Enrollment at Michigan’s public universities stays steady, but some schools see losses

By Sarah Atwood, MediaNews Group

Total enrollment at Michigan’s public universities remained largely the identical from final 12 months to this 12 months — with a rise of 5 college students — however most particular person faculties skilled declines in enrollment.

Michigan’s complete enrollment of 259,294 college students ended three consecutive years of small enrollment will increase.

This stability within the {industry} as an entire is an effective factor and is immediately associated to the investments the state has made to make greater training extra reasonably priced and accessible, mentioned Dan Hurley, CEO of the Michigan Affiliation of State College.

However the stability the state noticed shouldn’t be essentially replicated at particular person universities. Lake Superior State College skilled a big drop in its already small enrollment, with an total decline of simply over 8% since final 12 months, a lack of 127 college students. Jap Michigan College noticed the most important decline in college students with a lack of 487 college students, a drop of virtually 4%.

There have been constructive outliers.

Oakland College additionally noticed a rise in enrollment this fall, in keeping with official college information. For fall 2025, complete enrollment was 15,979 college students, a rise of 1.3% over final 12 months and the primary enhance in complete enrollment since 2019.

“This fall’s enrollment outcomes spotlight each our momentum and our mission,” mentioned Daybreak Aubry, vp for enrollment administration at Oakland College. “Oakland is rising in each workforce and credit, with graduate {and professional} applications increasing along with undergraduate enrollment.”

The College of Michigan-Flint elevated its numbers by simply over 9%, or 590 college students. The College of Michigan-Ann Arbor additionally noticed a big enhance from 633 college students to 53,488 college students, a 1.2% enhance from final 12 months.

The info exhibits that the rise within the variety of college students shouldn’t be the identical for every type of scholars. New college students noticed a negligible lower of lower than 0.1%, whereas amongst college students there was a rise of virtually 1%.

Nevertheless, the info exhibits that the variety of graduating college students took a big hit this 12 months. Greater than 1,500 fewer graduate college students attended Michigan’s public universities, a decline of greater than 2.5%. Hurley mentioned he believed this was resulting from President Donald Trump’s actions to restrict the variety of worldwide college students, who make up a good portion of graduate and doctoral college students.

Traits

Michigan universities will probably by no means expertise the excessive enrollments of the late 2000s and early-to-mid 2010s, however Hurley mentioned he believes the “bleeding” of enrollment has stopped. Public universities can count on future stability so long as the state continues to extend spending on them, he mentioned.

Over the previous three years, total enrollment at Michigan’s public universities has elevated barely: lower than one proportion level per 12 months. In line with Hurley, this confirmed overarching successes regardless of industry-wide challenges.

Michigan’s largest highschool graduating class occurred in 2007, he mentioned, and the variety of graduating seniors has steadily declined since then.

The state has poured a whole bunch of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} into making greater training extra reasonably priced and accessible for Michigan college students planning to attend Michigan establishments, Hurley mentioned. He pointed to the Michigan Achievement Scholarship – which makes this potential eligible college students from low- and middle-income households can stand up to $5,500 a 12 months for as much as 5 years to attend a public or non-public school — for instance of a spending precedence that has saved enrollment numbers regular.

“With out these investments, I believe we’d nonetheless be dropping college students,” Hurley mentioned. “We should proceed to deal with affordability…, and there’s an exceptionally excessive demand for staff with a four-year diploma in Michigan.”

Extra: New scholarships help lower college costs, but don’t reach the tens of thousands in Michigan

Every college — whether or not it has skilled will increase, decreases or has held enrollment regular — is finest positioned to find out what it wants and what alternatives exist to draw extra college students, he mentioned.

Every college should proceed to work with the state to keep up enrollment stability, Hurley mentioned. The state ought to be dedicated to persevering with to spend money on universities, he added, from further funding for incentives just like the Michigan Achievement Scholarship to subsidizing the prices of refurbishing getting older campus buildings.

MediaNews Group reporter Matt Fahr contributed to this report.