Tennessee: Only 52% of ’21 grads went right to college

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A state report says that nearly half of Tennessee public high school seniors in the class of 2021 did not move on to college or technical school right after graduating.

The report by the Tennessee Higher Education Commission says the college-going rate has dropped from 63.8% for the class of 2017.

Officials pointed to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in noting that there was a drop of 9 percentage points from the class of 2019 to the class of 2021.

Nationally, freshman enrollment dropped 9.2% between 2019 and 2021, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Current Term Enrollment Estimates.

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