Quad
Trends by state

Trends by state

Michigan

46 colleges on the site: 15 public, 29 private nonprofit, 2 for-profit. Their undergraduates fell 18% in total since fall 2014, to 231,227 today (40 of 46 Michigan colleges in the panel).

Explore Michigan's colleges

How Michigan's colleges changed

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

Undergraduates

-19%

over 10 years, median college

  • This state
  • National median

Applicants

+50%

over 10 years, median college

  • This state
  • National median

Acceptance rate

+5.7 pts

over 10 years, median college

  • This state
  • National median

Average total cost

-16%

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

15 colleges
Undergrads
-25%
Applicants
+76%
Acceptance rate
+7.3 pts
Average cost
-14%

Private nonprofit

25 colleges
Undergrads
-19%
Applicants
+26%
Acceptance rate
+5.7 pts
Average cost
-16%

Where Michigan's first-years come from

Top sending states

  1. Michigan (in-state)81%
  2. IL4%
  3. OH2%
  4. NY1%
  5. CA1%
  6. TX1%
  7. IN1%
  8. WI1%

Public:

7% → 8% (15 colleges)

Private nonprofit:

12% → 16% (29 colleges)

First-years crossing state lines, fall 2024

Inflow
9,020
Outflow
7,041
Net
+1,979

Michigan's colleges enroll 1.3 first-years from other states for every Michigan resident who starts college in another state, among four-year colleges on this site.

Colleges taking the most of the inflow

  1. University of Michigan-Ann Arbor34%
  2. Michigan State University21%
  3. Western Michigan University6%
  4. Northern Michigan University4%
  5. Michigan Technological University4%

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

Biggest movers in Michigan

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

Applications surged

, fall 2014 to fall 2024

Median college: +54.9% (27 colleges ranked)

  1. 1University of Michigan-Flint+275.7%3,160 → 11,873
  2. 2University of Michigan-Dearborn+171.3%5,199 → 14,105
  3. 3Michigan Technological University+124.8%5,111 → 11,491
  4. 4Alma College+122.8%2,338 → 5,208
  5. 5University of Michigan-Ann Arbor+97.5%49,776 → 98,310
  6. 6Saginaw Valley State University+88.6%6,266 → 11,816
  7. 7Michigan State University+87.1%33,211 → 62,138
  8. 8University of Detroit Mercy+82.1%3,578 → 6,514
  9. 9Northern Michigan University+78.4%6,841 → 12,204
  10. 10Eastern Michigan University+72.6%12,360 → 21,337

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: −25.1% (34 colleges ranked)

  1. 1University of Michigan-Ann Arbor+21.1%28,217 → 34,177
  2. 2Michigan Technological University+6.8%5,576 → 5,955
  3. 3Michigan State University+6.6%38,395 → 40,922
  4. 4Hillsdale College+5.9%1,485 (fall 2015) → 1,573
  5. 5Albion College+4.1%1,249 → 1,300
  6. 6Adrian College+2.2%1,570 → 1,604

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 6 and how it's ranked

Students pay much less

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

Median college: −16.3% (33 colleges ranked)

  1. 1Albion College−49.0%$32,968 → $16,818
  2. 2Ferris State University−40.9%$19,956 → $11,793
  3. 3University of Detroit Mercy−36.8%$35,030 → $22,157
  4. 4Saginaw Valley State University−34.0%$20,468 → $13,505
  5. 5University of Michigan-Flint−28.9%$25,579 → $18,193
  6. 6The University of Olivet−26.8%$28,793 → $21,070
  7. 7Calvin University−25.9%$34,863 → $25,837
  8. 8Siena Heights University−25.1%$25,835 → $19,364
  9. 9Kalamazoo College−21.5%$34,843 → $27,341
  10. 10Aquinas College−21.3%$25,643 → $20,175

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

Michigan'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: 40 of 46 Michigan 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)