TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY
University president discusses enrollment and doctoral program growth
Editor’s note: This is part one of a multi-part series on the State of TXST address.
The State of TXST address was held Friday morning at the University Events Center for TXST President Kelly Damphousse to highlight the university’s recent accomplishments and share his vision for the upcoming year.
As it celebrates its 125th year, TXST has made big strides toward reaching its goals, and Damphousse proudly shared what is being done to build “the university of tomorrow, today,” including information on enrollment, program expansion, campus growth and the strides made toward the goal of becoming an R1 research institution, which denotes very high research activity and is the highest performance designation.
“In 1899, the founders of TXST began with 11 empty acres and a dream to teach Texans to be teachers. During the construction of Old Main, the foundation kept sinking every time they poured the concrete. They eventually discovered that the concrete was flowing into a cavern Below,” Damphousse said. “The problem was eventually resolved, and the foundation ended up even stronger than originally planned.”
Texas State hit a landmark achievement for enrollment this fall.
“We are the most applied to school in the world among Texas high school seniors,” Damphousse said. “More than 50,000 high school seniors applied to come to Texas State this fall.”
Damphousse said enrollment had been decreasing since a peak in 2016, but has grown since he arrived at the university in 2022.
“Strong enrollment numbers also represent increased revenue, which allows us to do several things, among which are keeping tuition flat — not raising tuition for the second year in a row, investing in [faculty and staff] by providing competitive wages — including benefits and resources that need to be successful, and investing in our infrastructure — maintaining our older facilities and building new ones,” Damphousse said. “All that is made possible by having an increasing enrollment.”
Damphousse said in Fall of 2021, Texas State enrollment was down 1,000 students from the peak in Fall of 2016. In Fall of 2022, the enrollment increased by 300 students or 1%.
“Campus leaders helped to set ambitious enrollment goals for fall of 2024; those were 8,000 freshmen, 40,000 students and 500,000 credit hours,” Damphousse said. “While the numbers won’t be official until September 12, I'm pleased to announce that we hit all three of those targets this year.”
Damphousse said as of 5 a.m. on Friday morning, there were 8,182 freshmen, which was a 3.5% increase over the Fall of 2023 and a 24% increase from Fall of 2021.
“As of this morning, our total enrollment, that’s all [of our] students everywhere around the world, currently stands at 40,721. This exceeds the record we set in 2016 by almost 2,000 students, a 5% increase,” Damphousse said. “That enrollment translates to… 511,775 credit hours, a 5.3% increase over last year.”
Damphousse said fall enrollment has reached all-time highs in several categories with much of the enrollment growth being seen in areas outside of San Marcos.
“We are, right now, the 24th largest undergraduate university in the country, 36,546 undergrads, a 4.2% increase… [There were] 139 new doctoral students this fall, a 24% increase,” Damphousse said. “[For] continuing doctoral students, [there were] 462 doctoral students, an 11% increase from last year. The Round Rock Campus [has] 2,380 students, a 20% increase from last year. As a former international student, I’m excited to tell you, we're six people short of 1,500 international students as well… That's a 55% increase in the number of international students here at Texas State.”
This fall has seen the highest freshman retention rate ever in the university’s history.
“81.1% of last year's freshmen are currently enrolled for their sophomore year right now,” Damphousse said. “Our goal ultimately should be about 85%.”
He said 8,324 students graduated from TXST last year.
Damphousse boasted about some of the new programs added to the university’s offerings, including one housed at the San Marcos Regional Airport.
“Now I want to show off one of our newest programs, a Bachelor of Applied Arts and Science in Aviation Sciences, beginning this fall. Through this partnership, the private company Coast Flight Training will provide pilot training at the San Marcos Regional Airport. While we planned for five students to be enrolled this fall, we aimed a little bit low. We already have 28 students enrolled in the program,” Damphousse said. “Coast Flight Training school actually trains pilots for American Airlines, so our students have a runway into a really good, high paying job. This opens an entirely new, lucrative career path where students can become commercial pilots, and it helps address the pilot shortage that the aviation industry is currently facing.”
He said that with all of the additional doctoral programs, students and research added to the university, it is set to reach R1 status by 2027.
“We've been focused on two metrics: $50 million in research expenditures per year and awarding 70 doctoral programs per year for three straight years,” Damphousse said. “The bottom line is we're investing and growing our research enterprise to ensure students are immersed in rich research environments so that they are better prepared for successful careers and lives. And furthermore, we are investing in our faculty researchers so that they can answer the call of Texans, Americans and the world to solve some of the toughest challenges faced by society.”
Damphousse said TXST is making strides towards its goal.
“Research expenditures have more than tripled, breaking $140,000,000 last year, and we are on pace for more than $160 million expenditures in FY 2024,” Damphousse said. “Texas State awarded 71 doctoral degrees this past year… For the last three years, the number of new doctoral students has increased 43% with a record high this year of about 140 new doctoral students.”
Damphousse said 11 doctoral degree proposals were submitted to the Texas State Education Learning Board last summer, which would mean 11 additional doctoral degree offerings, if approved.
“I can report that seven of those 11 proposals have already been approved,” Damphousse said. “If all 11 proposals are approved, we will offer 24 doctoral programs here, which is a huge increase from the 14 we had before.”
