OSU-Cascades’ first-year students up 28%

BEND—Fall term enrollment at Oregon State University – Cascades has increased 4.1 percent and includes 28 percent more first-year students than a year ago.

The cohort of 145 incoming first-year students dropped the average age of OSU-Cascades students from 25 to 24.

In total, 1,311 students are enrolled at the Bend campus.

Eighty-two percent of OSU-Cascades’ first-year students are Oregonians, and 26.9 percent are students of color. Overall enrollment of students of color at OSU-Cascades increased slightly to 17.5 percent. The fall 2019 enrollment includes 306 undergraduate students who are the first in their families to attend college.

The average unweighted high school GPA of OSU-Cascades’ first-year class increased from 3.46 to 3.49. First-year students with a high school GPA of 3.75 or higher increased to 28 percent.

Thirteen percent of first-year students came to OSU-Cascades with enough college credit to enter at the sophomore or junior level. Nearly 61 percent of first-year students earned college credit while in high school.

Of the 578 transfer students at OSU-Cascades, 62 percent are from Central Oregon and previously attended Central Oregon Community College.

Sixty-five percent of undergraduate students pursue their studies full-time when combining credits from OSU-Cascades, OSU Ecampus and COCC. Through a degree partnership program with COCC, 270 students are taking at least one class at the community college.

Eighty-five percent of OSU-Cascades students are from Oregon, with 61 percent coming from the Central Oregon region. Fifteen percent of students are from out-of-state, including students from 34 states, as well as nine countries.

OSU-Cascades’ enrollment increase was spread across disciplines, with the most popular majors being biology, business administration, energy systems engineering, computer science, natural resources, and kinesiology.

Newly launched undergraduate degree programs in elementary education, and in art, media and technology attracted 19 and 17 students respectively, which are the highest starting enrollments of any major launched at the campus.

This fall term marks the third year that the OSU Honors College undergraduate degree is offered at OSU-Cascades. Twenty-seven students are enrolled in the rigorous degree program — a 35 percent increase from a year ago.

OSU-Cascades enrolled 285 graduate students in fall 2019. The counseling degree program is the largest with 80 students. Forty students are enrolled in the Master of Arts in teaching program. The low-residency Master of Fine Arts in creative writing program has 21 enrolled students this fall. The average age of a graduate student is 39.

Seventy-seven student veterans are enrolled at OSU-Cascades.

The youngest enrolled student is 16 and the oldest is 79.