Texas A&M will limit undergraduate enrollment growth for the next 5-7 years and implement several changes aimed at “right-sizing” campus, President Mark A. Welsh III announced Thursday. The decision comes months after a university committee made several recommendations to Welsh based on two surveys conducted last year.

“We must right-size our university in the near-term to ensure we maintain an incredible education and experience for our students over the long-term,” Welsh said in the email distributed to students, staff and faculty. 

The enrollment growth pause will limit new undergraduate enrollments at the main campus to 15,000 annually — 11,750 freshmen and 3,250 transfer students — and won’t affect graduate or online programs, Welsh said. The limit gives A&M time to build the infrastructure and capacity necessary to properly accommodate students, including an additional 2,500 beds worth of on-campus housing. In Fall 2024, the College Station campus had 57,659 undergraduate students enrolled, a 33% increase over the past decade. 

“We will also develop a 10-year enrollment forecast to plan further into the future,” Welsh said. “I plan to discuss our recommended plans for enrollment with The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents in the near future.”

Other initiatives include:

• Purchasing an additional 8-10 busses
• Developing a plan to separate pedestrian traffic from wheeled devices like bikes and scooters
• Investing up to $3 million annually for new faculty salaries and benefits over the next five years

Welsh said the university will also create a West Campus development plan to review “additional on-campus housing, dining, recreational spaces, study spaces, parking, classroom spaces and faculty offices.” The decisions come after a committee provided Welsh with a list of recommendations last year based on two university-wide surveys: the Student Experience Study and Capacity Study. The university deadline to implement the first several decisions across campus, including the undergraduate enrollment cap, is Feb. 1.