Monday, SEPTEMBER 22, 2025 |
Photo – UW logo – Bigfoot99 file photo
Enrollment is up at the University of Wyoming in Laramie for the second straight semester.
After two weeks of classes, UW’s overall fall 2025 enrollment stands at 10,819, up from 10,813 compared to the same time last year. And the 1,444 first-time, first-year students is up nearly 1% from the 1,434 in last year’s first-time class.
UW President Ed Seidel noted in a news release that the increases are not big increases, “but any increases are welcome and celebrated at a time when higher education enrollment nationwide has been struggling to rebound from the pandemic — and when the number of high school graduates is declining. President Seidel noted that efforts to improve recruitment and retention numbers are “starting to bear fruit.”
The fall semester enrollment growth follows a 1.4% increase in UW’s spring 2025 enrollment compared to the previous spring, which was the first year-over-year enrollment increase since before the COVID pandemic.
Driving the improved numbers is a continuing rise in Wyoming resident enrollment.
This year’s first-time, first-year class includes 927 Wyoming residents, up 2.3 percent from last year and the second-largest incoming classes of resident students in the past 17 years. And UW’s total enrollment of Wyoming residents is 7,948, up 1.5 percent from last year.
Also contributing is a continuing increase in student retention. Some 79.4 percent of first-time, first-year students who enrolled at UW last fall have returned for the fall 2025 semester, up from retention rates of 79 percent last year and 76 percent in 2020.
The number of UW students pursuing degrees online increased by 8.5 percent, from 1,896 last fall to 2,058 this semester, while the number of graduate students is basically steady, going from 2,683 to 2,681.
