Seven Major Trends in Higher Education for 2022

Colleges are entering their third calendar year affected by the pandemic. In 2021, federal aid and the widespread rollout of COVID-19 vaccines brought a degree of stability to higher education. However, the emergence of the Omicron variant has once again threatened this initial stability, meaning that some operational adjustments that emerged early in the pandemic—such as campus health protocols and new admissions policies—will persist. Meanwhile, changes are also brewing, including the potential for increased state support and the Biden administration accelerating its regulatory agenda.

We have identified seven trends worth watching in 2022 and will continue to follow them.

1. Efforts to Reverse Enrollment Declines

Severe enrollment data over the past two years have put immense pressure on many non-elite private institutions and colleges outside of well-known public universities to fill seats. According to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, total undergraduate enrollment in fall 2021 fell by about 3.5% from the previous year. The data covers only about three-quarters of reporting institutions, but it aligns with overall trends during the pandemic.

Attracting students back to campus will be a challenge for many institutions. The U.S. economy has not fully healed, and two-year colleges and some four-year open-access institutions will face more students unable to afford tuition. A strong job market may also divert some potential students, with community colleges and similar institutions seeing particularly steep enrollment declines.

For other universities, competition for traditional high school graduates is intensifying. The pandemic has effectively accelerated several trends, including the expected decline in the number of traditional college-age students, deeply worrying admissions professionals. Helping students who dropped out return to campus will be difficult.

Colleges may rely on graduate enrollment for growth—graduate enrollment rose by more than 2% in fall 2021. Additionally, although the lucrative international student pipeline dried up and declined sharply during the pandemic-affected 2020-21 academic year, multiple signs indicate it is rebounding. Higher education leaders have called on the federal government to develop a coordinated strategy to improve international enrollment.

2. Can Colleges Avoid Partisan Conflict?

Political battles are nothing new to higher education, but in 2022, legislative intervention in college operations could reach rare levels.

Declining public trust in higher education—especially among Republicans—has prompted GOP lawmakers to amplify narratives that colleges indoctrinate students with liberal views and create oppressive environments hostile to conservatives. Policymakers and governing boards with direct ties to the state leaders who appointed them have begun to intervene more deeply.

Many cases have made national headlines: the tenure dispute between Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; the University System of Georgia's prolonged inability to name a permanent chancellor due to a highly partisan selection process. Public university systems have also been thrown into turmoil by controversial appointments tied to political figures—SUNY system head Jim Malatras decided to resign in December after reports surfaced that he had disparaged women who accused former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (a Democrat) of sexual harassment.

Colleges are preparing for more such partisan clashes. In late 2021, Republican lawmakers in South Carolina proposed ending tenure at the state's public universities. The University of Florida is under investigation by a congressional panel and its accrediting agency over alleged suppression of faculty academic freedom—following a controversy over whether professors could testify in a lawsuit against the state.

3. The Flow of Federal Aid and State Budgets

Most federal COVID-19 aid specifically allocated to colleges has been distributed and is beginning to run dry, but other federal COVID-19 relief funds could still support higher education.

Local and state governments received a portion of the billions of dollars distributed across the U.S., and policymakers have considerable discretion over how to use these funds.

Higher education has already benefited from this funding. The governors of South Carolina and Michigan allocated $17 million and $24 million, respectively, for tuition-free college programs. Recently, North Dakota allocated $38 million to Bismarck State College, a public polytechnic, for new instructional facilities. Experts say colleges should expect to see similar investments in projects that might not have been possible during normal budget seasons.

With improved state budget conditions, public institutions may make larger funding requests. The Alabama Commission on Higher Education recently requested $2 billion from the state, an increase of more than 17% over the current fiscal year budget. Louisiana's governing body has also made similarly high requests.

4. Biden Administration Plans

Although legislative priorities were not fully realized, President Joe Biden made progress on regulatory policy in his first year in office—though perhaps not at the pace advocates hoped.

The administration has initiated negotiated rulemaking processes on several policies involving the federal student loan system and has warned for-profit institutions against making false statements to students.

More action is coming in 2022: The U.S. Department of Education plans to release in April its long-awaited proposed rules for Title IX of the Education Amendments (the federal law prohibiting sex discrimination and violence in education). Survivor advocates have urged Biden to move faster to repeal the current regulations issued by former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, which they argue allow colleges to ignore reports of sexual misconduct.

Biden's Education Department may move to dismantle the more controversial parts of those regulations, including requirements that colleges set up judicial-style proceedings for sexual violence cases, allowing survivors and accused students to cross-examine each other through advisors. For-profit institutions may also face further scrutiny. Biden appointed James Kvaal to the top higher education position at the Education Department; Kvaal is known for helping guide the Obama administration's response to abuses by for-profit colleges.

5. How Will the Pandemic Force Campuses to Respond?

As the Omicron variant spread at the end of the fall 2021 semester, many institutions again shifted to remote operations, canceling in-person final exams and end-of-semester events, reminiscent of the early pandemic.

In the coming year, some colleges will navigate pandemic-related uncertainties under constraints imposed by policymakers. Lawmakers and governing bodies in red states have scaled back mask and vaccine mandates. Institutions are pushing students to get vaccinated and boosted, but some can only encourage. Biden issued executive orders requiring vaccines for employees at covered institutions, but they quickly became entangled in legal battles over court rulings and injunctions. The fate of these orders in the judicial system in 2022 remains unclear.

All of this underscores the unpredictability of the pandemic—and of human responses to it. In any case, institutions will very likely need to remain flexible.

6. Can Ed-Tech Providers Sustain Momentum?

The past two years have been a huge boon for MOOC (massive open online course) platforms. Coursera, one of the most well-known MOOC providers, saw its registered users surge from 77 million in 2020 and 46 million the year before to about 92 million by September 2021. Similarly, competitor Udemy experienced a surge in demand during the pandemic.

Both companies went public in 2021, capitalizing on the momentum. Another well-known MOOC provider, edX, was recently acquired by ed-tech company 2U for $800 million.

While some analysts are skeptical about whether these companies' rapid growth trajectories can continue, company executives are confident that heightened interest in online education and alternative credentials will persist beyond the pandemic. These companies can be seen as competitors to traditional higher education providers, but colleges are also partnering with platforms like edX and Coursera to offer credentials, including degrees, at lower-than-usual prices.

7. Admissions Testing Changes

A large number of colleges have stopped requiring SAT or ACT scores, which almost certainly ensures that test-optional policies will continue after the pandemic. More institutions may extend the multi-year pilot programs they launched during the pandemic—which forced the closure of testing centers and thus strongly promoted test-optional policies.

Harvard University has also extended its test-optional policy to the class entering in fall 2026. The University of California system completely eliminated entrance exams for undergraduate admissions in 2021. The California State University system may take similar action in the coming months.

A key trend to watch is whether colleges will shift to test-blind policies—completely refusing to review standardized test scores. Far fewer institutions have tried test-blind policies, but their numbers have also grown during the pandemic. Advocates for limiting the use of standardized tests argue that test-blind policies are the only way to truly achieve the admissions equity they seek. But removing tests from other aspects of higher education—such as course placement, academic advising, and financial aid—will be more challenging than simply not considering them in applications.

Natalie Schwartz contributed to this report.