Quad
Trends by state

Trends by state

Alabama

29 colleges on the site: 14 public, 13 private nonprofit, 2 for-profit. Their undergraduates grew 1% in total since fall 2014, to 145,778 today (25 of 29 Alabama colleges in the panel).

Explore Alabama's colleges

How Alabama's colleges changed

The median Alabama college, fall 2014 to fall 2024, against the national median (dashed) over the same .

Undergraduates

-14%

over 10 years, median college

  • This state
  • National median

Applicants

+81%

over 10 years, median college

  • This state
  • National median

Acceptance rate

+2.9 pts

over 10 years, median college

  • This state
  • National median

Average total cost

-12%

over 10 years, median college

  • This state
  • National median

Public and private

State stories are often public-system stories: a state's publics shrinking while its privates hold, or the reverse.

Public

14 colleges
Undergrads
+1%
Applicants
+131%
Acceptance rate
+2.5 pts
Average cost
-10%

Private nonprofit

10 colleges
Undergrads
-28%
Applicants
+37%
Acceptance rate
+3.2 pts
Average cost
-22%

Where Alabama's first-years come from

Top sending states

  1. Alabama (in-state)56%
  2. GA10%
  3. TN5%
  4. FL5%
  5. TX3%
  6. IL2%
  7. MS2%
  8. CA2%

Public:

20% → 21% (14 colleges)

Private nonprofit:

44% → 37% (13 colleges)

First-years crossing state lines, fall 2024

Inflow
13,619
Outflow
3,288
Net
+10,331

Alabama's colleges enroll 4.1 first-years from other states for every Alabama resident who starts college in another state, among four-year colleges on this site.

Colleges taking the most of the inflow

  1. The University of Alabama35%
  2. Auburn University20%
  3. Alabama A & M University8%
  4. Samford University6%
  5. Tuskegee University5%

One fall, over campus-based colleges only: not that fall, not for-profit, and not a campus that merged or split.

Biggest movers in Alabama

The same as the national lists, restricted to Alabama's colleges.

Applications surged

, fall 2014 to fall 2024

Median college: +62.4% (16 colleges ranked)

  1. 1Jacksonville State University+277.2%2,969 → 11,199
  2. 2University of Alabama in Huntsville+262.6%2,104 → 7,630
  3. 3Auburn University+224.7%16,958 → 55,056
  4. 4Alabama A & M University+136.4%9,901 → 23,406
  5. 5University of South Alabama+131.2%5,614 → 12,982
  6. 6University of Alabama at Birmingham+99.3%5,710 → 11,379
  7. 7University of North Alabama+82.7%2,765 → 5,052
  8. 8The University of Alabama+68.4%33,736 → 56,795
  9. 9Tuskegee University+56.5%7,434 → 11,632
  10. 10Troy University+49.5%6,336 → 9,474

Sources:IPEDS Admissions survey, Fall 2014 to Fall 2024;College Scorecard (enrollment), Fall 2014 to Fall 2024;IPEDS Fall Enrollment survey (distance education), Fall 2014 to Fall 2024About the data(built 2026-10-12; CPI retrieved 2026-10-12)

Top 10 and how it's ranked

Grew the most

, fall 2014 to fall 2024

Median college: −18.7% (21 colleges ranked)

  1. 1Alabama A & M University+45.6%4,206 → 6,124
  2. 2Samford University+38.7%3,033 → 4,206
  3. 3Auburn University+30.7%20,514 → 26,816
  4. 4University of Alabama in Huntsville+20.9%5,451 → 6,591
  5. 5The University of Alabama+11.3%29,851 → 33,227
  6. 6University of North Alabama+5.9%5,485 → 5,811
  7. 7University of Alabama at Birmingham+2.2%11,383 → 11,635
  8. 8Tuskegee University+1.6%2,588 → 2,630

Sources:College Scorecard (enrollment), Fall 2014 to Fall 2024;IPEDS Fall Enrollment survey (distance education), Fall 2014 to Fall 2024About the data(built 2026-10-12; CPI retrieved 2026-10-12)

Top 8 and how it's ranked

Students pay much less

(in 2023–24 dollars), 2013–14 to 2023–24

Median college: −11.8% (21 colleges ranked)

  1. 1Miles College−39.1%$21,863 → $13,313
  2. 2Oakwood University−26.2%$36,876 → $27,206
  3. 3Tuskegee University−24.6%$38,741 → $29,223
  4. 4Jacksonville State University−24.1%$19,656 → $14,921
  5. 5Spring Hill College−19.8%$30,118 → $24,151
  6. 6University of North Alabama−19.7%$17,307 → $13,899
  7. 7University of Montevallo−18.8%$23,962 → $19,464
  8. 8University of West Alabama−18.7%$19,661 → $15,992
  9. 9Faulkner University−18.2%$27,707 → $22,664
  10. 10Huntingdon College−12.1%$27,380 → $24,072

Sources:IPEDS Institutional Characteristics survey, 2013–14 to 2023–24;IPEDS Student Financial Aid survey, 2013–14 to 2023–24;College Scorecard (enrollment), Fall 2013 to Fall 2024;inflation: BLS CPI-U, school-year averagesAbout the data(built 2026-10-12; CPI retrieved 2026-10-12)

Top 10 and how it's ranked

Public research universities

Alabama's public R1 and R2 universities (Carnegie 2025), with their undergraduate change over the same window. No classification in the data means "flagship," so this is simply the state's public research universities.

How this was measured

  • Which colleges. Colleges with 300 or more undergraduates in both fall 2014 and fall 2024: 25 of 29 Alabama colleges. It's a , so colleges entering or leaving the data don't look like change.
  • Average total cost is an academic-year figure, one year behind fall: 2013–14 to 2023–24, after inflation.
  • Out-of-state shares are collected in even-numbered falls only; odd years are gaps, not zeros.
  • Totals and medians both appear because they can diverge: a state's total can fall more (or less) than its median college when its biggest colleges move differently.
  • No policy attribution. This page shows what changed, not why; a state's mix of public, private, and for-profit colleges, and its system policies, aren't broken out as causes.
  • First-years crossing state lines is a single snapshot, fall 2024, over campus-based colleges only: colleges that fall, for-profit colleges, and campuses that merged or split are left out. It's the newest fall the site's per-college home-state tables cover, not this page's ten-year window.

Sources:College Scorecard (enrollment), Fall 2014 to Fall 2024;IPEDS Admissions survey, Fall 2014 to Fall 2024;IPEDS Institutional Characteristics survey, 2014–15 to 2023–24;IPEDS Student Financial Aid survey, 2014–15 to 2023–24;IPEDS Fall Enrollment survey (part C, residence of first-time students), Fall 2014 to Fall 2024;inflation: BLS CPI-U, school-year averagesAbout the data(built 2026-10-12; CPI retrieved 2026-10-12)