College acceptance rates rise, and most schools take in most students

But as they stress which schools will accept them, students can take some comfort in one direction: Overall, it’s getting easier to get into.

While most elite schools are still highly selective, the general trend among American colleges recently is higher acceptance rates, according to a September study from the Institute American Enterprise Institute. This reversed years of low interest rates.

While looking at 1,400 public, private, and nonprofit colleges that mostly award bachelor’s degrees or higher, Preston Cooper, a senior fellow at AEI, found that the average institution reduced its acceptance rate by 6 percentage points between 2002 and 2012.

Interest rates remained low in the years that followed, but they began to rise again by 2019, and the pandemic gave the trend greater momentum — finally completing a complete turnaround from two decades earlier.

“By 2022, the average college acceptance rate has increased by 1.4 percentage points since 2002 — meaning that getting into college today is a little easier than it was at the turn of the century,” Cooper wrote.

According to the report, the overall distribution of schools that became more selective versus those that became less selective was roughly balanced.

But even after taking these changes into account, the report showed that the vast majority of schools surveyed still accepted a majority of students.

In fact, 226 schools had an acceptance rate of 100% in 2022. The rate was 90%-99% in 303 schools, 80%-90% in 355, 70%-80% in 293, and 60%-70% in 209, And 50%-60% at 131.

The result is that 87% of colleges are admitting half or more applicants in 2022, compared to 80% in 2012, according to AEI.

The incoming freshman class can thank the laws of supply and demand for improving their prospects.

Because demographics are changing, the number of college-age students is slowing down and will begin to shrink, Cooper noted. The pandemic has also caused more young people to postpone college or drop out altogether, while professional careers that do not require four-year college degrees have become more popular.

“While college enrollment rose during the 2000s, giving schools more scope to reject applicants, the pendulum has now swung back,” he added. “Colleges compete for a smaller pool of potential students, and as a result, those who apply have a higher chance of acceptance.”

Increased competition also means many schools are cutting tuition, and published costs are also falling on average after accounting for inflation, Cooper said.

But he cautioned that the trend toward higher admission rates may not continue because there are significant barriers to enrollment at new schools that can offer lower costs.

Meanwhile, separate data shows that college enrollment has declined in part because of a tight labor market that has seen Americans without college degrees take high-paying jobs.

This means that many colleges, especially small liberal arts schools that rely more on tuition revenue, have reduced the number of degrees offered or even closed entirely.

Therefore, if the supply of schools continues to decline along with the demand for higher education, acceptance rates and tuition fees could rise again later.

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