ASU Ranked Third Fastest-Growing College in Texas after Record Setting Enrollment

SAN ANGE​​​​​​LO, TX -- Angelo State University ranks among the top five fastest-growing colleges in Texas, according to research recently completed by the American City Business Journal (ACBJ).

As reported by BizJournals.com, ACBJ ranked four-year colleges by total student enrollment growth between fiscal year 2013 and fiscal year 2018 as reported by the U.S. Department of Education. During that span, ASU’s enrollment grew by 51%, from 6,888 students in the fall of 2012 to 10,417 students in the fall of 2018.

That puts ASU third on the list of fastest-growing Texas colleges behind only the University of Texas-Permian Basin (75%) and University of Texas at Tyler (52%). The remainder of the top five includes Parker University in Dallas (46%) and University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley (44%).

ASU’s student enrollment has also reached a new record-high of 10,568 for this fall 2019 semester. That total includes new records for undergraduate retention rate, dual-credit enrollment and undergraduate Hispanic enrollment.

Our sustained enrollment growth is the result of the concerted efforts of all our faculty, staff and administrators,” said ASU President Brian J. May. “You can point to almost any area on the ASU campus and see improvement and growth. That is a testament to the entire Ram Family. We are 10,000 strong and growing, and ASU’s future looks very bright.”

In contrast, some of the state’s most well-known universities showed slower growth between 2013-18, including Texas A&M University (34%), Texas Tech University (14%), Texas State University (13%), Baylor University (11%) and University of Texas (-1%).

ASU’s growth rate is also fastest in the Lone Star Conference. The next three LSC schools in the rankings are West Texas A&M (27%), Texas A&M-Commerce (12%) and Texas Woman’s University (2%).

For the 68 Texas schools on the rankings list, the average five-year growth rate was 9%. The average national five-year growth rate was 4% for the 1,500 colleges included in the ACBJ research.

In December 2018, ASU was also ranked among the top 20 fastest-growing public master’s degree-level institutions in the U.S. by The Chronicle of Higher Education in its “Students: Almanac 2018.” The research analyzed a larger set of enrollment data from 2006 to 2016 as reported by the U.S. Department of Education. Over that 10-year span, ASU’s enrollment grew 52.9%.