Nearly every public flagship enrolled a smaller share of freshmen from within their states in 2022 than they did two decades earlier, according to a Chronicle analysis of new data from the U.S. Department of Education.
The trend played out at 45 flagships between 2002 and 2022, with the decline at the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa leading the group. In 2002, about 77 percent of Alabama’s freshman class was made up of in-state residents; in 2022, that share shrank to 35 percent — a 42-point difference. The University of Arkansas at Fayetteville saw a similar slide. In 2002, eight in 10 members of the freshman class were from Arkansas. By 2022, the share was 39 percent.
Percentage-point declines of 15 or more surfaced at flagships that included the Universities of Mississippi, Oregon, and Wisconsin at Madison. Those three institutions were among the dozen that had freshman classes where fewer than half of the students in 2022 were in-state residents. To put it another way, it’s still far more common for flagships to enroll the majority of their freshman classes from within their states — about 75 percent of states still do so. It’s just that the share of students attending flagships in their home state is declining.
The federal data on student residency for freshmen underscores a trend that has sparked much discussion about who ought to be served by a state’s most prominent public university. In some states, particularly small ones like Vermont and Delaware, in-state students have long been the minority on campus. Flagships that expand their share of out-of-state students can generate more tuition dollars — because of higher out-of-state tuition costs, and because such students typically pay full freight. But the flip side is that institutions often lose state support in the long run.
Among the 50 flagships The Chronicle analyzed, the University at Buffalo enrolled the highest share of in-state freshmen in 2022, at 94 percent. Among the six other institutions where at least 80 percent of freshmen come from within the state: the University of Texas at Austin (88 percent), Rutgers University at New Brunswick (86 percent), and the University of Florida (80 percent).
Three colleges ran counter to the trend. The share of in-state freshmen at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, for example, increased by 1.3 percentage points in 2022, to 84 percent (at least 82 percent of freshmen must be North Carolinians, according to UNC system rules).
For more on how in-state enrollment of freshmen has changed across the country over time, see below.
