Kylie McGovern, Editor 

On Sept. 11, La Salle University announced that enrollment increased by 13% over the last year. 996 new explorers joined our campus community. 92 of these students have parents or grandparents who have previously attended La Salle, but on the other hand 2/5ths incoming students are first-generation college students. Furthermore, more than 50% of students are people of color. La Salle keeps up with its traditions being one of the most diverse universities in Philadelphia with these statistics. 

This increase is the first since 2018. According to CNBC, the pandemic has made college enrollment decline, so this increase in enrollment here at 20th and Olney is going against current trends. In addition to being a larger class, this year’s incoming class has better academic stats than years previous because they have a higher median GPA and honors program enrollment increased by 25%. Furthermore, the nursing program increased the enrollment of first-year students by 40% and the 4-year B.S./MBA program in Accounting doubled the size of its first-year enrollment.

According to U.S. News, there is a valid reason La Salle’s enrollment is increasing as they rank La Salle University in the top half of national universities overall. La Salle is ranked No. 202 among institutions that are identified as national institutions, which are the top-half of all institutions ranked. In addition, U.S. News also ranked No. 1 among Lasallian national institutions in the U.S. In addition, U.S. News ranked La Salle as the third-most diverse national university in Pennsylvania. 

In addition, La Salle’s esteemed speech-language pathology program presented a 100% pass rate on the Praxis test, which is the national certification exam for speech-language pathologists. This passage rate is just a testament to the success of students once they are at La Salle. 

Editor’s Note: As I was writing this article, I became very proud of La Salle. As a journalist, I have to be skeptical and look at things from an unbiased lens. But, as I read these statistics and write this article I felt true pride and honor to be an explorer. This is an institution that wants wants what is best for its students and I know that La Salle, like many other institutions has had their struggles, but higher enrollment and high passage rates can only bring good things for La Salle and I am excited to hear this news about increasing enrollment and high passage rate on the Praxis.