For the University of Georgia, drawing students from across 148 of the state’s 159 counties might be the most impressive feat.
But also peppered in among the record 6,200 first-year enrollees (about 75 percent of them from Georgia) were students hailing from 18 countries, a taste of the growing international diversity that many of the top most heavily attended universities saw as the effects of the pandemic started to slacken. At the graduate level, UGA’s 2,500 students included scholars from 72 countries.
Not to be outdone, Kennesaw State University saw 7,507 new entrants, with 66 countries represented among the freshman class, part of its a university-wide 43,000 enrollees for the fall.
Georgia State University has always boasted unrivaled international representation, at one time hosting students from 177 of some 210 countries on earth. This year, it wooed 5,133 freshmen to its Atlanta campus, plus another 2,843 at its two-year Perimeter College unit. Across all campuses, more than 51,000 Panthers were enrolled.
The trend seemed to hold true at some smaller universities as well. Georgia Gwinnett College saw freshmen enrollment grow 14 percent from the fall of 2021, doubling its international student population and gaining new faces from South Korea, Vietnam and India. Hispanic students account or more than a quarter of the student population.
“It appears we have turned the corner and are heading back to enrollment growth,” said Michael Poll, vice president of Enrollment Management Services at Georgia Gwinnett.
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