By Grady Andersen, Staff Writer

Between 2010 and 2022, college enrollment has decreased 15%, and experts fear it could get worse.This has been a continuing trend for a while, and it all has been caused by the Gulf War, Boris Yeltzin and the housing bubble.

The U.S. has seen lower and lower birth rates since the early 90’s, due to a recession from the Gulf War and the oil price shock. While this was a concern for colleges, there wasn’t enough of a decline to sound alarms for enrollment.

That is until 2007, when the housing bubble popped, and the Great Recession hit.

Many couples were reconsidering having children because of the amount of home foreclosure and investment loss. This left the birth rate in a free fall, at a time when colleges were already expecting less and less students.

Just when things could not get much worse for enrollment, COVID hit. This caused digital classes, campus shut downs and people either got furloughed or fired from their jobs. Colleges had to rapidly adapt into this new world, and more people were choosing to stay home and focus on their health instead of enrolling in higher education. Combined with the rise of remote jobs that do not require a college education, people stopped focusing on trying to get into college.

Due to this, we are seeing more colleges than ever closing their doors or merging with other schools. Between 2008 and 2023, there have been over 300 college closures. Of those, 60% were run by for profit groups. That does not include specialized schools, such as cosmetology; Including those, there are 843 closures.

When colleges close, financial aid is harder to maintain. A study conducted in 2022 by the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) found that only half of the students enrolled in a closing college were able to enroll in a new college. Those students then suffered more, and it was generally harder for them to earn a college degree.

While enrollment has decreased in general, four year public schools  have seemed to handle it better, with slight increases in total enrollment. The colleges most affected have been two-year institutions, especially for profit ones. From 2010 to 2020, the undergraduate enrollment of for-profit two-year institutions have decreased by over 250,000, a nearly 60% decrease. For people that need specialized degrees, this has made it harder and harder to find colleges to attend.

Over the past two decades several smaller colleges have merged with larger colleges that share a location, and state colleges have closed several satellite campuses or the amount of programs offered. The world of higher education is rapidly changing, and many colleges are increasingly unable to prepare for those changes.