Our Path – Preserving the Discipline and

Transcript:Our Path – Preserving the Discipline and:
Our Path – Preserving the Discipline and Profession of Accounting Mark C. Dawkins, Ph.D., CPA, CMA, CGMA, MBA, MAcc Professor of Accounting & AAA Past-President Coggin College of Business University of North Florida February 2, 2024 University Enrollment Trends - Spring Per a 5/26/22 report on Spring 2022 enrollments issued by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center (NSCRC): - Undergraduate enrollment declined 4.7% from spring 2021-spring 2022, after a decline of 4.9% from spring 2020-spring 2021. Thus, enrollment of undergraduate students fell 9.4% in two years, or nearly 1.4M students since the pandemic started (i.e., spring 2020-spring 2022), and 2.6M students over the past decade. 2 University Enrollment Trends Undergraduate enrollment fell more steeply in spring 2022 than it did in fall 2021 (-4.7% vs. -3.1%). The NSCRC’s Fall 2021 enrollment report issued on 1/13/22 showed that enrollment of undergraduate students fell 6.6% in two years, or more than 1M students (i.e., fall 2019-fall 2021). As previously noted, the NSCRC’s Spring 2022 enrollment report showed that enrollment of undergraduate students fell 9.4% in two years, or nearly 1.4M students since the pandemic started (i.e., spring 2020-spring 2022). Enrollment declines increased through most of the pandemic, until Fall 2023! 3 University Enrollment Trends 4 University Enrollment Trends Per a 10/26/21 article in UniversityBusiness.com: The fall 2021 two-year undergraduate enrollment decline of 6.6% was the largest in 50 years until spring 2022. This 6.6% decline was exceeded by the spring 2022 two- year undergraduate enrollment decline of 9.4%. - The previous worst two-year period was a 3.3% decline from 2011-2013 when colleges and universities had just experienced all-time enrollment highs from the Great Recession. 5 University Enrollment Trends Per a 2/2/23 NSCRC report: The undergraduate enrollment decline continued in fall 2022 with a 0.6 percent decline from fall 2021 (or 94,000 students), and total higher education enrollment was 5.8% below 2019 levels (or 1.1 million students). Per a 3/9/23 article in Fortune, total undergraduate enrollment declined about 8 percent from fall 2019 to fall 2022. This slide in the college-going rate is the steepest on record per the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. 6 University Enrollment Trends The NSCRC’s Fall 2023 enrollment report issued on 1/23/24 showed that enrollment of undergraduate students rose 1.2% from fall 2022-fall 2023, or 175,828 students. This 175,828-enrollee increase is the first increase since fall 2019. Only 10% of this increase was new freshmen (about 18,000 students).