasingly less selective to desperate for students.

Please.

More like the T100 will continue to be just as selective. If you think this is going to start making it easier for kids to get into schools like Georgetown, Vanderbilt, UNC, etc., you're kidding yourself.

it might if you're full pay. Look at the other thread with the tax hit info and the consequences of the BBB.

[Anonymous]

read the forum. People make this dumb post daily and have for years now on here.

[Anonymous]

Pricing out the donut hole family. Got it. It just sucks to be us in every way, shape, and form.

Not poor enough to get FA, but not rich enough to front $30k every year for 4 yrs for in state tuition, and feeling bummed about the frugality and tons of sacrifices over the decades to just to fund 529s, retirement, and general monthly expenses.

[Anonymous]

Admission will not get easier but smaller non prestigious private schools are going to shut down. The students that would have went to those schools will be pushed into larger universities and community colleges.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Pricing out the donut hole family. Got it. It just sucks to be us in every way, shape, and form.

Not poor enough to get FA, but not rich enough to front $30k every year for 4 yrs for in state tuition, and feeling bummed about the frugality and tons of sacrifices over the decades to just to fund 529s, retirement, and general monthly expenses.

You should be immensely grateful to not be poor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Pricing out the donut hole family. Got it. It just sucks to be us in every way, shape, and form.

Not poor enough to get FA, but not rich enough to front $30k every year for 4 yrs for in state tuition, and feeling bummed about the frugality and tons of sacrifices over the decades to just to fund 529s, retirement, and general monthly expenses.

There are a lot of options out there. Create a new post with your kid's stats and people will suggest. It's how I found out about some great merit for my kids years ago (Tulsa for NMF; URichmond; Davidson Belk scholarship etc). You just have to cast a wide, sometimes haphazard net.

SLACs will have more merit money to give now, with the repercussions from the tax bill. Target them strategically based on your kid's profile, geographic area, major, stats, etc.

[Anonymous]

The thesis of this thread is incorrect. It was a data error.

Freshman college enrollment was on the upswing in the fall, not declining as the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center reported in October, the prominent research group said Monday.

The organization, which produces widely used data on college enrollment, said a “methodological error” skewed its preliminary calculation of the number of first-year students who enrolled in fall 2024. The center initially said freshman enrollment dropped 5 percent, the first decline since the pandemic and an apparent indication of the fallout from the troubled rollout of the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid.

In a written statement, the center’s executive director, Doug Shapiro, said some students were mislabeled as dual-enrolled in high school and college classes, rather than as college freshmen, and “as a result, the number of freshmen was undercounted, and the number of dual-enrolled was overcounted.” The mistake inflated the number of high school students taking college classes through dual enrollment and affected the organization’s analysis of enrollment trends among 18-year-old freshmen.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2025/01/14/college-freshman-enrollment-increase-data-error/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Admission will not get easier but smaller non prestigious private schools are going to shut down. The students that would have went to those schools will be pushed into larger universities and community colleges.

So, you do not believe that admissions are going to get easier across the entire range of colleges in the USA?