As the University continues to grow and expand, more students are choosing to attend school in the middle of the desert instead of Middle America and other parts of the country.
For the past 10 years, ASU's freshman class has typically been about 75 percent Arizona residents and 25 percent nonresidents, according to the University Office of Institutional Analysis.
"The split this year between in-state students and out-of-state students is along the lines of 65 percent to 35 percent for incoming freshmen," said Martha Byrd, dean of Undergraduate Admissions.
More people are seeing ASU as a reputable institution, she added.
"We're advancing our research opportunities and student resources," Byrd said. "[The University] projects that by the year 2021, we will get to be about 90,000 students, as we want to grow more in our other campuses," Byrd said.
While ASU expects to see booming numbers of nonresidents in the future, it's not the only state university that anticipates growing numbers of out-of-state students.
NAU has also been growing in the past few years. In 2005 about 28 percent of incoming freshman came from another state, according to the Office of Planning and Institutional Research.
In 2004 the number was slightly higher, at about 29 percent, but that year marked a significant increase over previous years.
There are numerous reasons for students moving away from the East and Midwest to the western states, said David Bousquet, NAU's vice president for Enrollment Management and Student Affairs.
"Students want a significant climate change," Bousquet said. "Students nowadays are more adventurous with their college choices, which is why a lot of them apply to Arizona schools."
This explains why students oftentimes ditch the comfort of home to go 300 miles south of where they grew up, he added. Then there's the added effort on the part of the universities.
"[NAU] is seeing increasing numbers of out-of-state students, mainly because the school is spending more time recruiting these students," he said.
In contrast, the number of out-of-state students at the University of Arizona has remained steady for the past 10 years with around 35 percent of their incoming freshmen coming from outside of Arizona.
Journalism sophomore Jamie Manning, a resident of Orange County, Calif., chose ASU over a California school due to the crowding and impersonal feel of those colleges.
"All of the California schools are really impacted [by the number of students]," Manning said.
It's harder to graduate in four years, because it's difficult for students to get the classes they need, Manning said.
"I really like ASU because it is so different, but it still feels like home," she said.
Reach the reporter at: amanda.chan@asu.edu.
