• Introduction
• Characteristics of Enrolled Students
• Residence and Migration of First-Time, First-Year Undergraduate Students
• Changes in Enrollment Between 1997 and 1998

This report presents data on student enrollment in postsecondary education institutions in the 50 states and the District of Columbia for fall 1998. The data are from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).

Enrollment data were collected through two IPEDS surveys. The “Fall Enrollment Survey” (IPEDS-EF:98) was sent to all institutions that award associate’s or higher level degrees or postbaccalaureate or higher level certificates. Postsecondary institutions that award only certificates or diplomas requiring less than 4 years to complete reported enrollment as part of their IPEDS “Consolidated Survey” (IPEDS-CN:98). Combining data from these two surveys provides a complete picture of enrollment in postsecondary education institutions in the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. territories.

This report focuses on institutions that (1) have a Title IV Program Participation Agreement (PPA) with the U.S. Department of Education and thus are eligible to participate in Title IV programs,¹ (2) grant associate’s or higher level degrees, and (3) are within the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Of the 9,355 postsecondary institutions within the 50 states and the District of Columbia identified by IPEDS, a little less than half (4,455) are categorized as degree-granting institutions. Of these, 4,015, or 90.1 percent, are Title IV institutions and form the basis for this report. Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (as amended) establishes federal financial aid programs (e.g., Pell Grants and Stafford Loans) for students attending postsecondary institutions. Students attending institutions with a PPA may be eligible either to receive Title IV funds or to defer repayment of their loans.

In the fall of 1998, 14.9 million students were enrolled in the 6,333 Title IV postsecondary institutions in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Of these, 97.2 percent were enrolled in degree-granting institutions. Over three-fourths of the 14.9 million students attended public institutions. Of the students in Title IV public institutions, 98.3 percent attended degree-granting institutions and 1.7 percent were enrolled in non-degree-granting institutions. Nearly 21 percent of students in Title IV degree-granting institutions were enrolled in private not-for-profit institutions and 2.5 percent attended private for-profit institutions. Of those students enrolled in non-degree-granting institutions, 45.2 percent were enrolled in private for-profit institutions (table A).

About 3 percent of students enrolled in Title IV degree-granting postsecondary institutions were nonresident aliens (individuals who are in the United States on temporary visas). Of the remainder, 70.2 percent were White, non-Hispanic; 10.9 percent were Black, non-Hispanic; 8.7 percent were Hispanic; 6.2 percent were Asian/Pacific Islander; and 1.0 percent were American Indian/Alaska Native. With the exception of Asian/Pacific Islanders, minority² students represented a higher proportion of the enrollment at Title IV non-degree-granting institutions than at Title IV degree-granting institutions (table A).

A larger percentage of all students in Title IV degree-granting institutions were women (56.1 percent). Similarly, the majority of undergraduate (56.2 percent) and graduate (57.3 percent) students were women. However, women made up only 44.2 percent of first-professional students.³ Within each of the racial/ethnic groups, women composed the majority at all student levels except first-professional, with the exception of Blacks, where women were the majority at all levels (table B).

Overall, the majority of students (59.0 percent) were enrolled on a full-time basis. Compared to other racial/ethnic groups, Hispanics were generally more likely to be enrolled on a part-time basis, with nearly half (49.4 percent) of all Hispanic students attending school part time. However, there were some differences from this pattern at the graduate and first-professional levels. For example, at the graduate and first-professional levels, Hispanic students were more likely to enroll on a full-time basis than were Black or White students. Asian/Pacific Islanders were more likely to attend full time than any other racial/ethnic group at all student levels (table C).

The 1998 IPEDS “Fall Enrollment Survey” also collected enrollment data by state of residence⁴ for all first-time, first-year undergraduate students in Title IV degree-granting institutions, including those students who had graduated from high school in the 12 months preceding the fall of 1998.

The percentage of first-time, first-year undergraduates who left their state of residence to attend a postsecondary institution varied considerably by state, ranging from a low of 6.3 percent for Mississippi to a high of 62.7 percent for the District of Columbia. Other states with 10 percent or less of their first-time, first-year students leaving the state were Alabama (9.4 percent), Arizona (7.8 percent), California (8.0 percent), Louisiana (9.2 percent), Michigan (9.7 percent), North Carolina (7.9 percent), Oklahoma (9.7 percent), Texas (8.3 percent), and Utah (7.9 percent). In addition to the District of Columbia, states that had 30 percent or more of their first-time, first-year undergraduates leaving the state were Alaska (50.8 percent), Connecticut (44.6 percent), Maine (37.7 percent), New Hampshire (44.8 percent), New Jersey (36.7 percent), and Vermont (46.1 percent) (table D).

In addition to having the highest rate of out-migration, the District of Columbia also had the highest rate of in-migration, with 86.8 percent of all first-time, first-year undergraduates coming from other states. Two states reported that over half of their first-time, first-year students came from out of state: Rhode Island (55.4 percent) and Vermont (60.5 percent). Texas had the lowest percentage of first-time, first-year students from other states (9.2 percent), and two other states reported less than 10 percent from out of state: Illinois (9.5 percent) and Michigan (9.5 percent) (table D).

Between 1997 and 1998, enrollment in Title IV degree-granting institutions increased by 0.2 percent. While enrollment at public institutions decreased slightly (down 0.3 percent), enrollment at private for-profit institutions increased by nearly 11 percent. The number of women enrolled in Title IV degree-granting institutions increased at all student levels, while the number of men decreased somewhat at all levels. When examined by race/ethnicity, the overall increase in enrollment can be traced to a rise in minority enrollment, especially among Asian/Pacific Islanders and Hispanics, whose enrollment increased by 5.0 and 3.4 percent, respectively. During the same period, the number of nonresident aliens decreased by 4.6 percent and the enrollment of Whites dropped 0.7 percent, almost offsetting the rise in minority enrollment (table E).

There was a slight increase in enrollment at all student levels, with the biggest growth in numbers at the graduate level and the greatest percentage increase at the first-professional level. Undergraduate enrollment increased by only 0.1 percent, while first-professional enrollment rose 1.4 percent and graduate enrollment increased 0.8 percent. At the undergraduate level, the change patterns were similar to those at the total level for each group of students except nonresident aliens, whose undergraduate enrollment decreased by 10.0 percent. Although the overall enrollment percentage increase at the first-professional level was greater than at any other student level, first-professional enrollment in private for-profit schools declined by almost 12 percent. At the graduate level, enrollment in private for-profit schools increased by 21.2 percent, a much higher increase than at the undergraduate and total levels (10.2 and 10.9 percent, respectively) (table E).