Quad
Trends by state

Trends by state

Virginia

53 colleges on the site: 15 public, 28 private nonprofit, 10 for-profit. Their undergraduates grew 3% in total since fall 2014, to 260,587 today (42 of 53 Virginia colleges in the panel).

Explore Virginia's colleges

How Virginia's colleges changed

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

Undergraduates

-7%

over 10 years, median college

  • This state
  • National median

Applicants

+42%

over 10 years, median college

  • This state
  • National median

Acceptance rate

+9.9 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

15 colleges
Undergrads
-7%
Applicants
+52%
Acceptance rate
+8.6 pts
Average cost
-8%

Private nonprofit

25 colleges
Undergrads
-8%
Applicants
+37%
Acceptance rate
+11.5 pts
Average cost
-19%

Where Virginia's first-years come from

Top sending states

  1. Virginia (in-state)67%
  2. MD4%
  3. NC3%
  4. PA3%
  5. NJ3%
  6. NY3%
  7. TX2%
  8. FL1%

Public:

12% → 14% (15 colleges)

Private nonprofit:

42% → 36% (28 colleges)

First-years crossing state lines, fall 2024

Inflow
11,610
Outflow
13,570
Net
-1,960

Virginia's colleges enroll 0.9 first-years from other states for every Virginia resident who starts college in another state, among four-year colleges on this site.

Colleges taking the most of the inflow

  1. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University21%
  2. James Madison University13%
  3. University of Virginia-Main Campus10%
  4. Hampton University8%
  5. University of Richmond6%

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

Biggest movers in Virginia

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

Applications surged

, fall 2014 to fall 2024

Median college: +22.3% (25 colleges ranked)

  1. 1Norfolk State University+299.3%2,817 → 11,247
  2. 2Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University+153.1%20,744 → 52,498
  3. 3Virginia State University+98.8%5,923 → 11,775
  4. 4University of Virginia-Main Campus+90.0%31,021 → 58,951
  5. 5Virginia Wesleyan University+83.8%2,072 → 3,808
  6. 6James Madison University+70.4%22,550 → 38,428
  7. 7Old Dominion University+64.8%9,161 → 15,100
  8. 8University of Richmond+62.8%9,921 → 16,152
  9. 9Virginia Commonwealth University+52.3%13,758 → 20,954
  10. 10Radford University+41.7%7,737 → 10,960

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: −10.6% (30 colleges ranked)

  1. 1George Mason University+28.0%21,678 → 27,752
  2. 2Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University+27.8%24,191 → 30,923
  3. 3Randolph-Macon College+19.0%1,377 → 1,639
  4. 4University of Virginia-Main Campus+13.4%15,515 → 17,597
  5. 5Virginia State University+13.2%4,481 → 5,074
  6. 6Shenandoah University+12.9%1,875 → 2,116
  7. 7William & Mary+12.8%6,256 → 7,055
  8. 8James Madison University+11.7%18,697 → 20,888
  9. 9Hampton University+7.8%3,456 → 3,727
  10. 10Norfolk State University+2.0%5,284 → 5,392

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: −11.5% (32 colleges ranked)

  1. 1Bridgewater College−52.1%$26,645 → $12,757
  2. 2Virginia Union University−48.3%$27,251 → $14,082
  3. 3Roanoke College−32.3%$40,163 → $27,202
  4. 4Virginia Wesleyan University−30.6%$33,359 → $23,150
  5. 5Shenandoah University−29.3%$38,420 → $27,181
  6. 6Hampden-Sydney College−26.0%$38,901 → $28,778
  7. 7Mary Baldwin University−24.0%$24,948 → $18,964
  8. 8University of Mary Washington−21.4%$30,806 → $24,216
  9. 9University of Lynchburg−20.1%$31,705 → $25,349
  10. 10Virginia Military Institute−19.6%$34,189 → $27,507

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

Virginia'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: 42 of 53 Virginia 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)