Dive Brief:
- Enrollment in Georgia’s public university system rose 5.9% year over year to 364,725 students in fall 2024, with most of the increase coming from in-state students, the system said Tuesday.
- The system’s latest enrollment report showed gains at all of Georgia’s 26 public institutions. Increases were highest at the Georgia Institute of Technology and University of West Georgia, whose headcounts both grew over 10% from 2023’s fall term.
- Growth at Georgia Tech, which enrolled 53,363 students for the fall, led it to top Georgia State University as the state’s largest university by student population.
Dive Insight:
Georgia’s public universities outperformed the U.S. higher education sector as a whole. Its nearly 6% growth rate was roughly double the 2.9% enrollment increase nationally that the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center logged in its preliminary report on the fall semester.
Perhaps more importantly, first-year student enrollment across the University System of Georgia grew by 2.6%, or 1,349 students. That compares to a 5% decline in first-year enrollment nationwide, according to the clearinghouse, which some higher ed experts have attributed to the delays and glitches in the rollout of the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid.
Diversity among students increased as well. The number of Black students at Georgia universities increased 6.6% from 2023, while Latino student enrollment grew by 9.1%, Asian student enrollment by 10%, and White student enrollment by 1.7%, though the latter group shrunk as a proportion of total enrollment compared to last year.
At a regents meeting Tuesday, system officials attributed the rise to Georgia Match, the state’s direct admissions program launched in 2023, according to an Associated Press report Tuesday. The program makes automatic conditional offers to students, matching them with institutions in the state based on eligibility criteria. Georgia College & State University, Georgia Tech and University of Georgia don’t currently participate in the program.
Also supporting increases was enrollment in Georgia Tech’s online master’s degree programs, the officials noted. Growth in the university’s online master’s programs ballooned by 37% year over year, with 7,190 new students for the fall semester, Georgia Tech said in September.
While the news was good for the system overall, the state’s research and comprehensive universities outpaced their smaller peers.
Overall enrollment at the system's research universities — Georgia Tech, Augusta University, Georgia State and University of Georgia — spiked 6.6%, the highest among all institution types.
Georgia’s comprehensive universities — Georgia Southern University, Kennesaw State University, University of West Georgia and Valdosta State University — saw enrollment growth of 6.2%. All institutions in both groups have enrollments above 10,000 students.
Headcounts at Georgia’s state universities and state colleges, most of which enroll under 10,000 students, grew 5.1% and 3.8% respectively.
