Higher education enrollment: new data for spring 2026

How is higher education enrollment changing, and what might it become in the future? These have been long-running interests of mine. Today the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center just released its updated spring 2026 data. In this post I’ll dig into it to highlight what I see as the leading points. Overall, many of the topline findings are quite positive. Total postsecondary enrollment in American higher ed grew by 1%, reaching 18.6 million. But there are interesting differences across the sector. 1 Findings We can break this down in several ways, starting with degree levels. Undergraduate education was where the growth took place, as grad schools actually saw numbers decline slightly (-.1%). Public and nonprofit grad schools experienced a decline, countered only by a rise within for-profits. Within the undergraduate world it was public institutions which experienced a rise; for-profit and private institutions did not. Importantly, that undergraduate increase was largely…