College has had dropping enrollment for a few years already.
California——
The state’s overall community college and university headcount dropped by about 123,000 students — the largest numeric decrease of any state. ... The spring losses at California’s community colleges follow a similar trend in fall 2020, when enrollments dropped 12% compared to fall 2019.Jun 10, 2021 article
Nationally, the amount of people going to college is decreasing.
Additional research from the clearinghouse shows a 6.8% decline in college-going rates among the class of 2020 compared with the class of 2019 — that’s more than four times the decline between the classes of 2018 and 2019.
I think this trend has more to do with the dramatic decline in birth rates (especially for whites) over the last 50+ years. There are more Americans over the age of 80 than Americans under the age of 2.