Topeka ? Student enrollment across the Kansas higher education system dropped slightly in 2014, especially among older, non-traditional students, a trend that Board of Regents officials said indicates an economic recovery.

“This is what we expected because during a recession, what happens? Well, people go back to school,” said Cynthia Farrier, director of data, research and planning for the Regents. “What happens when the economy improves? People go back into the workforce.”

“In the last two years, there have been downward shifts in every age bracket, 25 and above,” she said. “And this is just another clue that adults are returning to work.”

Farrier delivered an annual report on overall enrollment trends at the Board of Regents’ regular monthly meeting last week.

One of the more surprising trends in the report was the number of students who attend multiple institutions along their way to earning a bachelor’s or associate’s degree, or even an industry certificate, something Farrier said pointed to the need to make college credits more transferable among institutions.

According to the report, nearly one-fourth of all the people who received bachelor’s degrees from Kansas institutions in 2014 had attended three or more institutions along the way. Only about a third of those graduates attended just one institution.

A little more than 13 percent of those earning associate’s degrees, and nearly 11 percent of those earning technical certificates, attended three or more schools.

The report showed that the overall headcount enrollment at all public institutions in Kansas, including community colleges and technical schools, fell 2.5 percent from the 2012-2013 academic year to 2013-2014. That number counts each student, whether he or she is enrolled full time or part time.

The “full time equivalent,” or FTE enrollment, fell about 1.3 percent.

The decline was even sharper at the state’s 19 community colleges, which tend to attract older, non-traditional students looking to complete a degree or get additional training. There, enrollment fell 4.2 percent over the two-year period.

At the six state universities, FTE enrollment was essentially flat over the last two years, and was up a modest 1.7 percent over the last five years.

But the opposite trend occurred at the state’s six technical schools, where headcount enrollment grew more than 7.1 percent over the two years and has jumped more than 30 percent over the last five years.

Farrier said she expects that trend to continue, at least for the next year or two, mainly due to a projected decline in the number of high school graduates over that time.

Regents Chairman Kenny Wilk, however, said Kansas schools can do a better job of attracting more young students straight out of high school. According to the report, only 53 percent of students who graduated high school in 2013 went directly into a Kansas higher education institution.

Typically, Farrier said, another 10 percent of high school graduates go to out-of-state public institutions, while about 8 to 10 percent will enroll at some time over the next two or three years.

Looking at the six university presidents seated in front of the board, Wilk tried to put a positive spin to that number, saying: “If I’m sitting in any one of the chairs out there, I’m looking at that and thinking, man what an opportunity.”

“We have to be able to get more of our Kansas kids to come to our Kansas schools,” Wilk said.

Farrier said Kansas can expect to see slight declines in enrollment at the three research universities — Kansas University, Kansas State University and Wichita State University — as well as the 19 community colleges.

She said there will likely be slow growth at Pittsburg State, Emporia State and Fort Hays State and continued strong growth at the technical schools.