By Addison Burke, Sports Editor

The Class of 2028 has been officially welcomed to campus and have gotten to know the lay of the land. Unlike many classes before them, the Class of 2028 is smaller than what may have been expected. 

Compared to the 1,250 member Class of 2027, which was welcomed to Xavier last fall, there has been a 24.64 % decrease in first-year enrollment for this academic year.

This year, there are 942 first-year students. 110 students are commuters and 832 live on campus.

The Class of 2028 has 184 first-generation students, making up around 20 % of the class. There are 203 first-years who identify as students of color, and there are 524 female-identifying students and 416 male-identifying students among the class.

56 % of first-year students come from outside of Ohio. The class represents 41 states, the top five outside of Ohio being Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, New York and Maryland. They also represent 27 different countries outside of the U.S., the top five being Spain, India, Vietnam, Ghana and Canada.

Among the 942 first-years, the most popular majors are nursing, business undecided, biomedical sciences, finance and psychology.

Due to the decrease in the Class of 2028’s size, some of the four freshman dorms have empty wings or even wings housing sophomores that have not historically been open for them.

In 2018, Xavier welcomed 1,421 first-year students to campus, the largest first year class in the university’s history, who later graduated as a part of the Class of 2022. Since then, enrollment has seen small fluctuations each year, but the Class of 2028’s enrollment is the largest decrease the university has faced in recent years.

This enrollment decrease comes as the university faces major budget deficits. If the next few years of incoming classes are of similar size or also decreasing, this could continue to impact the university’s financial health.