Enrollment rises this year at University of Minnesota and Minnesota State

Enrollment in the two largest higher education systems in Minnesota is up again this fall after both the University of Minnesota and Minnesota State saw growth last year, too.

At Minnesota State’s network of 33 colleges and universities, enrollment increased for the third straight year. Minnesota State saw an overall rise of 4.2%.

“We had a good recruiting season this fall for our system,” Minnesota State Chancellor Scott Olson said. “The technical colleges especially saw kind of double-digit growth.”

The University of Minnesota system also experienced an overall 2.7% gain — similar to last year and with growth at every individual campus, though first-year enrollment at the Twin Cities campus was down slightly, not counting transfer students.

“Positive enrollment across the University’s five campuses reinforces our dedication to translate the unique strengths of each campus to recruit, retain and support talented students as they earn a University of Minnesota degree and develop as leaders in their communities,” a U spokesperson said in an email.

The increasing enrollment for multiple years appears to signal a recovery from the pandemic era and nearly a decade of enrollment declines at public colleges and universities across Minnesota before that, largely due to lower birth rates years earlier.

Early numbers show Minnesota State enrolled about 9,600 North Star Promise students, making the program a big factor in the system’s growth, Olson said. The program, now in its second year, is available to Minnesota residents attending a public, in-state college or university whose family has an adjusted gross income of $80,000 or less.

At the U, first-year student growth at the Morris campus was up by nearly a quarter, while the Twin Cities campus, not counting transfer students, saw a 2.9% downturn.

The U’s Crookston campus tallied a 10% increase in students overall, the largest bump in the school’s history, but also saw about a 10% decrease in first-year students. Freshman enrollment was booming in Rochester, with an increase of 84%.

At Rochester, the ballooning student body has accelerated talks regarding additional space needs, Chancellor Lori Carrell told the Minnesota Star Tribune last month.

“We are at or past an inflection point,” Carrell said in September. “We know we need investments; that’s the way startups work.”

A few private nonprofit colleges and universities that shared numbers with the Star Tribune this fall saw mostly positive outcomes. In St. Paul, the University of St. Thomas, the state’s largest private school, saw its largest-ever class of first-year, first-time students — a leap of 6.3%.

Bethel University in Arden Hills also saw its largest incoming class ever, officials said, after cutting undergraduate tuition by $18,000 in 2024. The number includes growth in freshmen, transfer students and high schoolers enrolled in Post Secondary Enrollment Options (PSEO), a statewide early college program.

Among other private institutions:

The state’s Direct Admission program likely also played a role in the enrollment bump at Minnesota State, Olson said. It’s an initiative that tells high school seniors which Minnesota colleges they’re admitted to in a letter, without requiring them to apply first.

“The basic message of that ... to high school students is, you’re ready for college; just based on what you’ve already done, you’re admitted,” Olson said. “A lot of times the competition isn’t with another college, [it’s with] no college at all.”

Some schools within Minnesota State’s system saw big wins: Enrollment at Alexandria Technical and Community College spiked 20% while Pine Technical and Community College in Pine City went up by about half that. St. Paul College and Hennepin Technical College were just behind Pine.

Metro State was designed as a degree-completion university for older adults, which gives it a niche in times of economic uncertainty, Olson said. Southwest’s growth can be attributed to large numbers ― about two-thirds of the total enrollment ― of high school students in dual or concurrent enrollment programs. They include PSEO and College in the Schools, advanced classes taught by high school teachers who are also certified by a college or university.

In the U system, nondegree-seeking students increased, too, largely due to PSEO and College in the Schools, U officials said.