New student enrollment at Vermont State University ticks up, a hopeful sign after a tumultuous first year

More than 1,700 first-year students are expected to enroll at Vermont State University, an increase of about 14% compared with fall 2023 and a sign of hope for the public, multicampus university.

The roughly 200-student enrollment bump in the university’s second-ever fall semester — just over a year after it was formally created — represents welcome news as it works to shore up its financial state.

“We were laser-focused on stability and enrollment this year and these numbers are a testament to that work,” interim President David Bergh said in a press release announcing the figures. “We’ll continue this essential work in partnership with the state and with our communities to carry this year’s success through the recruitment and ultimately the retention of our future classes.”

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The incoming first-year students come from 35 states and 11 countries, according to university officials. While roughly 70% of the university’s students are from Vermont, out-of-state enrollment overall is up 13%, the university said in the release.

The university has made affordability a key selling point, and a year of tuition starts at $10,344, with additional costs for programs like nursing and engineering, according to spokesperson Katherine Levasseur.

The university’s acceptance rate is around 80%, and roughly 15% of its students are online-only. Nineteen percent of the new class of first-years are Black, Indigenous or people of color, and 56% are first-generation students, the university said.

In July 2023, Vermont State University was officially created through the merger of Northern Vermont University, Castleton University and Vermont Technical College. (Together, the public Vermont State University and the Community College of Vermont make up the Vermont State Colleges.)

Northern Vermont, Castleton and Vermont Tech had separately struggled for years to make ends meet amid dwindling enrollment and low levels of state aid. Vermont spends less than almost every other U.S. state on its institutions of higher education, according to national data.

Administrators said the consolidation was necessary to put the schools on a firmer financial footing — something that lawmakers had mandated in exchange for an influx of one-time funding in 2021.

But that process has been a turbulent one. In spring 2023, administrators faced uproar on campuses and beyond over a controversial plan to transition to all-digital libraries and cut athletic offerings.

That backlash led to the April 2023 departure of Parwinder Grewal, a Texas administrator who was brought on as the state university’s inaugural president. The board of trustees tapped Mike Smith, a former secretary of the Agency of Human Services, to take the helm of the institution on a temporary basis.

But the tumult at the new university was not yet over.

Last fall, Vermont State University announced a slate of cuts to academic and administrative programs, eliminating the positions of several dozen faculty and staff members through layoffs, buyouts and retirements.

At the time, those cuts sparked protests from union members and students , and first-year enrollment for the class of 2027 dropped by roughly 14%. More recently, some students and staff have told VTDigger about quiet campuses, fading student activities and a lack of key student support staff.

But administrators touted this fall’s increase in enrollment as a symbol of sustainability — and the university’s continued ability to attract students.

“I’m incredibly pleased with all our partners — faculty, staff, students, our communities, and our alumni — who worked together to share VTSU’s story and its unique offerings and helped us grow this year’s entering class to where it is today,” said Bergh, the interim president.

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