What’s happening: Commonwealth University sees a 10.7% increase in freshmen enrollment since 2022, and a 47.6% increase in Grad Students.  

Why it matters: Although the overall campuses have seen a -8.1% change in overall students since 2022, they have seen a slight increase in freshmen students and an increase in grad students across the three Commonwealth University campuses.  

The background: Commonwealth University has

seen a change in over 990 students since 2022, with Mansfield Campus losing 598 students over the past two years. Bloomsburg has seen a decrease in 234 students since 2022 but has gained 27 students since last fall semester: (7,179 -> 7,206). When asked about what the University is doing to help raise enrollment numbers, Vice President and Enrollment Management and Student Affairs Campus Administrator, Stephen Lee, states “We are leveraging the unique qualities that Commonwealth University offers to students, most notably a large and diverse array of majors, minors and certificate programs offered across four campus locations that are delivered through a variety of modalities including face to face and distance education.” 

 Dating back to the merger in 2022, Bloomsburg Campus has seen an increase of 129 (9.1%) students in the freshmen class, the current freshmen number is lower than it was last fall semester by 112 students (1,655 → 1,543). The University has also seen an increase of 80 (31.1%) new graduate students since 2022. Commonwealth University has welcomed 2,417 new freshman students across all campuses in the Fall 2024 semester.  

 According to Lee, these numbers are sustainable. “Yes, we have developed a comprehensive enrollment management strategy that integrates all areas of Commonwealth University to market, recruit, enroll and retain students,” Lee said. “We continue to scale our marketing and recruitment efforts to capture new students […] Retention has been a particular area of strength, and we will continue to expand services and outreach to build on the 4.3 percent increase in retention over the past two years at CU.”