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ATLANTA—Georgia State University has set a record for enrolling its largest first-year class ever.
More than 5,600 first-year students entered the Atlanta Campus this week as the largest, most qualified and most diverse first-year class since the institution’s founding. The previous record was set last year with more than 5,200 first-year students.
Georgia State’s Perimeter College enrolled more than 5,400 new students this fall, including 2,400 first-year students. The university received more than 23,000 applications for the 2021 school year, also a record.
“Georgia State continues to attract record numbers of ambitious, determined, hard-working students because of our commitment to helping them achieve their goals,” said Allison Calhoun-Brown, senior vice president for student success at Georgia State. “Not only are we the No. 1 public university for undergraduate teaching in the U.S., we offer unsurpassed access to the opportunities of being in a world-class city like Atlanta. We’re not just enrolling students. We’re making sure they graduate ready for what comes next.”
Students returning to campus this fall are finding a new outdoor focal point in downtown this semester, the greenway at the heart of the Atlanta Campus. A paved and lighted path surrounded by lush lawns, the greenway reimagines the space where part of the university’s Library Plaza and Kell Hall building once stood.
Completed over the summer, the greenway provides students, faculty, staff and visitors a new way to move through campus and a new place to stop to study, socialize or relax.
As Georgia State welcomes new and returning students, it’s also welcoming a new leader. President M. Brian Blake began his tenure as the eighth president of the university this month, succeeding former President Mark Becker, who led Georgia State for 12 years during the university’s most dynamic period of growth and development yet.
Blake, a Georgia native, computer scientist and software engineer, was formerly the executive vice president for academic affairs and provost at George Washington University.
