Quad
Trends by state

Trends by state

Pennsylvania

117 colleges on the site: 37 public, 79 private nonprofit, 1 for-profit. Their undergraduates fell 11% in total since fall 2014, to 332,207 today (107 of 117 Pennsylvania colleges in the panel).

Explore Pennsylvania's colleges

How Pennsylvania's colleges changed

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

Undergraduates

-17%

over 10 years, median college

  • This state
  • National median

No point for fall 2019 to fall 2021: fewer than 90% of this state's colleges reported.

Applicants

+42%

over 10 years, median college

  • This state
  • National median

No point for fall 2019 to fall 2021: fewer than 90% of this state's colleges reported.

Acceptance rate

+8.5 pts

over 10 years, median college

  • This state
  • National median

No point for fall 2019 to fall 2021: fewer than 90% of this state's colleges reported.

Average total cost

-15%

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

34 colleges
Undergrads
-27%
Applicants
+33%
Acceptance rate
+14.1 pts
Average cost
-17%

Private nonprofit

72 colleges
Undergrads
-11%
Applicants
+48%
Acceptance rate
+1.8 pts
Average cost
-14%

Where Pennsylvania's first-years come from

Top sending states

  1. Pennsylvania (in-state)63%
  2. NJ9%
  3. NY6%
  4. MD4%
  5. VA2%
  6. CA2%
  7. MA1%
  8. OH1%

Public:

12% → 14% (37 colleges)

Private nonprofit:

37% → 36% (79 colleges)

First-years crossing state lines, fall 2024

Inflow
28,462
Outflow
17,839
Net
+10,623

Pennsylvania's colleges enroll 1.6 first-years from other states for every Pennsylvania resident who starts college in another state, among four-year colleges on this site.

Colleges taking the most of the inflow

  1. Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus13%
  2. Temple University6%
  3. University of Pennsylvania6%
  4. University of Pittsburgh-Pittsburgh Campus5%
  5. Villanova 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 Pennsylvania

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

Applications surged

, fall 2014 to fall 2024

Median college: +36.7% (61 colleges ranked)

  1. 1Pennsylvania State University-Penn State Harrisburg+173.7%3,404 → 9,316
  2. 2Wilkes University+172.4%2,812 → 7,660
  3. 3Pennsylvania State University-Penn State Berks+151.5%2,398 → 6,030
  4. 4Swarthmore College+135.8%5,540 → 13,065
  5. 5Haverford College+110.0%3,496 → 7,341
  6. 6Marywood University+100.7%2,111 → 4,236
  7. 7University of Pittsburgh-Pittsburgh Campus+98.8%30,629 → 60,898
  8. 8Duquesne University+97.3%6,534 → 12,893
  9. 9Misericordia University+82.1%2,050 → 3,733
  10. 10University of Pennsylvania+81.9%35,866 → 65,226

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: −15.6% (84 colleges ranked)

  1. 1Holy Family University+37.1%1,797 → 2,464
  2. 2Carnegie Mellon University+25.5%5,819 → 7,304
  3. 3Moravian University+24.6%1,564 → 1,949
  4. 4Haverford College+20.5%1,187 → 1,430
  5. 5Lancaster Bible College+17.4%1,336 → 1,569
  6. 6Lehigh University+17.2%5,034 → 5,898
  7. 7Pennsylvania State University-Penn State Harrisburg+12.1%3,595 → 4,031
  8. 8Lafayette College+11.6%2,471 → 2,757
  9. 9University of Pittsburgh-Pittsburgh Campus+10.3%18,474 → 20,370
  10. 10Bucknell University+9.9%3,528 → 3,876

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: −14.7% (81 colleges ranked)

  1. 1Immaculata University−39.1%$43,985 → $26,778
  2. 2La Salle University−38.9%$36,965 → $22,577
  3. 3Gettysburg College−38.2%$54,977 → $33,992
  4. 4Washington & Jefferson College−34.9%$37,064 → $24,143
  5. 5Indiana University of Pennsylvania−33.2%$27,684 → $18,506
  6. 6Saint Joseph's University - Philadelphia−30.8%$47,175 → $32,636
  7. 7Widener University−28.6%$40,411 → $28,858
  8. 8Muhlenberg College−28.5%$49,955 → $35,698
  9. 9Dickinson College−26.3%$54,769 → $40,358
  10. 10Allegheny College−26.2%$36,946 → $27,269

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

Pennsylvania'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: 107 of 117 Pennsylvania 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)