Georgia Southern ranked in top five for student enrollment, SSU stands out for female enrollment

Ten years ago, the University of Georgia was the largest university in the state with 34,677 students. But as of this year, UGA is the fourth-largest despite a record enrollment of 39,147.

Georgia State University has been the state’s largest for several years, after the Atlanta school’s merger with the state’s largest two-year college.

Now, both Georgia Tech and Kennesaw State University have passed UGA in enrollment after a decade of explosive growth, according to figures released this week by the University System of Georgia, comprising the state’s 26 public colleges and universities.

Georgia Southern enrollment is the fifth largest in the state at 26,949, an increase of 3.4% since the fall of 2019. Savannah State, with 3,488 students, dipped 5.4% from its fall 2019 enrollment figure.

Georgia Southern currently has more freshmen this semester (6,248) than Georgia Tech (3,062) and UGA (4,561).

Tech has nearly doubled its enrollment in 10 years, from 20,721 in fall 2010 to 39,771 in this fall. Just in the past year, Tech grew by 9%, adding more than 4,000 additional students; its enrollment in fall 2019 was 34,489.

Kennesaw State has also pushed its enrollment, moving from 23,452 in 2010 to 37,807 last year, and this fall to 41,181 — an 8.9% bump in one year.

UGA grew a modest 0.6% from 2019 to 2020.

The University System of Georgia overall set an enrollment record this year with 341,485 students, up 7,978 students and 2.4% over fall 2019.

That enrollment growth was not evenly distributed, however. Two-year colleges in the system lost an average of 7% of their enrollment.

Without Tech and Kennesaw State’s combined addition of 8,656 students, enrollment actually declined in the university system.

Most schools saw at least small growth, but a handful saw steep declines. Enrollment at South Georgia State College was down 13.6%, and at East Georgia State, another small two-year school, enrollment declined by 11.9%. Georgia Gwinnett enrollment dropped 9.4% to 11,627.

Tech and Kennesaw State had the largest growth in sheer numbers, but Valdosta State University had the highest percentage growth. The South Georgia college’s enrollment of 12,304 was up 9.2% over its fall 2019 enrollment of 11,270.

The system’s enrollment growth bucks a national trend of declining enrollment in this pandemic year. On average, enrollment is down 3.3% at U.S. colleges, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.

Officials attributed the Georgia enrollment rise to the system’s decision to drop SAT and ACT requirements at most university system schools this fall (not including Tech and UGA) and the system’s insistence on resuming in-person instruction this fall while many universities began the school year with distance learning.

About half the system’s enrollment growth was in students from other states — 39,328 this fall, up from 35,394 in 2019. Georgia Tech’s out-of-state enrollment of 15,374 is by far the largest number among system schools.

Enrollment of students outside the U.S. did not change much overall at 19,400 students, up 135 from a year ago. But international enrollment actually declined at most schools, including a drop at UGA of nearly 14%, down to 1,800 from 2,084 in 2019.

Georgia Tech, the most international of the system’s colleges, added an additional 899 students from outside the United States. Tech’s international enrollment of 11,272 students is more than half the systemwide total of 19,400.

African American enrollment increased slightly statewide to 26.3%, up from 25.9% a year ago.

UGA’s African American enrollment was nearly unchanged — 3,214 a year ago, 8.3%, and 3,241 this year, again 8.3%.

Only Georgia Tech, at 5.7%, and the University of North Georgia, at 4.3%, have a lower African American representation than UGA among the state’s public four-year colleges. Georgia Southern reports 7,143 Black students, 26.5% of its student population.

UGA and the University System of Georgia also became a little more female this year, continuing a decades-long nationwide trend.

Female students this fall make up 58.5% of UGA’s enrollment, up from 57.8% a year ago, and 57% systemwide, up from 56.3% in fall 2019. Savannah State’s student body is 61.4% female, equal to Georgia State.

Two University System of Georgia schools had a majority male enrollment last year, but now there’s only one: Georgia Tech, which is 30.9% female, about the same as last year and in 2010, when about 29.2% of Tech’s students were women.

Kennesaw State was 49.2% female a year ago but now has moved up to 50.4%, according to university system statistics.

Dave Williams from Capitol Beat contributed to this report