The growth of the Vaquero community

UTRGV continues to expand with record-breaking enrollment

UTRGV hit a record enrollment of 34,194 students as of the Fall 2024 Census Day Sept. 11, according to a university official. 

Census Day, the 12th class day, is when universities take a snapshot of current enrollment and send it to the state for reporting, to receive an official report later.

Magdalena Hinojosa, senior vice president for Strategic Enrollment and Student Affairs, said there are 29,452 undergraduates, 4,439 graduate students and 303 School of Medicine students.

“At this point in time, when you’re comparing Census Day numbers, though, we’re 6.6% above last year,” Hinojosa said.

She said for undergraduate students there are 8,845 freshmen, 5,281 sophomores, 6,667 juniors and 8,093 seniors. There are also 566 postbaccalaureate students.

“So, I will tell you that I was surprised at our number of entering freshmen, which obviously has impacted the overall number,” Hinojosa said. 

She said the university has a projection goal and a stretch goal for enrollment and uses orientations to measure the incoming freshman numbers.

“So, what we do is we open a certain number of orientations at a time,” she said. “And as they fill up, then we open more. We had to open our July-August orientations much earlier than we ever do. And so, by that early June timeframe, it was like we’re going to hit that 6,000, that 6,200.”

Hinojosa said regional public institutions struggle with bringing in students from its own regions.

“I really feel this sense of us turning this transformational corner of us being looked at as UTRGV, as a top-notch university where you can get your degree, you can get your experience that our students deserve,” she said.

The senior vice president said with the increase in enrollment comes an increase in classes and space.

“I know as orientations were coming on, Academic Affairs, in particular Dr. Jonikka Charlton with Student Success, was working very closely with our colleges to open more classes up,” she said. 

Integrated health science sophomore Kassandra Melendez said she enjoys seeing the university grow and looks for further improvements, especially parking.

“More students coming into university is a really good thing … even though it was a little annoying for some people on the first day,” Melendez said. “It was really packed and the parking spaces–we’re going to need more of those, for sure. But, either way, it’s a good thing that more people are enrolling.”

Pablo Aguilar, director of Parking Services, said students can use the remote parking lots available to students.

The Rider asked Aguilar whether the university is going to expand parking.

“I’m not sure about this semester, but we’re consistently looking at opportunities to expand our presence to offer students the best and most convenient way of doing their parking and transportation at the university,” he said.

Aguilar said students also have access to VOLT electric carts that provide transportation from remote parking lots.“[The VOLT service] would take you as close as you possibly can to your building or somewhere in that area,” he said.