Quad
Trends by state

Trends by state

Ohio

77 colleges on the site: 20 public, 53 private nonprofit, 4 for-profit. Their undergraduates fell 12% in total since fall 2014, to 278,396 today (63 of 77 Ohio colleges in the panel).

Explore Ohio's colleges

How Ohio's colleges changed

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

Undergraduates

-18%

over 10 years, median college

  • This state
  • National median

Applicants

+37%

over 10 years, median college

  • This state
  • National median

Acceptance rate

+4.4 pts

over 10 years, median college

  • This state
  • National median

Average total cost

-14%

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

19 colleges
Undergrads
-26%
Applicants
+53%
Acceptance rate
+7.6 pts
Average cost
-13%

Private nonprofit

44 colleges
Undergrads
-16%
Applicants
+35%
Acceptance rate
+3.8 pts
Average cost
-15%

Where Ohio's first-years come from

Top sending states

  1. Ohio (in-state)74%
  2. PA3%
  3. IL3%
  4. MI2%
  5. IN2%
  6. NY2%
  7. KY2%
  8. NJ1%

Public:

8% → 11% (20 colleges)

Private nonprofit:

26% → 25% (53 colleges)

First-years crossing state lines, fall 2024

Inflow
15,878
Outflow
10,650
Net
+5,228

Ohio's colleges enroll 1.5 first-years from other states for every Ohio resident who starts college in another state, among four-year colleges on this site.

Colleges taking the most of the inflow

  1. Ohio State University-Main Campus17%
  2. Miami University-Oxford9%
  3. University of Cincinnati-Main Campus9%
  4. Case Western Reserve University8%
  5. University of Dayton4%

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

Biggest movers in Ohio

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

Applications surged

, fall 2014 to fall 2024

Median college: +35.7% (37 colleges ranked)

  1. 1Denison University+236.0%4,468 → 15,012
  2. 2Cleveland State University+120.9%5,002 → 11,050
  3. 3University of Cincinnati-Main Campus+105.4%16,689 → 34,285
  4. 4Ohio State University-Main Campus+98.0%36,788 → 72,829
  5. 5Youngstown State University+94.7%3,784 → 7,368
  6. 6Cedarville University+76.4%3,003 → 5,298
  7. 7Case Western Reserve University+70.6%21,733 → 37,082
  8. 8Wright State University-Main Campus+59.3%5,560 (fall 2015) → 8,855
  9. 9Miami University-Oxford+56.4%25,301 → 39,580
  10. 10Ohio Wesleyan University+54.3%3,981 → 6,144

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: −20.0% (50 colleges ranked)

  1. 1Central State University+51.6%1,728 → 2,620
  2. 2Franciscan University of Steubenville+40.5%2,065 → 2,901
  3. 3Case Western Reserve University+33.9%4,807 → 6,437
  4. 4Cedarville University+30.6%3,082 → 4,024
  5. 5University of Cincinnati-Main Campus+25.6%23,795 → 29,882
  6. 6Ohio Northern University+11.4%2,234 → 2,489
  7. 7Miami University-Oxford+7.8%15,454 → 16,656
  8. 8Denison University+5.1%2,265 → 2,380
  9. 9Kenyon College+4.9%1,651 → 1,732
  10. 10Ohio State University-Main Campus+4.4%43,733 → 45,638

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 10 and how it's ranked

Students pay much less

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

Median college: −13.6% (45 colleges ranked)

  1. 1Ohio Wesleyan University−38.9%$39,102 → $23,902
  2. 2Ohio Christian University−37.3%$35,544 → $22,293
  3. 3Otterbein University−31.7%$36,035 → $24,616
  4. 4University of Akron Main Campus−30.6%$26,197 → $18,189
  5. 5Wittenberg University−30.5%$35,830 → $24,898
  6. 6Franciscan University of Steubenville−30.3%$34,365 → $23,948
  7. 7Marietta College−28.0%$32,340 → $23,294
  8. 8Hiram College−24.9%$30,127 → $22,634
  9. 9The College of Wooster−24.5%$37,271 → $28,128
  10. 10Heidelberg University−24.2%$27,661 → $20,965

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

Ohio'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: 63 of 77 Ohio 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)