UT Achieves All-Time Highs in Applications, Enrollment and Graduation Rates
- Oct 16, 2024
Student performance and demand at The University of Texas at Austin continue to reach all-time highs, according to data collected on the 12th class day of the Fall 2024 term.
Enrollment reached a record high for the third consecutive year, and the number of freshman applications increased by 10 percent for the second straight year. This year’s four-year graduation rate, based on students who began college with remote learning during the pandemic, continued a decadelong upward trend.
- A record 72,885 students submitted freshman applications for Fall 2024, an increase of 10.2 percent from the previous year.
- Total enrollment rose to 53,864 students, a 1.5 percent increase from last year’s record.
- This year’s entering freshman class of 9,210 is the second-largest class ever.
- First-year undergraduate retention tied its all-time high of 96.7 percent.
- The four-year graduation rate climbed to 74.8 percent, surpassing the record set during the previous year, and nearly 23 percentage points higher than the 52.0 percent in 2013.
- Four-year graduation rates for Pell-eligible, first-generation, Black and Hispanic students continue to outpace the 10-year gains of all students.
“Opportunity, excellence and results drive demand,” said UT President Jay Hartzell. “We continue to hire great faculty, create new and unique academic opportunities for incoming students, offer a vibrant campus in a thriving city and state, and find new ways to make a first-class education more affordable. As a result, demand for The University of Texas is stronger than ever, and once students arrive, they are performing better than ever, graduating sooner, taking on less debt, launching their careers, and creating more room for additional students to come and be part of this community.”
Since 2020, the graduation rate for all undergraduates increased by 2.6 percentage points, while the graduation rates for Pell-eligible (67.5 percent) increased by 3.6 percentage points. Affordability is a driver of student performance, decreasing student time commitment to part-time jobs and increasing access to on-campus housing, where students statistically perform better.
The University’s housing affordability scholarship, now in its second year, has made campus housing more affordable for students with the greatest financial need, awarding up to $2,300 in annual assistance to pay for UT-owned housing.
Fall 2024 completes a decade-plus of unprecedented gains in graduation-rate success, including dramatic increases in retention and graduation rates for students across all ethnicities and socioeconomic groups attributed to campuswide student success programs launched in 2012–2013.
Read more at UT News.