Last year saw the first increase in students heading off to college since the Covid pandemic began nearly three years ago, a new report says.

At about 2.4 million, the number of college is the highest since the onset of the pandemic, and represents a 4.3 percent increase from 2021. The data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center were released last week.

While college attendance is experiencing a slight pickup, fewer employers seem to care about the credentials higher education confers — preferring, in most cases, real professional experience.

The NSC Research Center’s executive director, Doug Shapiro, said there was a “marked increase” in freshmen — about 97,000 more students starting college this fall than in 2021. Community colleges saw the biggest gains — nearly a 6.1 percent increase in their freshmen classes.

Undergraduate enrollment declined about 0.6 percent, which the studies sees as a sign that enrollment is beginning to “stabilize” following pandemic-induced declines in fall 2020 and 2021 of about 2.5 percent each.

About 18.2 million students are enrolled in either two- or four-year degree-granting undergraduate programs.

Overall, community colleges reported small growth — about 0.4 percent from the previous year. The growth, Mr. Shapiro said, came largely from high school students.

High-performing high school students are often encouraged to participate in dual-enrollment programs, where they take college-level coursework at local community colleges. The number of high schoolers enrolled in community colleges grew by nearly 12 percent last year.

The data on enrollment come as many employers are beginning to gut degree requirements for jobs, especially entry-level positions.

A recent survey of human resource professionals found that 34 percent of companies dropped college degree requirements over the past year. The survey comes from a Seattle-based media company focused on higher education, Intelligent.com.

“For so many jobs, it is an arbitrary requirement. And it does eliminate people needlessly who could be great employees,” a career coach who worked on the report, Stacie Haller, told WTOP.

Of the managers who reported eliminating degree requirements, 60 percent said they did so for entry-level jobs while a third said they gutted requirements for senior positions.

The vast majority — 76 percent — of managers surveyed said they value work experience over education when hiring.

While the tech industry has long had an ambivalence toward higher education, the survey found loosening standards with regard to degree requirements in a host of industries across the board — including finance, retail, health care, and education.

It’s not just the private sector easing up on graduation requirements. Three states — Utah, Pennsylvania, and Maryland — recently dropped degree requirements for most state jobs.

“Degrees have become a blanketed barrier-to-entry in too many jobs,” Governor Cox of Utah said. “Instead of focusing on demonstrated competence, the focus too often has been on a piece of paper. We are changing that.”

As college degrees lose their sway, many are pointing to apprenticeships as an alternative to gain relevant skills and establish credentials.

A bill with bipartisan sponsorship, introduced by Senators Collins and Klobuchar, seeks to expand apprenticeship opportunities — as governors across the country bulk up apprenticeship programs in their own states.

Legally recognized apprenticeships consist of on-the-job training and more traditional classroom instruction. Per Department of Labor regulations, apprentices must be paid and receive some form of recognizable credentials.

According to Department of Labor data, “freshmen” apprentices also took a nosedive during Covid — declining 12 percent in 2020 — but the sector is recovering more quickly than higher education. 

Overall, the total number of apprentices has increased year over year since the pandemic began. Far fewer Americans, however, are pursuing apprenticeships than college. More than 437,000 persons were enrolled in registered apprenticeships in 2022.