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Trends by state

Trends by state

West Virginia

18 colleges on the site: 10 public, 6 private nonprofit, 2 for-profit. Their undergraduates fell 21% in total since fall 2014, to 43,009 today (16 of 18 West Virginia colleges in the panel).

Explore West Virginia's colleges

How West Virginia's colleges changed

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

Undergraduates

-26%

over 10 years, median college

  • This state
  • National median

Applicants

+9%

over 10 years, median college

  • This state
  • National median

Acceptance rate

+12.7 pts

over 10 years, median college

  • This state
  • National median

Average total cost

-8%

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

10 colleges
Undergrads
-31%
Applicants
+20%
Acceptance rate
+19.2 pts
Average cost
-5%

Private nonprofit

5 colleges

Where West Virginia's first-years come from

Top sending states

  1. West Virginia (in-state)59%
  2. PA10%
  3. OH7%
  4. VA6%
  5. MD5%
  6. NJ3%
  7. NY2%
  8. FL1%

Public:

22% → 29% (10 colleges)

Private nonprofit:

48% → 47% (6 colleges)

First-years crossing state lines, fall 2024

Inflow
4,071
Outflow
1,142
Net
+2,929

West Virginia's colleges enroll 3.6 first-years from other states for every West Virginia resident who starts college in another state, among four-year colleges on this site.

Colleges taking the most of the inflow

  1. West Virginia University59%
  2. Marshall University10%
  3. West Liberty University4%
  4. Bethany College4%
  5. Shepherd 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 West Virginia

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

Applications surged

, fall 2014 to fall 2024

Median college: +20.0% (3 colleges ranked)

  1. 1Marshall University+138.1%2,863 → 6,816
  2. 2West Virginia University+20.0%15,604 → 18,729

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 2 and how it's ranked

Grew the most

, fall 2014 to fall 2024

Median college: −31.2% (12 colleges ranked)

No college moved this way over the window.

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 0 and how it's ranked

Students pay much less

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

Median college: −6.7% (12 colleges ranked)

  1. 1Glenville State University−23.8%$22,002 → $16,756
  2. 2Shepherd University−18.4%$22,435 → $18,299
  3. 3Marshall University−17.0%$17,964 → $14,904
  4. 4West Virginia Wesleyan College−14.8%$23,935 → $20,389
  5. 5University of Charleston−9.2%$25,652 → $23,305
  6. 6Wheeling University−7.1%$25,458 → $23,640
  7. 7West Liberty University−6.2%$22,786 → $21,374
  8. 8Fairmont State University−5.5%$17,360 → $16,407

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 8 and how it's ranked

Public research universities

West 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: 16 of 18 West 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)