npr:

This fall, there were nearly 250,000 fewer students enrolled in college than a year ago, according to new numbers out this week from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, which tracks college enrollment by student.

“That’s a lot of students that we’re losing,” says Doug Shapiro, who leads the research center at the Clearinghouse.

And this year isn’t the first time this has happened. Over the past eight years, college enrollment nationwide has fallen about 11%. Every sector — public state schools, community colleges, for-profits and private liberal arts schools — has felt the decline, though it has been especially painful for small private colleges, where, in some cases, institutions have been forced to close.

“We’re in a crisis right now, and it’s a complicated one,” says Angel Pérez, who oversees enrollment at Trinity College, a small liberal arts school in Hartford, Conn.

The biggest factor for the years of decline is the strong economy. The last time U.S. college enrollment went up was 2011, at the tail end of the recession. As the economy gets better, unemployment goes down — it’s currently at 3.5 % — and more people leave college, or postpone it, and head to work.

Fewer Students Are Going To College. Here’s Why That Matters

GIF: Meredith Jensen for NPR