On Oct. 17, 2024, Boise State announced that the school’s enrollment increased by 11.5% for first-time undergraduate students from Idaho, becoming the largest incoming class of Idaho students in the university’s history. The university’s number of enrolled students in the 2024 fall semester totaled 27,250 students.
In the face of a national decline in college enrollment, Idaho colleges and universities defied the trend. Instead, Boise State set a record.
Boise State’s Executive Director of Admissions Kelly Talbert highlighted in an email to The Arbiter the admissions choices in recruitment and scholarship programs since 2020 have helped with making Boise State more “accessible” to Idaho residents.
“These efforts are paying off, resulting in incoming classes of first-year students that are more resident-heavy, compared with the years leading up to the pandemic,” Talbert said. “We still value the rich experience that comes from having a geographically diverse student body. However, we have specific strategic plans that prioritize access and success of our Idahoans — especially those who may not have as much family experience with higher education.”
One of the strategies Talbert mentioned was Idaho’s LAUNCH grant scholarship program that went into effect this fall 2024 semester. The grant can pay up to 80% of students’ tuition and fees if they attend one of the 12 institutions in Idaho, including Boise State University.
“Those scholarship funds helped make Idaho’s two and four-year institutions more accessible to residents this fall and Boise State saw the impact of that this fall with the largest class of Idahoans we’ve ever enrolled,” Talbert said.
Idaho Education News reporter Kevin Richert attributed the sharp rise in enrollment to Idaho Launch, which assisted 1,285 first-year students in enrolling at Boise State.
“You’ve seen this kind of surge in first-year students from in-state, which clearly has a lot to do with LAUNCH,” Richert said.”They’re 2024 high school grads going straight to college, they’re a group that [Idaho universities] have had a hard time getting for a long time. LAUNCH has obviously had a big impact on the numbers we saw this fall.”
But LAUNCH isn’t guaranteed for the high school class of 2025.
“LAUNCH’s future is really interesting politically, I don’t know if the numbers are going to change many minds one way or the other about Launch, because legislators are pretty dug in right now about Launch,” Richert said.
“It’s kind of taken this social aspect of ‘we’re giving financial aid to [students].’ I mean, that’s not really new, but this has created really hard, almost dogmatic positions either for or against it.”
Jeremiah Shinn, vice president of Student Affairs and Enrollment shared in a statement to The Arbiter the impact this enrollment record will have on the university’s future.
“We’re honored to have gained the trust of students and parents from across our state, as shown by this year’s record Idaho enrollment,” Jeremiah Shinn, vice president of Student Affairs and Enrollment Management said in a statement to The Arbiter. “This success reflects the dedication of our faculty and staff, who create an exceptional college experience both in and out of the classroom.”
Shinn added that as the university’s enrollment numbers grow, it’ll lead the university to “groundbreaking” research opportunities that’ll benefit Idaho and the world.
About two-thirds of Boise State students come from within Idaho. California follows behind, providing a substantial 17% of newly enrolled freshmen, according to statistics from Renee Rehder, Boise State’s director of Strategic Enrollment Initiatives.
17% only reflects the newly enrolled freshmen from California, meaning the total number of students from California is presumably larger.
The statistics measuring total number of students from out-of-state can become skewed when students from out-of-state list their new Idaho residence as their home address. The result is statistics that are not perfectly exact, but a good estimation.
Regardless, the increase of students from California is highly perceptible. Some faculty at Boise State even attributed much of the out-of-state growth directly to Orange County, California and San Diego, California.
“From a faculty member and department chair perspective, I would be pretty confident saying we do have a lot of out-of-state students from California, especially Orange County,” Media Department Chair Rick Moore said.
“It seemed to me that the majority of the students came from the Boise, Treasure Valley area. But with quite a few also coming from places like Washington, Oregon and California,” History Department Chair Lisa Brady said.
Although the department chairs gave their anecdotal testimony, what they said largely aligned with the data.
“Boise State University has been an attractive option for students in California, Washington and Oregon for many years now,” Rehder said in an email to The Arbiter.
“When it comes to California specifically, we see families appreciating Boise State’s balance of academic offerings, affordability with competitor institutions they’re considering, and our ‘just right’ sized campus,” Rehder wrote. “Most of these students would like to graduate in four years and this can be tough at some of the California universities in their areas, due to capacity issues.”
Over the last month, Arbiter reporters conducted a series of random interviews on campus. Many of the students or their families interviewed came from California.
In an interview with Chris Jaggard, a father from San Diego, The Arbiter asked if he was considering moving to Boise following his daughter’s decision to attend Boise State, his response was “maybe”.
“I love the weather, like ‘Oh, we have four seasons’, and the campus is very safe,” said freshman Kenzie Michaels from the Sacramento, California area.
Thomas Flores, a first-year undergraduate student from Boise, shared his thoughts on the increase of Idaho students coming to Boise State.
“I know people have already known about BSU, but I like that more people [are] coming [here],” Flores said. “Maybe it’ll put [the university] on the map a little more and then especially with all our programs to show that BSU is a great school to go to.”
Flores believes that with Boise State’s athletics moving to the PAC-12 conference, could also contribute to the growing enrollment student rate in the future.
Junior Sandra Keehn, a transfer student from Palo Alto, California, said that her decision to attend Boise State University compared to other colleges she visited such as Long Beach State and The University of Oregon centered around an admiration for Boise State University’s culture and academics.
“I just felt like the energy would be more down to earth and I felt like there’s more of a focus on education here,” Keehn said. “People here care more about school and are much kinder. I was just looking to be in a healthier environment.”
With student enrollment on the rise, Keehn questioned how this increase will affect student housing and the costs of living off campus.
Sophomore Addisen Gensburger, an in-state student from Meridian, touched on the rapid rise in Idaho’s population over the years. Gensburger, who’s family is from California, explained his reason as to why Californias have found an interest in Idaho.
“I think Idaho’s kind of becoming a pretty popular, small place,” Gensburger said. “A lot of the Californians are moving here, probably just because they think that they can kind of start over somewhere that’s kind of familiar because it’s grown so much and so many people are from California, but at the same time, not nearly as crowded, not nearly as busy or expensive as California would be.”
Data from the United States Census Bureau shows over 17,000 California residents moved to Idaho in the last year.
Whether it’s the seasons, the cost or Boise’s simple charm, more and more students are being drawn from out-of-state. Alongside the increasing number of Idahoans coming to Boise State, enrollment is on an upward trend for the time being.
