With a total enrollment of 5,054 students for the 2019-2020 academic year, Delaware State University has broken all prior enrollment records for the ninth time in ten years, moving above the 5,000-student mark for the first time in history, and a full year ahead of the goals set in the University’s Pride 2020 strategic plan.
“This is a historic occasion,” said President Wilma Mishoe. “In ten years the University has grown 40%, chiefly due to our emphasis on student success. The word is getting out around the country and the globe.”
This enrollment figure includes students at the Dover Main Campus; Georgetown Campus; Wilmington Campus; DSU Online; students at Ningbo University of Technology and Changchun University of Science and Technology in China; and Early College High School students taking University classes.
The new freshman class of 1,145 students is the largest in the institution’s history. The class also reflects a record-high of in-state students, 51 percent of whom are Inspire Scholarship recipients. The Inspire Scholarship is a four-year, state-sponsored scholarship to Delaware State University for Delaware high school students.
Early College High School has been a major driver in enrollment growth over the past several years. Among the first two graduating classes, 53 percent of that student body has gone on to attend the university after graduating from high school.
The university also admitted 328 new transfer students, 130 students into DSU Online, and 115 new graduate students, which are all the largest numbers in the University’s history. The 19.6 percent increase in new graduate enrollment follows a 24 percent rise in 2018, highlighting the University’s sustained emphasis on the growth of such programs.
Mishoe noted that a 40 percent enrollment increase over the past decade was especially significant given that the average enrollment for most Historically Black Colleges and Universities has declined over the same period.