Oregon State University says it’s reached record enrollment this fall for the 27th consecutive year. With more than 36,000 students, OSU is the largest university in the state, as it has been for the last decade.
Members of the Oregon State University Marching Band, shown here in a provided photo, play during OSU's game against Colorado, on October 22, 2022 in Corvallis, Oregon.
Courtesy of the OSU Marching Band
Jon Boeckenstedt, vice provost of enrollment management at Oregon State, said the increase is across the board, at their Corvallis campus, OSU Cascades in Bend, and online.
“Undergraduate enrollment is up. Graduate student enrollment is up,” Boekenstedt said. “Resident student enrollment up. Non-resident student enrollment is up. The only area where we’re seeing a marked and appreciable fall off in enrollment continues to be international student enrollment.”
Boeckenstedt attributed the decrease in international students to the pandemic and changes in China’s policies around study abroad.
Boeckenstedt said he thinks the enrollment record is a testament to how well respected OSU is in Oregon.
“We think of ourselves, because we’re the land grant university, as Oregon’s university, serving the entire state,” Boeckenstedt said. “We’re located in every county. And doing what Oregon needs for now and for the future.”
The following statistics were provided by Oregon State University:
Oregon State has 36,636 students enrolled, up 1,397 students, or 4% over last year.
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.
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.
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.