JOHNSON CITY, Tenn., (WJHL) – At its quarterly Board of Trustees meeting, East Tennessee State University (ETSU) revealed a record-breaking enrollment for Fall 2025, with 2,284 students joining its first-year class.

The 2,284 students make up the largest first-year class in ETSU history.

“Ultimately, students are choosing us,” said ETSU president Brian Noland. “They’re choosing the institution. They’re choosing our degree programs. They’re choosing to study with our faculty. We’ve become an institution of choice, a destination university.”

ETSU also reported its highest number of students living on campus for its second year in a row, filling more than 3,300 beds last academic year and adding another 80 beds over the last year.

One statistic that Noland pointed out during his President’s Report was a nationwide decline in male enrollment in higher education.

“As you look at enrollment at East Tennessee State University, in many respects, it’s reflecting what you see across the country, where more young women are deciding to pursue higher education than their male counterparts,” he said. “For whatever reason, this generation of men in America is stepping away from higher education, so we’ve got to be dedicated and purposeful in efforts to recruit more men.”

Noland said that ETSU is working with multiple other universities in the region to boost male enrollment through direct engagement.

“That’s looking at our degree offerings,” he said. “One of the reasons why we’re looking at programs like engineering is to help diversify that enrollment portfolio. That young man who gets a certificate in welding, he may see that and say, ‘You know what? I want to get a degree in engineering, because I didn’t like high school, but I like this work.”

ETSU reports that more than 60% of undergraduates are female.