Freshmen college enrollment increased in fall 2024, the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center said — contrary to its previous report that the enrollment declined.
A “methodological error” in the preliminary enrollment report, released in October, caused the miscalculation, Executive Director Doug Shapiro said in a statement Monday.
“The error in research methodology caused the mislabeling of certain students as dual-enrolled rather than as freshmen and, as a result, the number of freshmen was undercounted, and the number of dual-enrolled was overcounted,” Shapiro wrote.
Because of the error, the October report showed a decline in freshmen enrollment at both two- and four-year institutions. It also showed an even steeper drop in freshmen student enrollment at four-year colleges where large shares of students receive Pell Grants.
CNBC had included the original, erroneous data in several articles, which can be found here, here, here, here, here and here.
“Our subsequent research finds freshman enrollment increased this fall,” Shapiro wrote. He said the new research “is not based on preliminary data … and uses different methodologies to determine freshman enrollees.”
The final freshmen enrollment numbers will be released Jan. 23, the center said.
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Shapiro said the center is “conducting a thorough review to understand the root cause [of the error] and implement measures to prevent such occurrences in the future.”
Revised data shows a 3% rise in overall undergraduate enrollment in the fall compared with that period in 2023, according to the center’s updated analysis. Enrollment was also higher at four-year colleges where large shares of students receive Pell Grants.
“We are encouraged and relieved that updated data from the National Student Clearinghouse shows freshman enrollment is up this school year,” U.S. Under Secretary of Education James Kvaal said in a statement.
“The increase is consistent with what we are seeing on the financial aid side: More than 5% more students are receiving federal aid this year,” Kvaal said.
Some experts had warned that problems with the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid could result in fewer students applying for financial aid and fewer students enrolling in college.
However, because of changes to the FAFSA, more students can now qualify for a Pell Grant, a type of aid that is awarded based solely on financial need.
‘We are not out of the woods’
Higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz said that although there have been improvements with the new FAFSA, “we are not out of the woods yet.”
“The new FAFSA should have yielded a significant increase in the number of applications by low-income and first-generation college students by making the form easier to file. It has not yet fulfilled this promise,” Kantrowitz said. “This year’s form is better than last year, but there is still a lot of room for improvement.”
The U.S. Department of Education released the FAFSA for 2025-26 ahead of schedule, saying it did so with the goal of improving college access.
Overall, total college application volume through Dec. 1 rose 8% for the 2024-25 application season, compared with a year earlier, according to the latest data from the Common Application, an online college application platform.
Kantrowitz, who is not affiliated with the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, said an error on the part of the research group was “very rare.”
