While the school’s name may be the University of Oklahoma, a majority of OU freshmen this year are not Oklahomans.

In recent years, nonresident students—those from other states or countries—have represented almost half of entering freshmen at OU. But in Fall 2024, the scales tipped and nonresident students became an outright majority of the entering freshman class.

OU’s status as a state school that serves mostly out-of-state students in its freshman class is unusual among comparable universities in the region. While all schools have nonresident students, it appears most major colleges in the area have a student body composed mostly of in-state students.

In a statement, an OU spokesman said the school remains committed to serving Oklahomans while welcoming students from across the country.

“This semester, for the fourth consecutive year, we welcomed the largest freshman class in our 134-year history, including more Oklahoma residents than ever before, underscoring our commitment to serving the state’s K-12 graduates,” OU’s statement declared. “At the same time, growing interest from students across the nation reflects the increasing recognition of OU’s excellence and the affordability and value of an OU degree.”

An analysis of OU freshmen released by the university in September showed that 47.8 percent of first-time freshmen at OU are from Oklahoma, while 49.7 percent of freshmen students are from other states and 2.6 percent are international students.

That represents a significant shift in the composition of the OU student body over the last decade.

According to the school’s analysis, nearly 57 percent of OU freshmen were Oklahomans in 2014.

In 2014, there were 4,176 first-time freshmen who enrolled at OU. By 2024, that number had increased to 5,593. But of the 1,417 students added to overall total first-time freshmen enrollment during that time, 1,034 students were nonresidents. That means nearly three out of every four students generating enrollment growth over the last decade at OU are nonresident students who did not graduate from an Oklahoma K-12 school.

That trend does not appear typical at other universities in the region, based on publicly available information.

According to data posted by Oklahoma State University, 61 percent of the 5,030 freshmen who enrolled in Fall 2024 were Oklahoma students, while 38 percent were from other states and the remainder came from other countries.

That was only a modest change from fall 2014, when just under 66 percent of OSU freshmen were Oklahoma students.

At the University of Texas, roughly four out of every five students were from the state of Texas in 2023, the most recent year for which data has been made available.

At the University of Kansas, school officials report that 55 percent of first-time freshmen in Fall 2024 were from the state of Kansas.

At the University of Colorado, 68 percent of students were from in-state in the 2023-2024 school year.

The University of Arkansas was an exception. Like OU, the majority of students at the University of Arkansas now come from outside the state with just 49.1 percent of students arriving to the university from Arkansas’ K-12 system.

The University of Missouri does not include data on the percentage of resident students at the school in its public database.

Students from 44 other states are members of the 2024-2025 OU freshman class, but enrollees from Texas represent the vast majority of nonresident students with the second-largest contingent coming from California.

Non-Oklahomans are cash cows for OU

As a larger and larger share of students come to OU from out of state, the school enjoys a larger infusion of revenue.

At a presentation to the University of Oklahoma Board of Regents at that group’s November meeting, first reported by the online news site NonDoc, OU officials reported that in Fall 2024 OU received net tuition revenue of $1,130 per resident freshman from students who are residents of Oklahoma, compared to net tuition revenue of $6,313 for nonresident freshmen students.

The presentation called net tuition revenue “the most important revenue source supporting the University’s central budget.”

The presentation also stated that net tuition revenue per freshman had increased in Fall 2024 “for both residents and non-residents, as the waiver/discount rate declined for both populations.” One slide from the presentation stated that net tuition revenue per freshman had increased, in part, because of the increase in “the nonresident portion of first-time freshmen.”

 

The university’s unrestricted cash increased from $304 million in September 2023 to $387 million in September 2024 due to “increased state funding and growth in overall enrollment” with officials noting that an increase in nonresident enrollment played a part in that revenue trend.

The presentation to the regents repeatedly stressed the importance of nonresident enrollment to OU’s financial standing.

A discussion of enrollment trends from Fall 2015 to Fall 2024 bluntly noted, “Undergraduate growth over the periods presented has been driven by growth in nonresident enrollment. Resident enrollment remained relatively flat, although increasing the last two years.”

The document noted that first-time freshmen growth from 2015 to 2024 “has been driven by nonresident enrollment,” which the document stated had surged 64 percent during that time. During that decade, the number of nonresident OU freshmen had increased by 1,107 students compared to an increase of only 286 Oklahoma students, according to the slide presentation.

Yet, even as OU enjoys the substantially higher tuition payments that come with having an ever-growing share of students from other states, the university continues to request an ever-larger subsidy from Oklahoma taxpayers through increased state appropriations.

In a statement to the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs for this story, OU officials said the school has reduced annual tuition and fees for Oklahoma residents in recent years, increased need-based aid, and raised the number of scholarships awarded. The school has also generated $140 million in annual savings through operating efficiencies, the statement noted.

[For more stories about higher education in Oklahoma, visit AimHigherOK.com.]