Education DiveThe number of pupils who are older than 24 and enrolled at the college declined by 2.7% to 6.2 million from the autumn of 2019, based on new statistics from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. The student population has been decreasing since the fall of 2011, this past year, and it led to the downturn in college enrollment. The decrease in adult pupils happened across all association types: public and nonprofit private four-year colleges, public two-year schools, and personal institutions. Students in the conventional college-age assortment of 18 to 24 are expected to register at greater rates than their older peers at the coming years.