Trends in Student Enrollments

Last Updated
05/17/2025
Description
Student enrollments in majors, named options, certificates, and doctoral minors awarded by UW-Madison can be disaggregated by degree level, school/college, department, and major for all terms since summer 2000 in which data is available. Student demographic information is provided, including gender, full-time/part-time status, residency status, federal racial/ethnic category, international status, and term admit type.
Report URL
https://viz.wisc.edu/#/views/TrendsinStudentEnrollments/HomePage
Data Cookbook URL (requires authorization)
https://uwmadison.datacookbook.com/institution/reports/17312/versions/79090
Data Domain(s)
Student Record
Access Restrictions
Publicly Available
Data Source Information
InfoAccess
Data View Information
UW.FROZEN_ENROLLMENT and associated for enrollments. UW.STDNT_ETHNIC_REPORTING for race/ethnicity. DM.ACAD_STRUCTURE and associated for current plans. UW.FROZEN_ACAD_PLAN_ATTRIBUTES and associated for historical plans.
Responsible Office
Data, Academic Planning & Institutional Research
Important Notes
All dashboards within this visualization provide a count of unique students within the selected population. As a result, students enrolled in more than one of the selected majors will be counted only once. This may result in apparent differences between the number of students reported when selecting a set of majors one at a time and when selecting the same majors all at once. For a given major, all dashboards within this visualization display data only for terms when: (1) the major was active; and b) students were eligible to enroll in the major; or (2) students were enrolled in the major. Terms when a major met the criteria in (1) but had no enrollments display with zero enrollments, while terms when the major did not meet the criteria in either (1) or (2) are not displayed. This specification relies on 'frozen' tables that take a data snap-shot at a specific time. In this 'frozen' data source, data on enrollments in Named Options was first collected beginning in Fall 2015 and data on enrollment in Certificates was first collected in Spring 2008. As a result, for these topics data from terms prior to this are not displayed in this visualization.

Definitions

Name	Functional Definition	Data Domains
Academic Level	Indicates whether a student is an undergraduate, graduate or professional, or special student. For undergraduates, students are freshman, sophomore, junior, or senior based on accumulated credits, not the duration of time at the University.	University of Wisconsin - Madison
Certificate-Seeking Students	The subset of enrolled students pursuing a course of study that leads to an undergraduate certificate, a capstone certificate, or a graduate or professional certificate. A certificate-seeking student may or may not also be a degree-seeking student.	University of Wisconsin - Madison
Degree Level of Major	Indicates, for degree-seeking students, whether the student's course of study leads to a bachelor's degree, master's degree, research doctorate, or clinical doctorate.	University of Wisconsin - Madison
Degree-Seeking Students	The subset of enrolled students pursuing a course of study that leads to a degree. A degree-seeking student may or may not also be a certificate-seeking student.	University of Wisconsin - Madison
Department of Certificate	The department that has ownership of the certificate.	University of Wisconsin - Madison
Department of Major	The department that has ownership of the major, or pre-major. In cases where no major is declared, "School/College of Student" is displayed.	University of Wisconsin - Madison
Full-Time/Part-Time Student Status	Full-time/part-time student status is based on credit load and varies by course of study. Undergraduate and special students are full-time if they are enrolled in 12 or more credits; part-time if they are enrolled in fewer than 12 credits. Most master's and research doctorate students are full-time if they are enrolled in 8 or more credits; part-time if they are enrolled in fewer than 8 credits.	University of Wisconsin - Madison
International Students	Non-immigrant visitors who come to the United States temporarily to take classes.	University of Wisconsin - Madison
Legal Sex	A person's biological or reassigned sex as printed on legal documents. Categories include Female (F), Male (M), Another Legal Sex (X), undisclosed (U). Definition provided by the Data Guidelines for Legal Sex and Gender, endorsed by the Data Governance Council Feb 20, 2024 and published at https://uwmadison.box.com/s/8m8ibkv81kxbmkl5ijafbpkm2onicnms	University of Wisconsin - Madison
Male/Female	A binary "Male" or "Female" gender, based on what the individual has reported to the University.	University of Wisconsin - Madison
Named Option	A named option is a formally documented sub-major within an academic major program.	Academic Planning, Student Record
School/College of Certificate	The school/college that has ownership of the certificate.	University of Wisconsin - Madison
School/College of Major	Indicates the school/college that has ownership of the major.	Academic Planning, Student Record
School/College of Student	The student's primary school/college. Some students have a second major or pursue a certificate in another school/college.	University of Wisconsin - Madison
Student	Any person who is enrolled for study at UW-Madison for a specified academic period.	Student Record
Term	A period of instruction: Fall, Spring, or Summer.	University of Wisconsin - Madison
Term Admit Type	Indicates whether a student is a continuing, readmitted, reentry/transfer, new freshman, new transfer, or other new student in that term, except students who start as new freshmen in summer are shown as new freshmen in the following fall too, if enrolled.	University of Wisconsin - Madison
Tuition Residency	The residency status of a student for tuition purposes. Some non-resident students from Minnesota ("Minnesota Compact" students) pay tuition based on a legal agreement between the states of Wisconsin and Minnesota.	University of Wisconsin - Madison