CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The 12 four-year colleges and universities operating in West Virginia showed a slight increase in overall students enrollment for the fall semester.
The 2025 fall census data is part of the overall enrollment report presented to the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission at its meeting on Friday.
The report said there are 57,017 students enrolled which is 942 more students than last year.
“We’re still not where we were five years ago but it’s still a positive trend,” HEPC Director of Research and Analysis Zorrie Georgieva told the commission Friday.
Overall enrollment in 2021 was 57,102.
Friday’s report showed seven of the 12 institutions showed an increase in enrollment. Those are Marshall University, Bluefield State University, Concord University, Fairmont State University, Potomac State College of WVU, West Virginia Osteopathic School of Medicine and West Virginia State University.
The percentage of growth, 21.1 percent, was highest at Potomac State.
Marshall’s enrollment increased by 7.1 percent to an overall student count of 12,955 which is a growth of 936 students. Marshall’s enrollment has increased more than any other school in West Virginia since 2021. The report showed an increase of 17.1 percent over the five years.
The overall enrollment at WVU is down slightly this fall compared to last year. The university has 23,532 students. It had 109 more students last fall. Enrollment has decreased by 7.6 percent in the past five years. WVU does have a large freshmen class and university officials have touted student retention efforts.
WVU Tech in Beckley continues to lose enrollment. The report shows a drop of 408 students (25.2 percent) in the past five years including 66 fewer students this year than last year. The enrollment at WVU Tech is now 1,210 students.
Georgieva said there’s positive news in overall first time freshmen enrollment. She said it is up 4.4 percent system-wide.
“This is the largest freshmen class we have seen in the last five years and the majority of our institutions are seeing this increase across-the-board,” she said.
The council that oversees the state’s community and technical colleges got a look at enrollment numbers for the two-year schools last week. Overall enrollment for the nine two-year schools checks in at 18,300 which is slightly up from last year’s 17,956 count.
Georgieva said the two-year and the four-year schools continue to benefit from dual enrollment by high school students.