WT Freshman, Sophomore Numbers Up for Spring

CANYON, Texas — West Texas A&M University showed year-over-year growth in key metrics of student enrollment in new data released today.

The freshman class grew nearly 3 percent over spring 2022 and the sophomore class grew nearly 9 percent, continuing a trend observed in underclassmen since last year.

Those gains helped WT’s overall undergraduate numbers to trend upward.

The number of full-time undergraduate students and fulltime graduate students grew more than 4 percent in year-to-year numbers.

WT retained more than 90 percent of freshmen who began in fall 2022, up almost 4 percent from last spring’s retention figures.

“Our undergraduate enrollment has begun to rebound from the pandemic downturn that hit the entire nation. As important as enrolling new students is to WT, equally exciting is that these enrolled students are performing well,” said Mike Knox, vice president for enrollment management.

“First-time students who started in fall 2021 were retained at a record-high number, and the fall 2022 class is exceeding even those figures. We are rebuilding our enrollment from the bottom up with students who are succeeding.”

Also continuing a trend from spring 2022: WT’s doctoral program enrollment is on an upswing, growing nearly 7 percent over the previous year.

The 12th class day is when Texas’ public universities traditionally report enrollment in the spring and fall semesters.

For spring 2023, WT has 6,271 undergraduate students and 2,188 graduate students.

Growth was seen in every College at the University: the Department of Sports and Exercise Sciences in the College of Nursing and Health Sciences, up more than 12 percent; the Department of Psychology, Sociology and Social Work in the Terry B. Rogers College of Education and Social Sciences, up about 11.5 percent; the Department of History in the Sybil B. Harrington College of Fine Arts & Humanities, up almost 10 percent; the Department of Mathematics, up almost 9 percent, and the Department of Engineering and Computer Sciences, up almost 5 percent, both in the College of Engineering; the Department of Agricultural Sciences in the Paul Engler College of Agriculture and Natural Sciences, up nearly 7 percent; and the Department of Computer Information and Decision Management in the Paul & Virginia Engler College of Business, up about 3.5 percent.