The University of West Florida is set to kick off the fall semester. Classes start on Monday with a slightly higher overall enrollment, full capacity residence halls, and the most academically talented freshman class in the history of the university.
“So enrollment continues to grow and so it looks like we’re going to be up 1%. What we’re targeting is about 15,600,” said UWF President Manny Diaz Jr., before he headed out for a move-in day meet and greet.
The latest data available shows UWF enrollment at 15,675. That’s an increase of about 200 students. Diaz refers to this as “controlled growth,” which will be important as the move to Division I athletic competition over time attracts the attention of more students.
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“It’s not just physical capacity that you have to account for. It’s quality faculty and continuing to make those ratios correct,” Diaz said. “But also, you have all the other services that people don’t talk about. This is a city; you have a police department. We have to have the right size police department to make sure that we’re keeping everybody safe on campus. You have to have the auxiliary facilities for things like making sure that the dining hall, the bookstore, all of those things meet the needs of the size institution that you are.”
The student body currently includes nearly 4,600 graduate students, almost 4,000 seniors, more than 2,500 juniors, and 1,855 sophomores. Additionally, UWF is welcoming 1,876 freshmen, who make up the university’s most academically accomplished new freshman class ever.
“This freshman class has the highest GPA in the history of the school, 3.9 average,” Diaz proclaimed. “That is the highest GPA in the history of the University of West Florida.”
Diaz believes this is a product of higher education, especially in Florida, becoming incredibly competitive and he points out that UWF is doing its part to compete.
“For us, we’re fortunate where performance metrics continue to improve. This year, as you know, we finished second among the 12 universities in our metrics and I think that’s punching well above our weight when it comes to size.”
Earlier today, Diaz got a chance to greet some of those accomplished freshmen as they were moving into Argo Hall on the Pensacola campus.
One of the students he spoke to was Gabrielle Lawson, a freshman from Jacksonville, who plans to study accounting.
“I like how small, but big the campus is because I’m not really a huge person on having so much of a campus to where I’m walking from one side of the campus to the other for classes,” Lawson said. “Also, I like how small the classes were, so I could have that one-on-one instruction time with the teacher.”
Another freshman, Alexandria Growe, was with her family from Brooksville, Florida. Growe is planning a double major in art and psychology. She liked the academic offerings and loved the campus.
“It was the size that she was looking for and when we came up here, it was fairly quiet and calm and it had - it felt right, said Growe’s mother Cheryl on how much she loved the campus. “It was pretty. Yeah, she got here and she was like ‘yeah, this is it.’”
Kaley Moller got an assist from President Diaz, who helped her take some things up to her second-floor room. The civil engineering major from Portland, Maine said she chose UWF, in part, for the warmer weather and, again, the size and feel of the campus.
“I loved that it was in the trees. It’s like in a nature preserve; it’s so beautiful,” Moller said. “They (UWF) had like everything I wanted, and the dorms are beautiful, too. All the buildings on campus are beautiful. And, I’m really excited for the sports, like just everything; I can’t wait.”
And as the Fall 2026 semester gets underway, Diaz is touting UWF’s Argo All In initiative, which places a priority on getting these first-time in college students involved in campus activities.
“It’s great for spirit; it’s great for the environment on campus,” said Diaz. “But the statistics show that if a student gets involved in extracurricular activities at the college level, the retention rates go up drastically, and that is whether it’s Greek Life, whether it’s student government, whether it’s athletics.”
This fall, athletics is taking center stage, as the university prepares for Division I competition.
UWF Women’s and Men’s Soccer will be the first to compete at the new level, with their home openers on Thursday, Aug. 20. Women’s soccer will face Alabama State at 5 p.m. and the men’s team will play Texas Rio Grande Valley at 7:30 at the UWF Soccer Complex. The first D-I game for UWF Football will be against Southern Illinois Thursday, Aug. 27, 6 p.m. at Darrell Gooden Stadium.
