Three Delaware colleges and universities report that they continue to see stable signs of interest from students not only from the First State, but the mid-Atlantic region as a whole.
The University of Delaware, the state’s largest public university, had 59% of its first-time undergrad students enrolled in fall of 2022 from New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland. The fall of 2021 — the first semester where students enrolled after the COVID-19 pandemic started — showed 57% percent.
In comparison, Delaware first-time students at UD measured 29% and 31% those two years, respectively.
Total enrollment for first-year classes for fall of 2022 was 4,623 students. The year before that was 4,263 students.
UD finalizes enrollment numbers on the 10th day of classes, to reflect the class add/drop period. For the upcoming fall semester, UD predicts that it will have 4,089 first-year students enrolled, as of Aug. 6.
Those early reports of fall of 2023 enrollment show that 29% first-year students will be coming from the First State for the upcoming fall semester. On the whole, 60% of students enrolled at this time will reportedly be coming from New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland.
New Jersey will reportedly account for the second highest number of first-year students to UD after Delaware for the upcoming fall semester, according to data available as of Aug. 6. That accounts for 940 first-year students (23%) projected from the Garden State.
At it stands, it is projected that 1,183 Delaware natives will be attending the university in the fall.
Meanwhile, Delaware State University has 28% of its enrollment in fall of 2021 from Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey. In the fall of 2022, that percentage remained at 27%, although DSU’s total enrollment grew to 6,218 students that year.
DSU has also been attracting significant numbers of students from the District of Columbia and Virginia; 373 students from both jurisdictions enrolled at the start of last school year.
Looking at the out-of-state students coming to DSU from the mid-Atlantic region, Maryland accounts for the highest number of students in fall 2020 and 2021, but last school year students from New York topped the list.
New York residents made up 487 (or 8%) of the DSU student body in fall of 2022. In comparison, 518 Maryland students (or 9%) attended DSU in fall of 2021.
When it comes to new students— including freshmen, graduate and transfer students — 879 were from the First State as of fall of 2022. Enrollment numbers are not available for this upcoming semester at this time.
At private higher education institution Goldey-Beacom College (GBC), there are smaller undergrad class sizes but still see a sizable number from the mid-Atlantic area. Last year, 167 undergraduate students came from Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York when the school year began. In fall 2021, that number was 332 undergrad students.
GBC reported 110 first-year undergrad students and 331 returning students from Delaware in fall 2022. Total enrollment, for all divisions, that semester was 1,012 students.
