42,000 students—That's larger than the population of Arizona cities like Kingman, San Luis, Anthem and Fountain Hills.
That's enough to fill every seat in the Desert Financial Arena twice and still have students to spare.
When classes began for the Fall 2025 semester, over 42,000 new students flooded the classrooms and campuses of the University, according to ASU News.
ASU News reported that this number shattered the previous enrollment record at ASU, with over 1000 more students than Fall 2024.
The average public school size in the U.S. is 514 students, according to a 2022 study by the National Center for Education Statistics. As such, for many new university students, the size of ASU's student body is one of the biggest adjustments of arriving at college.
"Even though I went to a big high school, coming here, you go to a school that's literally a square mile," said Andrew Montenegro, president of the Barrett Leadership and Service Team and a junior studying political science. "It was very nerve wracking."
Even for those who already had an idea of the size of the University, the sheer number of students still came as a shock.
"I had done a tour here when I was still in high school and I didn't realize how big the campus actually was," Samantha Connor, a sophomore studying business exploratory, said. "It could take up an entire city."
Adding to the change from high school was the class size—the average departmentalized high school class in the U.S. has 21 students, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
These smaller high school classes allowed for more organic interaction than some students have found at ASU. Zev Greenberg, a freshman studying finance, said high school forces people into small classes, but ASU has the biggest classes Greenberg has been in and tends to be overwhelming due to of all the new people.
Certain classes at ASU mirror the smaller, community-driven environments of high school.
"My classes really didn't change, because the language classes have a cap," said Antonella Dell'Anna, a senior instructor for Italian in the School of International Letters and Cultures. "(There) were 28 when I started, still 28 today."
The smaller class sizes in certain departments encouraged greater connections between students, as observed by Dell'Anna in her 20 years as an instructor at the University.
"I can feel that my students find, in the Italian class, a community, and (they) rely on this community," Dell'Anna said.
Despite the presence of some smaller classes, Montenegro, Greenberg and other students still arrived at ASU with nerves about finding a community and friends when there are over 40,000 new faces surrounding them.
Amplifying this stress for some students is the fact that not all new students at ASU are total strangers.
In 2025, more than 9,700 new students came from Arizona high schools, according to ASU News.
The existence of so many high school connections among the student body adds another barrier toward community for some students.
"I just assumed everyone that came here ... knew a couple people, but you had to find whole new friends from high school," Connor said.
The number of ASU students that come from Arizona high schools with pre-established friend groups creates more difficulty for out-of-state students trying to find a place in those groups.
"There's so many people and they already have their own friends," said Pranshul Madan, a freshman from Michigan studying computer science.
For those with previous connections, though, the ability to recognize familiar faces in the sea of ASU students can be a great relief.
"Even walking here, I ran into someone from my high school," Greenberg said. "I always know somebody."
This divide in experiences between in-state and out-of-state students leaves many trying to bridge that gap. For some, the answer is simply genuine interaction.
Mada said living on campus with a roommate provided an instant source of interaction and now the two are starting to become friends.
On the other end of the spectrum, Connor, who lived off-campus during freshman year, recognized the benefits of on-campus living which were sadly missed out on.
"I learned more independent life skills outside the dorms," Connor said. "But in the dorms, you socialize a lot more, and I bet I probably would have had more friends than I do now."
Some students also felt they lost out on unofficial social events they would have had access to had they lived on campus.
"Living off campus really did not give me a lot of chances to actually get to the events that are not really published on ASU," Keith Nguyen, a sophomore studying computer science, said.
As a result, for many of these off-campus students, utilizing events, club meetings and other on-campus activities became the main way to branch out and make connections. Connor said these events help to make up for the loss of socialization that comes with living off campus.
Professors encourage students to utilize events and meetings as a strategy to get immersed in the ASU community.
"I recommend that students join clubs related to their interests or academic major," said Donald Burt, a professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration, in an emailed statement. "ASU is indeed big and clubs are a way to make it seem smaller and more personal."
For many, branching out starts with finding clubs or activities that feel familiar and comfortable.
"For me, I've gone to things that I feel familiar with, whether it be religious groups or just meeting with my roommates and their friends," Greenberg said. "I just go with what I feel is familiar to me."
This desire for familiarity among new students is not lost on the coordinators of these clubs and activities on campus.
"Our club is very much like an (National Honors Society) club or a Key Club. Clubs that students are used to back in high school," Montenegro said. "We kind of want that familiarity."
Familiarity helps get students in the door for Montenegro and BLAST, but different tactics need to be used to get them to stick around — especially when they face an onslaught of clubs upon arriving on campus.
"We try to just also host a ton of events so students can make it. We try to make it as easy as possible," Montenegro said. "Having it right in the Barrett complex makes it good and convenient because a lot of students kind of roll right out of bed, walk down the hall and they know that there's a community there."
However, even with club strategies like BLAST's, many students could agree that forming connections and meeting new people on campus is not possible without clear time and effort cut out to do so.
The amount of effort needed places some students in a difficult position between juggling socialization and making connections with other key parts of their life — such as school and work.
"I couldn't imagine being in the dorms, trying to get a job and going to all these events with friends, with a full Monday through Friday schedule," Connor said.
In the eyes of instructors like Burt, the effort needed to fully acclimate to ASU life is further increased by the size of its population.
"The size of the student body offers more hope that you will find someone who shares your interests, but it may make finding them more difficult," Burt said.
But despite all of the effort needed and the daunting appearance of getting involved in the overwhelming ASU community, students do it year after year.
"I just used the resources available," Montenegro said. "I looked on Sun Devil Sync all the time. I constantly would look at the posters that my (community assistants) put up."
Even if life-long friendships are not forged right away, students seem to find their place in the ever-growing ASU community bit by bit, no matter how many welcome events or club meetings it takes.
"I don't know if I'm gonna meet anyone here and be like, 'Hey, we're best friends'," Connor said. "But I think it's a good way to start that ball moving."
Edited by Natalia Rodriguez, Senna James and Pippa Fung.
Reach the reporter at sluba@asu.edu and follow @samluba6 on X.
Like The State Press on Facebook and follow @statepress on X.
Sam Luba is a Senior Reporter with the State Press, focusing on longer form news stories and breaking news coverage. He is a Sophomore studying political science and justice studies, and is a competitor with Sun Devil Mock Trial. He was the Editor-in-Chief of his high school news magazine. He is in his 3rd Semester with the State Press, working previously as a Part-Time Political Reporter.
