Virginia Tech’s population of new freshmen from Northern Virginia held steady for fall 2025, despite concerns that federal cuts by the Trump administration would curtail enrollment from that part of the state.
Fall headcount data for Tech shows an increase in first-time college students attending from Culpeper, Prince William and Stafford counties, along with Alexandria and Manassas.
Fairfax County, the largest public school division in the commonwealth, saw 917 new freshmen go to Tech. It’s a 4% drop compared to the previous year. However, over the five most recent fall semesters, new student enrollment from Fairfax has fluctuated from around 830 to around 970.
The data comes from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia and from Virginia Tech.
When President Donald Trump launched cuts to federal funding at the start of his second term, state and federal lawmakers raised concerns about ripple effects for the entire state, not just the areas of Northern Virginia where federal workers tend to be clustered.
“As students from Northern Virginia continue to face difficult decisions as a result of the Trump administration’s actions, I’m glad to see Virginia Tech continue to successfully attract and enroll Virginia’s best and brightest students,” Mark Warner, Virginia’s senior Democratic U.S. senator, said in a statement Dec. 8.
In two spring press conferences, Warner raised concerns that Virginia Tech was seeing lower commitments for new admitted students from Northern Virginia than in previous years.
On March 5, he said the state university in Blacksburg was seeing a 30% decline in commitments from Northern Virginia from the previous year.
On May 1, the typical deadline for students to decide where they’ll attend college, he said 85% of students from Northern Virginia who would have committed to attend Tech hadn’t because of federal cuts.
When asked about Warner’s data points in May, a Virginia Tech spokesperson said Warner was referencing data from “an earlier point in the admissions cycle.”
For fall 2025, Virginia Tech admitted about 7,000 students from a university record of more than 57,000 applications. As the university has gained popularity among applicants, its admissions process has become more selective. About 65% of Virginia Tech undergraduate students are Virginia residents.
Tech is reaching its geographic limits in Blacksburg, which will cap its ability to increase incoming class sizes.
Warner announced on Dec. 2 that he is running for reelection for a fourth term in the U.S. Senate.