Four-Year Colleges with the Highest Enrollment Growth During COVID-19
Written by: Taylor Nichols Key Insights:
- While national college enrollment dropped in 2020, online schools saw boosts during COVID-19
- New data shows which colleges had the highest enrollment growth in fall 2020
- Tuition-free online school University of the People had a 671% enrollment increase, the highest of any school
The COVID-19 pandemic hit higher education hard last year, with enrollment declines making headlines across the country. Both four-year and community colleges had significant enrollment drops nationally, with a 4.5% decline for undergraduate students in 2020, according to data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.
While fewer students enrolled in college overall during COVID-19, the National Student Clearinghouse data shows increased interest in online schools. Undergraduate enrollment numbers for primarily online institutions jumped nearly 2% in fall 2020.
We took a look at the four-year colleges with the highest enrollment growth in fall 2020 to get a better sense of enrollment trends during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This list of the 25 four-year colleges with the largest enrollment increases includes:
- Six for-profit institutions
- Four public colleges
- 15 private nonprofit schools
- Nine primarily online colleges (at least 50% enrolled online pre-pandemic)
Schools that saw the most growth include some prominent online colleges we expected to see — Southern New Hampshire University, for example, saw significant gains last year. However, other well-known online schools, such as the University of Phoenix, didn't see the same enrollment jumps.
Notably, tuition-free online school University of the People saw a 671% increase, growing their undergraduate enrollment by nearly 30,000 students last fall.
We limited our study to four-year institutions with at least 1,000 students in fall 2019 to understand how the coronavirus pandemic impacted mid-sized universities.
Read: Four-Year Colleges with the Largest Enrollment Declines During COVID-19
Four-Year Colleges with the Biggest Enrollment Boosts in Fall 2020
| School | Fall 2019 Enrollment | Fall 2020 Enrollment | Absolute Change | Percent Change |
|---|
Top 10 Four-Year Colleges with the Highest Enrollment Growth During COVID-19
Takeaways
Many of the colleges on this list serve a high rate of online students and have characteristics common in online offerings — lower tuition rates than many other universities, career-focused programs in high-demand fields, and accelerated degree options, to name a few.
These findings speak to the impact that the pandemic had on students' decisions about college and suggest a growing trend in the public perception of online degrees as a viable education option rather than an alternative. It also may highlight changing education needs for the workforce as thousands of people reskill for new careers in light of the changing economic landscape.
Correction note: Arizona State University - Campus Immersion changed its reporting structure in 2021, encompassing additional campuses in the fall 2020 enrollment numbers that were not included in 2019. As a result, enrollment growth rate calculations were incorrect. It has been removed from this list to correct that error.
Methodology
We limited our study to postsecondary institutions with at least 1,000 undergraduate students enrolled in Fall 2019 that graduated primarily baccalaureate students or higher in the 2018-19 and 2019-20 school years. Once these limitations were applied, the data resulted in a total of 1,294 schools. Enrollment numbers are for total undergraduate student enrollment in fall 2019 and fall 2020. All data comes from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) from the U.S. Department of Education.