Spring enrollment grew by a double-digit margin at The Evergreen State College
This spring’s enrollment at The Evergreen State College in Olympia rose 13% over spring 2024, continuing a trend that the school has experienced over several springs, a college official said.
Total enrollment rose by 264 students, or from 1,956 students a year ago to 2,220 this spring, Chief Enrollment Officer John Reed said.
That’s three years of growth for spring enrollment: 13% in 2025, 10% in 2024 and 8% in 2023, Reed said.
“An important component of this enrollment growth is the improvement we are seeing in our student retention,” said Reed in a statement. “First-year students from fall 2024 to spring 2025 are persisting at a rate of 85%, the highest we have seen in 12 years.”
Reed attributed the improvement to a restructuring of the student advisory process for new students. The college is now scheduling personal appointments to meet with students and talk about their future at Evergreen, he said.
The initiative has produced some great results, he said.
Although the college has shown gains in enrollment and retention, it still has a ways to go to reach student enrollment levels that were closer to 5,000 more than a decade ago. Since then, the college has weathered the Day of Absence controversy, the COVID-19 pandemic and the death of a student to carbon monoxide poisoning in student housing.
And what does the fall enrollment forecast look like?
The pace of applications from transfer students has been sluggish, Reed said, but the college is months away from the start of the new school year.
As for new students, the college received an encouraging sign last month, he said. About 250 prospective students visited the campus in April, at an event the college once considered canceling because turnout was low, he said.
The number of first-generation undergraduate students enrolled this spring also reached 459, up from 371 the previous year, according to the college.
This story was originally published May 6, 2025 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Spring enrollment grew by a double-digit margin at The Evergreen State College."
