Deeper Look at Fall 2023 IPEDS Data, part II

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I recently published the Fall 2023 profile of distance education enrollments and a premium follow-up post looking at macro trends, and Morgan added a post looking specifically at community colleges and online enrollment. It’s worth pointing out a few basics to help people understand the different data sources showing US enrollments.

• IPEDS Fall Enrollment: US Department of Education (ED) data that uses a census method, with institution-level information and a lag of ~15 months, including modality (exclusive DE, some DE, no DE) since Fall 2012.

• IPEDS 12-month Enrollment: ED data using a 12-month headcount per academic year, with institution-level information and a lag of ~15 month, including modality since 2019-20. See this latest post.

• NSC Current Term Enrollment: National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) data using a rolling census method for Fall and Spring terms, without institution-level information but with a lag of just 2-3 months, since 2012.

Please see the Profile post for any questions on terminology, but exclusive DE = students taking all online courses, some DE = students taking some but not all online courses, ALO DE = students taking at least one online course, and no DE = students taking all face-to-face courses.

Exclusive DE by Control, Updated

Keep in mind (as described in detail in the profile post) that I believe with the Fall 2023 data, we are both seeing the last remnants of pandemic recovery for face-to-face enrollments (primarily in public institutions) and the beginning of a new normal of increasing fully-online and partially-online enrollments. With that in mind, let’s look further at the data.

The first view is of exclusive DE enrollments by degree type and by control (public vs. private nonprofit vs. private for-profit).

Note that public institutions - both 4-year and 2-year - have seen the greatest increase in exclusive DE enrollments from pre- to post-pandemic.

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