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Enrollment Growth Trend Continues Across Texas Public Higher Education Institutions in Fall 2025

ByBlake Decker

With the recent release of the fall 2025 enrollment data by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB), we wanted to take a look at statewide and institution-level trends across Texas. This fall, public institutions of higher education in Texas, including all two-year colleges, universities, and health-related institutions (HRIs), experienced an overall 4.5% increase in fall-to-fall enrollment with almost 1.52 million students enrolled, up from 1.45 million in fall 2024. This 66,000-student increase represents an almost 12% increase in total enrollment since fall 2021 (1.36 million). We further unpack enrollment trends across the state as well as by public universities in Texas in the remainder of this blog post.

statewide enrollment trends (2016-2025)

The line chart to the right shows trend data for a combination of institutional types across Texas: public universities and HRIs, and all 2-year colleges.

  • Universities & HRIs: Public universities and HRIs continued their collective steady climb that has seen a 12% increase in total enrollment from 661K in 2016 to almost 739K in 2025. This fall, the year-over-year growth for these institutions was 2.9%.
  • All 2-year Colleges: The enrollment surge across public 2-year colleges continued, with a 6% increase from 732K in 2024 to 776K in 2025. Since the low point of enrollment for 2-year public colleges in 2021, enrollment has jumped 16.7% from 665K in 2021 to more than 776K this fall. Fall 2025 marks a full recovery for 2-year institutions from the previous enrollment peak in fall 2019.

enrollment trends at public universities

Fall 2025 saw the highest one-year headcount increase at Texas public universities in at least a dozen years based on available THECB data, as enrollment grew by almost 19,000 students from 689,790 in fall 2024 to 708,669 in fall 2025. During the past decade, Texas public universities experienced an 11.3% increase in overall enrollment from 637K in 2016 to almost 709K in 2025. The following bullet points include a few observations taken from the four visualizations provided below.

  • Texas State University and Tarleton State University experienced the largest numeric growth of all public universities in Texas in fall 2025, each increasing enrollment by more than 3,600 students from the previous fall semester. Texas State’s increase of 3,763 represented a 9.3% jump from 40,487 in fall 2024 to 44,250 in fall 2025. Tarleton’s enrollment grew by 3,683 students from 17,256 in fall 2024 to 20,939 in fall 2025. With a 21% increase from 2024 to 2025, Tarleton was one of three institutions with double-digit one-year increases at public universities in Texas, including University of Texas Permian Basin (13.1%) and Texas A&M University-Texarkana (10.5%).
  • There were 26 public universities in Texas that experienced growth in enrollment from 2024 to 2025. Nine of those institutions added more than 1,000 students in fall 2025 when compared to fall 2024: Texas State University (3,763), Tarleton State University (3,683), University of Texas at San Antonio (2,453), Texas A&M University (1,623), University of Texas at El Paso (1,258), University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (1,229), Texas Tech University (1,138), University of Texas at Austin (1,132), and University of Texas at Arlington (1,096).
  • The University of North Texas experienced a decrease of 2,612 students from 46,180 in fall 2024 to 43,568 in fall 2025, as UNT was the only university with an enrollment drop exceeding 500 students in fall 2025. The largest percentage drop in fall 2025 was at Texas A&M University-Victoria at a 9.2% decrease (3,586 in 2024 to 3,256 in 2025).
  • Over the past decade, Tarleton has seen a 60% increase in total enrollment, growing by 7,887 students from the 13,052 enrolled in fall 2016 to 20,939 in fall 2025. Across the public universities in Texas, there were 12 universities with enrollment growth that exceeded 15% from fall 2016 to fall 2025 (see Growth (2016-2025) tab below). Of those 12 institutions, six are members of the Texas A&M University System: Tarleton (60.4%), Texas A&M University-San Antonio (41.7%), Texas A&M University-Texarkana (30.9%), Texas A&M International University (22.8%), Texas A&M University (19.6%), and Prairie View A&M University (17.5%).
  • For the 10-year window from 2016 to 2025, the Texas A&M University System experienced an 18% increase in total enrollment from 145,669 in 2016 to 172,036 in 2025. The University of North Texas System (which includes UNT and UNT Dallas) was next with 15% growth since 2016, while the University of Texas System (12.4%) and Texas Tech University System (11.8%) also experienced double-digit growth in enrollment during the past decade.

So What?

While the “enrollment cliff” has become the predominant view nationally as it relates to higher education enrollment, the data above show that public institutions in Texas collectively continue to buck the national trends pertaining to post-secondary enrollment patterns. With Texas projected to be the highest-producing state in terms of high school graduates within the next decade, it would seem that Texas may be immune to the down-turns in enrollment being experienced elsewhere. However, as we have covered in previous blog posts, 80% of all states are projected to have decreases in high school graduates from 2023 to 2041, which will likely increase competition for Texas high school graduates from out-of-state colleges and universities. Given that the number of Texas high school graduates directly enrolling in out-of-state schools doubled in the past 20 years, universities will need to continue working to diversify their enrollment portfolio. In our next post, we will return to our fall series related to adults with “Some college, no credential,” as we continue to explore data pertaining to this increasingly important group of stopped-out students in the state of Texas.