Higher education enrollment is down nationally for the 7th year in a row.

But Columbia International University and Columbia College enrollment is up.

CIU enrollment rose this year to 897 – 294 of them online – from 727 – 213 online – 5 years ago.

Top majors are psychology, teacher education and business administration, Bob Holmes of CIU said.

Katherine Hilton of the Women’s Business Center at Columbia College reported serving 1,200 clients in the 1st year through education, networking and mentoring.

“More than 50% of student-clients have attended multiple programs and the college is mapping out programs for year 2 and beyond,” she said.

These were the only 2 area schools to respond to a Chronicle request for enrollment trends.

Nationwide enrollment declined by 1.7%, or by nearly 300,000 students, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. There are more than 17.5 million undergraduate and graduate students in the US.

Falling enrollment creates winners and losers, with many small schools closing.

Florida lost 48,000 students and Illinois 30,000.

In California, the most populous state, enrollment fell by 45,000 students – 1.9% from last year.

Nationally, enrollment at 4-year, for-profit colleges took the biggest hit, declining to 743,536 students in 2019 from 925,532 students in 2018, a 19.7% drop.

The only enrollment gains were at 2-year, private nonprofit colleges, whose enrollment grew to 3,803,576 from 3,686,972.