Enrollment grows 4% to start the new academic year

Mount Marty University (MMU) began the fall 2024 academic term with more students for the eighth consecutive year. Total enrollment increased by four percent to 970 students at the Catholic, Benedictine university with three South Dakota locations in Yankton, Sioux Falls, and Watertown, approaching 1,000 students for the first time since 2008. MMU now has the largest graduate nursing program in the state, and the main campus in Yankton has its highest enrollment since 2005, with 581 undergraduate students.

"Mount Marty University has been blessed with increasing enrollment for nearly a decade, and MMU is now nearly a third larger than we were in 2016," said Mount Marty President Dr. Marc Long. "Outstanding average high school GPAs of entering students are matched by high-ability graduate students in biotechnology, education, nursing and nurse anesthesia. That's a recipe for
continued, long-term success."

The university’s Master of Science in Nursing program now has 90 students in psychiatric mental health and family nurse practitioner tracks. The highly selective Doctor of Nurse Anesthesia Practice program numbers 119 students and attracts several hundred applications annually from across the country.

“This class hails from 18 countries and 26 states, but more than half of incoming undergraduate students come from South Dakota and Nebraska,” said Greg Franz, associate vice president for enrollment management & marketing. “This combination of regional stability and national and international growth is exciting. Our concentration on work, service, and personal growth resonates increasingly with young people.”

Long added that the growth reflects the appreciation for a Benedictine education. “Our core values of awareness of God, community, hospitality, and lifelong learning define the institution and tell interested students and families what we’re about. New students see that we are serious about those values, and they jump right into the transformative experience of Mount Marty University.”

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About Mount Marty University

Founded in 1936 by the Sisters of Sacred Heart Monastery, Mount Marty University is South Dakota's only Catholic, Benedictine institution of higher education. Located along the bluffs of the Missouri River in Yankton, with additional locations in Watertown and Sioux Falls, Mount Marty offers undergraduate and graduate degrees focusing on student and alumni success in high-demand fields such as health sciences, education, criminal justice, business, accounting, recreation management, and more. A community of learners in the Benedictine tradition, Mount Marty emphasizes academic excellence and develops well-rounded students with intellectual competence, professional and personal skills and moral, spiritual and social values. To learn more, visit mountmarty.edu.