COLUMBUS, Ga. - Columbus State University started in an old hosiery mill with about 300 students, and today it enrolls nearly 7,700. The university has grown from a two-year college into the only four-year institution in the governor's 17-county Economic Region 5, with campuses in midtown Columbus, Uptown and along the Chattahoochee River. Here is a look at CSU by the numbers, from its founding to its newest enrollment and graduation data.

The idea is older than the school itself. The Columbus Chamber of Commerce first proposed a junior college for the city in 1949. It took nine more years before the college opened its doors.

1958: A Hosiery Mill on Talbotton Road

Columbus College opened in 1958 in the renovated Shannon Hosiery Mill on Talbotton Road. It started with 14 faculty members, five administrative staff members and almost 300 students. Classes were held in the converted mill for five years while a permanent campus was built.

In 1963, the college moved to a newly built campus in midtown on land that had been a dairy farm. The new campus opened with four buildings. That site is still the heart of CSU.s main campus today.

From Junior College to University

The college grew quickly after the move. In 1965, the University System of Georgia's Board of Regents approved its application to become a four-year institution, and by 1970 it held its first bachelor's degree graduation and began offering master's degrees. Over the next several years it added 15 new buildings.

A second wave of growth came from 1988 to 1995. That period brought LeNoir Hall and the Oxbow Meadows Environmental Learning Center, which opened in 1995 as a partnership among the college, Columbus Water Works and the City of Columbus. In 1996, Columbus College was renamed Columbus State University as part of a restructuring of four-year schools in the state university system.

Moving Downtown

The university's biggest change in recent decades has been its move into Uptown Columbus. In 2001, the RiverCenter for the Performing Arts opened on Broadway as the home of CSU's Schwob School of Music. The Rankin Arts Center followed as part of the same wave of growth.

Donor pledges then paid for the RiverPark campus. Starting in 2006, it added student housing, a new theater building, a renovated visual arts facility and office space near the river, and CSU's art and theatre departments moved there in 2007. On the main campus, the Schuster Student Success Center and the Student Recreation Center opened in 2013.

Who Goes to CSU

CSU enrolled 7,690 students in fall 2025, according to the university's 2025 campus plan update for the University System of Georgia. That included 5,692 undergraduates, 1,788 graduate students and 210 others. Total enrollment was down 3.1% from the year before, with undergraduate enrollment falling from 5,986.

The student body includes many students who rely on financial aid. Sixty percent of CSU students are eligible for federal Pell Grants, which go to students with the greatest financial need. About 18% of undergraduates are considered nontraditional students, a group that includes older adults returning to school.

Retention and Graduation

Keeping students enrolled is one of CSU's biggest goals. Of the first-time, full-time students who started in fall 2024, 72% returned for a second year, up from a low of 60.8% for students who started in fall 2020. The university has set a goal of 85% by 2030.

Graduation rates have held steady in the low 40s. Of students who started in fall 2019, 41.4% graduated within six years, compared with 37.4% for the class that started in 2014. CSU is adding academic coaches, with a goal of covering every undergraduate by its 2027 fiscal year, as part of its plan to raise those numbers.

The university is also trying to help students keep Georgia's HOPE scholarship. In 2023-24, 24% of students lost HOPE by the time they had earned 30 credit hours, and 22% lost it by 60 hours. CSU's goal is to cut those rates roughly in half by 2030.

Campus Life by the Numbers

CSU marked a milestone at the start of the 2025-26 year. More than 900 students attended First-Year Convocation on Aug. 8, 2025, a record for the event. In spring 2026, the university named 1,080 undergraduates to its President's List and Dean's Lists for their fall grades.

CSU athletics has a history of national success. CSU's golf team has won the national championship five times. The university's four named locations, the main campus, RiverPark, Uptown and Oxbow Meadows, now stretch from midtown to the riverfront.