Ohio University’s incoming freshman class includes the University’s highest-ever percentage of students from diverse backgrounds, and more than a quarter of those freshmen are first-generation students.
Enrollment figures released by the Office of Institutional Research also showed an increase in retention rates from freshman to sophomore years.
Ohio University’s enrollment is at 34,443 students, according to preliminary fall semester figures released by the Office of Institutional Research.
“This class of students at Ohio University is starting to reflect our strategic pathways that focus on improvements in access to academic excellence and enhanced diversity and inclusion,” Ohio University President M. Duane Nellis said.
“Ohio University offers a high-quality education that appeals to students from a wide variety of backgrounds, from Appalachian to international,” Ohio University Executive Vice President and Provost Chaden Djalali said. “That broad diversity is a hallmark of OHIO and further contributes to the transformational education all of our students can expect to receive here.”
Senior Vice Provost for Strategic Enrollment Management Craig Cornell shared the figures that were provided to the state as of the 15th day of fall semester.
That figure is a decrease of about 3.9 percent from enrollment figures at the same time in 2017 and are mostly attributed to large graduation numbers from last spring. Enrollment at the Athens Campus was at 20,815, while regional enrollment was at 5,990, and online represented 7,638, of the total enrollment.
The numbers include 3,980 incoming first-year students on the Athens Campus, down 1.6 percent from 4,045 in Fall 2017. The class includes 575 students from under-represented backgrounds, or14.4 percent of the class, the highest in Ohio University’s history. It also reflects an increase of about 40 students from out-of-state, which is a 7.2 percent increase. In addition, this class includes growth in new international students (13, up from seven last year), and shows Ohio University’s commitment to access and excellence with a record percent of the class from Appalachian counties (731 students, 18.4 percent of the class) and first generations students (1,063, 26.9 percent).
In addition, it is one of OHIO’s most academically talented classes with over 200 students in the top ACT tier, as well as a tie for the record with our average high school GPA across the entire class at 3.54. Other highlights include a significant increase in the student retention rate of first-year students into their second year of 81.5 percent, an increase of about 1.5 percent. The number of transfer students is 445 down by 16 from Fall 2017.
The number of graduate students is 2,726, a decrease of 9.3 percent from last year’s fall total. The number of graduate online students is up by about 6.7 percent with 2,428 students.
The Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine, across all campuses, has seen another year of growth by 6.5 percent at 982 students, which is an increase of 60 students.