Nov. 7, 2023
CORVALLIS, Ore. – Oregon State University’s fall 2023 enrollment has reached a record for the 27th consecutive year, topping 36,000, with growth spread across its Corvallis and Bend campuses and its online education unit.
With 36,636 students enrolled, up 1,397 students, or 4% over last year, Oregon State is the largest university in the state for the 10th consecutive year.
The enrollment includes students at OSU locations in Corvallis, Bend, Portland, La Grande and through the university’s nationally ranked online Ecampus unit. (For the remainder of this news release, enrollment numbers specified as Oregon State include all these locations except OSU-Cascades. Numbers from OSU-Cascades are broken out separately in the news release.)
Ecampus, OSU’s online education offering, continues to be the lead contributor to enrollment growth, rising 7% to 11,430 students this fall. Ecampus enrollment has increased more than 40% in the past five years.
Enrollment on the Corvallis campus increased 2.5% to 24,188 students this fall. At OSU-Cascades in Bend, enrollment climbed to 1,313, up 3.3% from last year.
“These record enrollment numbers are evidence that Oregon State is delivering on its commitment to expand access to the highest quality higher education,” said OSU President Jayathi Murthy. “The continued demand for Ecampus enrollment is particularly exciting, especially at a time when the university is launching a new strategic plan that calls for more than doubling Ecampus enrollment by 2030.”
Oregon State enrolls students from all 50 states and 102 countries and 17,884 Oregon residents from 35 of the state’s 36 counties.
Enrollment of students outside of Oregon jumped 8.3% this fall to 15,561. The top 5 states from which Oregon State enrolls students are California (4,373), Washington (2,634), Texas (744), Colorado (722) and Hawaii (554).
Fall enrollment at Oregon State includes 10,557 students of color, an increase of 547 students and a 5.3% increase over last year. Students of color now make up nearly 30% of OSU’s enrollment.
“After three straight years of record new undergraduate enrollment, we expect to see continued high demand for OSU education offerings,” said Jon Boeckenstedt, vice provost of enrollment management. “As we begin to reach our capacity for growth on the Corvallis campus, we are focused on creating additional pathways to an OSU degree on other campuses and especially online.”
Oregon State’s fall 2023 enrollment also includes:
- 5,601 graduate students, an increase of 4% from last year. Of those, 1,900, or 33.9%, are Oregon residents.
- 7,209 first-generation undergraduates, or 24% of enrollment, an increase of almost 6% from last year.
- 1,971 students in the Honors College, or 6.6% of all undergraduates – a 18.4% increase in students over 2022.
- 8,876 transfer students, a decrease of 1.2% from last fall.
- 2,213 international students, a 5.3% decrease from fall 2022.
- 1,527 veterans, a decrease of 1.5% from last fall.
At OSU-Cascades, there were increases in the enrollment of Oregon residents (1,012, a 2.3% increase); students of color (282, 5.2% increase) and graduate students (255, 10.4% increase). More details about enrollment at OSU-Cascades can be found here.
First-time students from high school increased at the Corvallis and Bend campuses (2.7% and 10.3%, respectively) and Ecampus (11.4%) from last fall.
The average GPA of new Oregon State students from high school enrolling on the Corvallis and Bend campuses is 3.76, which has increased steadily from 3.64 in 2018. Of OSU’s entering freshmen, four are National Merit award winners and 40 are Presidential Scholars, Oregon State’s most prestigious scholarship award.
Engineering remains the most popular area of study at Oregon State. The College of Engineering has 11,014 undergraduate and graduate students enrolled this fall. The next largest colleges are Liberal Arts, 5,026 students; Business, 4,928; Science, 4,166; Agricultural Sciences, 3,032; and Health, 2,096.
Enrollments in other colleges and programs are College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, 1,297; College of Forestry, 1,292; Interdisciplinary Graduate Programs, 784; University Exploratory Studies, 733; College of Education, 597; Carlson College of Veterinary Medicine, 334; and College of Pharmacy, 294.
The most popular undergraduate majors at Oregon State are computer science, followed by business administration, psychology, general engineering and mechanical engineering. General engineering is a program for entering undergraduates in the College of Engineering who will later select a specific engineering major.
