About 26,000 fewer students are pursuing master’s degrees than last spring.
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Enrollment trends for the spring of 2026 are very similar to those from the fall, with a slight gain in graduate enrollment while graduate enrollment remained roughly the same as last spring. Here are three key takeaways from new data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.
- The number of candidates for master’s degrees has decreased.
While graduate enrollment remained stable, the number of students pursuing master’s degrees dropped sharply by 1.3 percent, representing 26,000 students, according to NSCRC data, published Thursday. Master’s program enrollment peaked in fall 2024 before beginning to decline; The reason for the decline is unclear, but some have suggested that the number of master’s degrees has decreased as they become more common. Research has also shown a negative return on investment in some master’s programs.
The decline could be even greater after parts of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act go into effect on July 1, including graduate student loans and ending Grad PLUS loans. Graduate degrees in general have become more expensive over the past few decades, with tuition and fees increasing by 200 percent from 2000 to 2020.
As in the fall, international undergraduate enrollments also declined this spring, which may also have contributed to the decline in master’s degree applicants: Most international undergraduate students in the US are pursuing master’s degrees.
- Community college enrollment is increasing, but not evenly.
Overall, community college enrollment continued to grow this spring, but the growth was the highest—5.5 percent—among what the Sanitation Center called the “highest-earning” two-year institutions, where most of the programs are for students who want to transfer to a four-year college and complete their degree.
At “high-end” institutions where most students earn vocational degrees that are intended to be fully completed in two years and non-transferable, enrollment also increased, but slowed, increasing by 2.8 percent year over year.
“Excellent transfer” institutions enroll the highest number of community college students (46.5 percent), followed by “mixed transfer” institutions (34.3 percent). “Top tier” institutions enroll just under 20 percent of all community college students.
This shows that even as career degrees grow in popularity, students continue to see community colleges as a reliable way to get a degree, said Matthew Holsapple, senior director of research at NSCRC.
- Health professions and engineering are the fastest growing fields.
For the third spring in a row, the number of students taking health courses increased by 6.2% at four-year colleges compared to the previous spring. Engineering grew even more, by 6.8 percent. Health care and engineering are the second and third most popular fields for four-year undergraduate students, after business.
The number of students studying health at four-year institutions surpassed one million for the first time this spring. Within the health care umbrella, nursing is the most popular, making up more than half of all health students, with 514,000 people studying nursing at four-year colleges.
As in the fall, computer science enrollment declined this spring, down 8.4 percent.
