The United States experienced six economic recessions between 1970 and 2009. The impact of economic recession on higher education enrollment was examined using seasonally adjusted data from the U.S. Census and the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics, Unemployment Level-Civilian Labor Force. One-way analysis of variance, factorial Anova, and t-tests revealed that overall enrollments during recession years were not statistically different. Rather, higher education enrollments registered a steady rise over the four decades. However, enrollments differed by gender and ethnicity. In fact, powerful linkages were found to exist between gender and enrollment, and ethnicity and enrollment to recessions and unemployment and undergraduate enrollment. In sum, the study results indicated that recessions between 1970 and 2009 had very little restraining power on U.S. higher education enrollments.