White students are falling out of higher education more quickly than any other racial group, and recent data suggests that middle- and upper-income white students are skipping college at a higher rate than their lower-income peers. That flies in the face of entrenched narratives about more-affluent white students following a well-marked path to college. Experts can only speculate about why it might be happening.
Data released in October by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center indicate that fewer white undergraduates from more affluent neighborhoods have enrolled in college over the past six years. This is happening as white students from lower-income neighborhoods enroll at slightly higher rates, and as Black and Hispanic undergraduate enrollment across the income spectrum has increased.
Colleges and advocates have spent years pushing to get more students of color into higher education, and the data reflect some progress. But there is also a mystery here. A common narrative is that a strong economy, and growing mistrust of colleges among conservatives, has encouraged more young white people — especially men from rural areas — to skip college and enter the work force. That’s not what the data show. The enrollment declines are coming from the country’s more affluent neighborhoods, and the more affluent the neighborhoods, the steeper the decline, on average.
For some experts, the National Student Clearinghouse data on white-student enrollment, when pointed out, came as a surprise. For others, it comported with other recent data points they’ve noticed. While no obvious theories to explain the phenomenon surfaced, some caveats and a few hypotheses did, including ongoing demographic shifts, the recent FAFSA troubles, and pervasive public concern about the cost and value of a college degree.
If more affluent white students continue to skip college, it could have financial ramifications for the sector. Wealthier students typically pay more to attend college than their lower-income peers, though costs are rising faster for the latter group. A smaller freshman class can have an immediate impact on an institution’s bottom line — a dip in revenues that persists for years at a time when many colleges can hardly afford one.
The enrollment drops are not big percentages, but they’re part of a large and mostly unheralded shift in who goes to college. White undergraduate enrollment has fallen by more than 2 million students since 2012, according to a Chronicle analysis, while Black enrollment has fallen by about 600,000 students and Hispanic enrollment has risen by nearly 700,000 over the same period. While undergraduate enrollment in the fall of 2024 is up 3 percent from last year, according to the National Student Clearinghouse data, freshman enrollment is down 5 percent and white freshman enrollment is down 11 percent.
Will this be another reason for the higher education racket to hate white folks?
