SUNY Expects Drop in Enrollment for Fall 2021 Semester Due to Pandemic

By: Ellen Cans

The SUNY School system got an early indication that enrollment will be down for the Fall 2021 semester.

The number of students applying to attend a State University of New York’s school fell by 20 percent this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic, said Chancellor James Malatras.

Malatras wrote an op-ed announcing the drop which was published on Empire Report New York. “This year at the largest system of public higher education in the country — the State University of New York — our applications are down approximately 20 percent, one of the largest annual decreases in the System’s 73-year history,” Malatras said.

Although more people can apply later, and potential students can apply to several schools without attending, the figure provides a rough indication that the pool of students overall has dwindled. Campuses have been struggling with school shutdowns and many have implemented remote learning. The chancellor said the pandemic exacerbated an ongoing decline in enrollment in New York and across the country.

As reported by the NY Post, enrollment of first-time or freshmen undergraduate students at the 64-school system had already dropped ten percent in the fall of 2020, as compared to 2019. Across the U.S, freshmen undergraduate enrollment fell 13.1 percent in the fall of 2020, an “unprecedented” loss of 327,5000 students from the previous year, as per the National Student Clearinghouse. SUNY and CUNY schools had already announced enrollment declines of about 5 percent overall.

SUNY’s 30 community colleges fared the worst, with the number of students plummeting from 192,959 students in fall 2019, down to 173,930 in fall 2020. Enrollment at the state’s 34 four-year undergrad colleges fell by a more tolerable 1 percent, as per SUNY data. Overall, the number of students enrolled at any higher-education institutions in NY fell from 1,044,388 in fall 2019 to 1,001,361 in fall 2020, indicating a 4.1 percent drop. That is 43,027 less students.

Malatras said SUNY needs to broaden its reach to be more inviting not just to high school grads, but also to working parents and active military service members looking to upgrade their education level or switch job fields. “We must embrace the reality that education is also no longer a static two- or four-year process, but a life-long journey in which people—me, you, everyone—will need to retrain and learn new skills at various points during their lives and careers,” Malatras said.