At Pittsburgh-area PASSHE schools, IUP, Slippery Rock see enrollment gains while PennWest stabilizes

Indiana University of Pennsylvania on Monday released details about its fall 2025 enrollment numbers, and while the university has seen growth in terms of pure numbers, it’s eyeing another metric as an indicator of success.

IUP touted “record-breaking retention” for new, first-time bachelor’s degree seeking students this semester.

The retention rate for those students who entered in fall 2024 and returned in fall 2025 was 78.2%, a 3% increase over the fall 2023-fall 2024 retention rate, IUP said. It’s the second straight year that the school has seen growth in this area — in fall 2024, IUP had seen a 4% retention increase, meaning that over the course of the past two years, retention of new, first-time, full-time bachelor’s degree seekers has increased by 7%.