Willamette sees positive enrollment trends despite demographic cliff

A variety of WU students sit and stand on upward trending arrows. Art by Addie Martin.

Last year, the Willamette administration prepared for the “demographic cliff,” or a decline in first-year enrollment brought on by low, recession era birth rates. But now, in the 2025-26 academic year, despite the demographic cliff showing its effects, undergraduate enrollment is up. 

Willamette's 2025 enrollment trends depict fewer first-year students, but expanded transfer and graduate school students. The fall 2025 census provided to The Collegian by Geoff Ball, the director of Institutional Research, listed the total number of full-time undergraduate students to be 1,715 with 368 first-years. In comparison, the fall 2024 census showed 1,637 full-time undergraduate students and 405 first-years. Across all Willamette colleges, the complete headcount for the fall 2025 census is 2,775 students. 

William Mullen, the vice president for Enrollment Management, explained, “Though the new class of students is smaller, there is a large transfer amount.” There are 68 undergraduate transfer students this year compared to 51 transfer students in fall of 2024. 

New Programs

The Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges projects a 15% decline in college-aged students between 2025 and 2029, noting that smaller tuition-dependent institutions will experience the brunt of these declines. To combat demographic shifts, Willamette University has invested and launched additional graduate programs, among other strategies. 

Willamette’s Impact Report 2025 comments on the merger with PNCA during the pandemic and the recent launch of the School of Computing & Information Sciences (SCIS) as notable milestones. PNCA, according to the fall 2025 census, has 438 full-time undergraduate students, including 136 new students, a slight decrease from its 453 full-time undergraduate students last year. Willamette College of Law has 345 full-time students in fall of 2025 compared to 313 full-time students in fall of 2024. The recent launch of SCIS, established in May of 2023, has garnered 25 full-time and 15 part-time graduate students. 

Mullen, commenting on the acquisition of new schools, said that Willamette will continue to expand for students on both undergraduate and graduate levels. With the construction of the new Career Center on campus, the university’s purpose is to create future pathways for students. 

On a national level, however, the demographic cliff offers not only university problems but a potential economic burden. The Hechinger Report emphasized college closures, cutting admission positions and declining graduate programs as concerns to note, stating that more than a college per week announced its closing in 2024. 

Changing pathways

Sue Corner, the dean of undergraduate admissions at Willamette, explained that the university makes resource-based decisions to combat demographic changes. Instead of cutting admissions roles to prepare for the cliff, the university created transfer admissions roles, Corner said. 

Corner also explained that the biggest difference this year has been the change in the California schools’ admission policies. “California is usually our biggest feeder state, bigger than Oregon, and this year, for the first time in my tenure at Willamette [20 years], we have had more students from Oregon.” 

The University of California system, as noted by both Corner and Mullen, has expanded in the past two years. The California system has changed to keep students in California, specifically through the University of California Plan 2030, which aims to increase the number of in-state undergraduate students.

In addition to the changes in the UC system, Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) 2025 officially opened Oct. 1 under a new format this year. With the university monitoring the government shutdown, Corner highlighted, “If the shutdown extends, [the] processing of the FAFSA in a timely manner is questioned. This can impact financial aid packages for new students.” 

As a private institution, the main sources of revenue for Willamette are tuition and room and board. Previously, a botched FAFSA rollout at the federal level for the 2024-25 school year resulted in a 9% decline in submitted applications nationwide according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, resulting in students having to make rushed enrollment decisions.

Mullen emphasized the need Willamette has to consider developmental pathways that are accessible for all students who want to go to college. “When a student enrolls at a community college, there is a possibility for students to go into a Bearcat pathway.” Willamette is currently in the works with Portland Community College to create an additional pathway for students, alongside an existing arrangement with Chemeketa Community College. 

Willamette offers programs for prospective students such as Bearcat Day and Access to Excellence, a fly-in model program, to entice higher enrollment. Both Corner and Mullen agree that Bearcat Day grosses the highest number of students, though Access to Excellence has had fewer applicants.

Admissions staff also conduct recruitment trips that entail extensive travel, meeting with students one-on-one at schools and college fairs, conducting interviews, and offering workshops. 

Looking ahead

The nationwide demographic decline in college-going students has impacted various circuits of the university. Mullen summarized, “Willamette has to think about the graduate degrees and make sure the degrees have good pathways but also meet the needs of traditional grad students. It is important for the school to develop and change the programs.” The shift in the national narrative about the worth of a college degree, alongside changing economic policies, leaves the demographic cliff as an ongoing conversation.