By SUSAN JONES

In almost every enrollment category, the numbers are up this year at Pitt, even at the regional campuses. The only significant drop from last year is in the number of international students, which was down about 6%.

The annual student census was released this week. It shows that overall undergraduate enrollment at the Oakland campus was up around 4.5%, from 20,418 to 21,388. This can be attributed to Pitt’s largest-ever incoming first-year class, which numbered 5,870. That’s 1,281 more than last fall. Undergraduate enrollment on all campuses rose from 24,570 to 25,679.

The incoming class was selected from a record-setting, nearly 65,000 applicants. At a recent Senate Council meeting, Chancellor Joan Gabel said, “We are on pace for another record-setting group of applicants for next year, with numbers of applications way up as a percentage year over year at both the undergraduate level and graduate and professional level.”

Graduate and professional enrollment climbed by 340 people or 3.5%, from 9,509 to 9,849. The largest percentage growth was in the School of Computing and Information’s master’s program, which jumped 46% from 468 students in fall 2024 to 851 in 2025. Although the statistics don’t list degree programs, one reason for the increase might be the new online master’s in data science that SCI began offering, in a partnership with Coursera, last year.

Most schools’ enrollments made small moves up or down, but there are some highlights from the numbers. The breakdown of all the numbers can be found on the Institutional Research and Analytics website.

Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences: Undergraduate enrollment in Pitt’s largest school rose by 476, or 4.1%. At 11,669, the number was about 80 below the post-pandemic peak in 2022.

Health and Rehabilitation Sciences: The school has nearly doubled its graduate enrollment in that past 10 years and held steady at just under 1,500.

Law: The school has seen a sharp increase in certificate and micro-credential enrollment in the past 10 years from 15 to 97 this year.

Medicine: All categories of students at the medical school continue to grow. The number of students has grown steadily, except for a small dip in fall 2022, in the past 10 years. There were 79 more students in fall 2024 than in 2023, and another 58-person increase this fall, for a total of 1,345 students.

Nursing: Undergraduate enrollment was up nearly 13% from 838 in 2024 to 959 this year. That’s a 400-student increase in the past 10 years.

Public Health: The undergraduate program that the school started in 2022 has grown from 62 in the first class to 498 this fall — a increase of 188 students from fall 2024.

Social Work: The graduate enrollment was up nearly 15% from 355 last year to 416 this fall.

Regionals: While the regional campuses remain below their enrollment numbers from 10 years ago, each saw slight increases this year. Bradford gained the most — 92 students for a total of 1,094. Titusville had the largest percentage gain, 35%, going from 35 students last year to 56 in 2025, including 16 non-degree-seeking students.

International students

International student enrollment was down just over 5% this fall — from 2,860 in fall 2024 to 2,711 in 2025 — but that is a considerably smaller drop than at many other schools.

Just this week, DePaul University in Chicago announced it would immediately reduce spending, at least partially because of a 30% decline in international enrollment.

NPR reported in August that the University at Buffalo saw a 15% decline in international students this fall, mostly in graduate programs, especially in the STEM fields. In addition, Forbes reported the immigration data show a nearly 50% drop in the number of international students from India arriving in July and August 2025 compared to the same period one year ago.

In 2023, the total number of international students at Pitt topped 3,000. That year, there were 1,520 students from China and 438 from India, leading the list of the 107 countries represented. In fall 2025, 1,203 Chinese students enrolled and 372 from India.

International students have faced several challenges during the second Trump administration, including threats of deportation over participation in campus protests. On Sept. 30, a federal judge in Massachusetts ruled that federal officials unconstitutionally violated the free speech rights of pro-Palestinian protesters in its effort to deport international students and scholars expressing pro-Palestinian views.

Students from outside the U.S. have faced several other challenges this year, including a ban that kept people from several countries from traveling to the U.S., a delay in processing visas, and revocation of their legal residency status over minor infractions.

Susan Jones is editor of the University Times. Reach her at suejones@pitt.edu or 724-244-4042.

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Photo on cover page shot from drone by Tom Altany | University of Pittsburgh