Monday, Nov 17, 2025 – Posted by Rich Miller
* Rosy press release…
Today, Governor Pritzker and the Illinois Board of Higher Education (IBHE) announced that public universities in Illinois achieved the highest enrollment level in 10 years, with nearly 190,000 students enrolled during the fall semester of the 2025-26 academic year. Total enrollment at Illinois public universities increased for the second consecutive year and is the highest in 10 years according to IBHE’s annual First Look Fall Enrollment report.
“Illinois has made significant investments in higher education, and it’s paying off, with public universities achieving the highest enrollment in a decade,” said Governor JB Pritzker. “No matter their background, Illinoisans deserve accessible, high-quality education—and high enrollment in our state’s public universities means that more Illinoisans are realizing their full potential.”
Since taking office, Governor Pritzker has made historic, sustained investments to make higher education more affordable, accessible, and attainable for every Illinois student. Over the past seven years, Governor Pritzker has increased operating funding for public universities and community colleges by more than $255 million; increased financial aid by $345 million; expanded public universities’ use of the Common App; made Illinois a top five state for FAFSA completion; and this past legislative session, signed into law a direct admissions program that will make it easier for Illinois students to enroll in the state’s public universities.
Illinois’ public universities are seeing renewed momentum in student enrollment and retention, according to the latest statewide data. Total student enrollment across Illinois’ 12 public universities increased by 2.3% this fall—bringing total enrollment to 189,791 students. This marks the second consecutive year of total enrollment growth and also reflects significant increases in African American and Latino student populations.
The overall increase in enrollment was attributable to a variety of factors, including:
• Increase in first-time, full-time freshman enrollment (6.8% increase)
• Higher rates of transfer students (6.5% increase)
• Increase in fall-to-fall retention (1.4% increase)
* But that positive release overlooks the current problem child of Illinois higher education: Western Illinois University…
* Dual Credit/Dual Enrollment. In the fall of 2025-26, ten public universities reported dual credit/dual enrollment students. As shown in Table 2, dual credit enrollment was up by 18.1%
* First-Time, Full-Time Undergraduates. Fall 2025 marked the fifth consecutive year of growth and the highest recent number of full-time freshmen at Illinois public universities, representing 27,165 new freshmen. This reverses the pandemic low from the fall of academic year 2020-21.
* New Full-Time Transfer Students. New full-time transfer enrollment was up over six percent (+6.5%) from the previous year.
* Continuing Undergraduate Students. For the 2025-26 academic year, there were 1,786 additional continuing undergraduate students (+2.1% year-over-year).
* Graduate and Undergraduate Enrollment Summary. As shown in Table 6, total enrollment increased by 2.3%, with a 3.8% increase at the undergraduate level along with a 1.1% decrease in graduate/professional enrollments.
* WIU Undergrad: -2.6%
* WIU Grad: -19.1%* Enrollment of African American Students. Overall, African American enrollment increased by 9.7% (+2,039 students) to 23,001 students in 2025-26.
* WIU Undergrad: -20.4%
* WIU Grad: -24.3%* Enrollment of Latino Students As shown in Figure 3, total Latino student enrollment reached a new peak of 32,381, after an increase of 8.3% (+2,491 students).
* WIU Undergrad: -10.3%
* WIU Grad: -11.8%* Fall to Fall Retention by Institution. As shown in Figure 6, there was variation across the 12 Illinois public universities in retention of new freshmen from fall of academic year 2023-24 to fall of 2025-26 (reported as 2025). UIUC continued to have the highest retention rate at 95.4% followed by UIC at 82.5%. WIU had the lowest rate at 59.7%
* Also, Illinois State University’s numbers are trending downward or flat-lining. Take a look.
