Summer melt refers to what happens when high school graduates who accept a college admissions offer do not matriculate by the end of the summer before fall classes start. This can happen if students miss deadlines for completing housing paperwork, financial aid verification forms, or taking other required enrollment steps.
“What we’ve seen in the last two years is a much bigger concern than just summer melt,” said Dr. Doug Shapiro, vice president of research and executive director of the research center at the National Student Clearinghouse (NSC), a nonprofit that provides educational reporting, data exchange, verification, and research services. “The declines in the number of freshmen overall have been quite staggering since the pandemic."
Shapiro noted that the NSC does not track summer melt, but it counts students once they arrive at college.
“We have two years now in which the total numbers of freshman enrolling have been down about 9.5%," he said. "And there is really no sign of that improving.”
Community colleges have been hit hardest, added Shapiro. Freshman classes at community colleges have been down around 18% for each of the last two years. At four-year colleges, the enrollment declines have gotten worse from the first year of the pandemic to the second year of the pandemic.
“The only exceptions are the most selective, elite four-year colleges, which have really bounced back to pretty much where they were before the pandemic,” said Shapiro. “But all the other, less selective four-year colleges and the more broad-access institutions have actually declined more in the second year in the pandemic than the first.”
