Virginia State University has historic fall enrollment 

By Megan Pauly courtesy of HBCUNEWS,com

Enrollment has declined at some Virginia colleges and universities recently — but not at the commonwealth’s public historically Black colleges and universities, following a national trend.

Last month, Virginia State University, just north of Petersburg, announced record enrollment. This fall, the school welcomed the largest freshman class in the university’s history: over 1,700 freshmen. The announcement comes after several years of enrollment growth at the university.

Norfolk State University has also seen increased enrollment this fall, as well as over the last several years.

VSU students VPM News spoke with shared a variety of reasons why they chose to attend the school. Freshman Nadia Johnson applied to over a dozen schools across the country. She said going to an HBCU was important to her.

“Coming from a predominantly not diverse high school and middle school, I wanted to learn more about my culture and see Black excellence around me,” she said.

Johnson grew up in New York and New Jersey, and chose VSU in part because she was especially impressed with a new TV recording studio on campus.

“Since I knew that I wanted to get into mass communications, I knew that Virginia State was for me,” Johnson said.

Having a strong sense of community was one reason freshman Corey McSwain chose to attend an HBCU. VSU’s political science program also stood out to him.

“It’s almost like we are a family here,” he said. “The legacy of developing leaders resonated with me the most.”

Christine Darden, the famous mathematician who was featured in the film Hidden Figures, graduated from VSU. There are many notable alumni at VSU, including Reginald Lewis, who founded the food and beverage conglomerate TLC Beatrice International Holdings, Inc. – the country’s first Black-owned business to exceed a billion dollars in annual revenue.

There are about 500 more freshmen enrolled at VSU this year than last, which Alexis Brooks-Walter, who oversees enrollment, attributes to a number of factors, including changes in recruiting strategies.

For example, she said VSU students have been going with recruiters to talk to high schoolers; sometimes they’ll visit a student’s alma mater, for that extra personal connection.

She also said the school’s using artificial intelligence to move through the application process faster, and get right to engaging with future students who are asking questions and opening emails.

“That allows us to really monitor students who are highly interested in Virginia State,” Brooks-Walter said. “And so they get a reach out from a counselor based on that.”

But she added there are other factors that she thinks have contributed to more students choosing VSU.

“I think the climate of today has allowed many students – African American or minorities – to feel very comfortable in our environment,” she said.

The state of politics has definitely played a role in the university’s enrollment uptick, says Cheryl Mango, an expert on HBCUs. Mango, a VSU associate history professor, said recent federal policy shifts – like the US Supreme Court’s 2023 decision to roll back affirmative action at colleges – have contributed to fewer Black students attending predominantly white institutions.

VSU senior Zin Cambridge said the US Supreme Court decision did play a role when it came to his decision about where to go to college, but he said other factors were important in his decision-making process, too.

“We’re not oblivious to what’s going on,” Mango said. “We see the book banning. We see the laws against DEI. We see what presidential cabinets are looking like.”

She said HBCUs are safe spaces for Black students.

“We’re hurt about our history,” Mango said. “So going to an HBCU and bypassing the PWI…it’s like it’s an opportunity for us to atone for that. It’s to avenge our ancestors, avenge that reality of how we got here.”

Lisa Winn Bryan, an assistant professor in the African American studies department at Virginia Commonwealth University, said she attended James Madison University, a predominantly white university, in the late 1980s. She said she didn’t see faculty that looked like her, and said it was isolating at times. Black students had to find their own connections and community.

“We clung together,” she said. “It is very different for a Black student at a PWI vs. a Black student at an HBCU,” Winn Bryan said. “Those are two different experiences. They’re apples and oranges. You cannot compare.”

Winn Bryan thinks references to HBCUs in popular culture are also helping lead to increased interest. Netflix recently released a sequel to a show from the late 1980s called A Different World, about a fictional HBCU in Virginia that includes some references to Norfolk State University directly, according to NSU’s spokesperson Stan Donaldson.

Winn Bryan also served as dean of admissions at VSU in the mid-1990s. She remembers the enrollment goal for fall 2001 was at least 1,000 freshmen – which she said was the largest class they’d ever had at that time.

“So to have almost 2,000 new students at Virginia State three decades later is just a phenomenal feat,” Winn Bryan said.

She hopes the increasing attention – and enrollment – will lead to more funding.

“A lot of historically Black colleges and universities have been underfunded, and some very grossly underfunded,” she said. “And it’s not fair.”

Growing pains

Booming enrollment at VSU has also come with some complications about where to house all of the new freshmen and others who want to live on campus.

Brooks-Walter said even with a brand new 450-plus bed freshman hall opening this past August, the housing supply is inadequate. VSU converted two former education buildings that had been slated for demolition into student housing.

She said a few students are staying in hotels off campus until Thanksgiving; when they return to campus in January, they’ll be able to enter housing units from graduating seniors.

She said about 4,200 of the university’s approximately 6,300 students are currently living on campus.

“We still have a waitlist, and we still have a number of students who were unable to get housing this year,” she said.

The university is making other facilities updates, including a new recreation center that’s slated to open in the summer. And, Brooks-Walter said it’s increasing the number of academic advisors and peer mentors.

“All of our freshmen have been assigned a peer tutor and a faculty tutor, as well as an advisor,” she said. “So there are at least three individuals to support them as they matriculate at Virginia State University.”

Johnson and McSwain said they appreciate that support. McSwain said it’s clear that leadership doesn’t want students to fail.

“Your teachers and your academic advisors…they check on you constantly,” McSwain said. “They email you constantly, they ask you to set up appointments constantly.”

Johnson said it’s not just about academics, it’s mental and physical support, too.

“They really care about you, and it shows at Virginia State,” she said.