MSU is going into the new academic year with goals to not only help students currently enrolled at MSU, but to help future Mustangs as well. This includes opening a military education center as well as a student success center.

Both the military education center and the student success center will serve as a place where students can get the information they need to succeed at MSU.

President Stacia Haynie explained how these centers will benefit both current and future mustangs.

“It will be a space that’s sort of a one-stop shop for students. Whatever your issue is, whatever your question is, you can go to that space. [And if] they can’t figure out the issue, they’re going to accompany you to whoever can help you get the answer that you need,” Haynie said.

But advice is not the only thing the campus will be able to provide to military and military dependent students.

“We also had the community partners and our donors invest in over $800,000 in scholarships,” Haynie said. “That will close the price point between the federal tuition assistance and our price point. So, it will be no cost and we can be competitive with others who are looking for the active duty students.”

These scholarships will also be available to any students who are dependents of active-duty military members.

With the help of these new resources for students, MSU hopes to boost retention this year.

“We know that we continue to lose about one-third of our students from that freshman class and that’s just not acceptable,” Haynie said. “So we will, this year, really focus on making sure those students who have selected MSU Texas as their academic home are successful when they’re here.”

Despite not reaching the retention goal last year, MSU started this year off by hitting a new enrollment goal. This year, MSU’s enrollment has gone up from 925 to 973 full first time students. That is a 5.2% increase from Fall 2024.

“That’s the number we set for our target, so really excited that we’ve set another record class,” Haynie said.

With more students on campus, this means that MSU is able to fund some of the goals set last academic year.

In late October and early November of 2024 MSU was planning on raising tuition in order to offer raises to faculty members and raising the student minimum wage on campus.

However, Governor Greg Abbott stopped all public Texas universities from raising tuition for the next two academic years.

Despite this, MSU has still been able to grow.

“Because of increasing enrollment, we were able to meet our budget,” Haynie said. “And we were able to make those adjustments for our student workers.”

However, the increasing number of students may be a concern in the future.

“At some point, more students need more faculty and need more staff. And so you will have to have some adjustments,” Haynie said.

Though MSU will not be able to raise tuition as of right now, that may not stop them from raising fees elsewhere.

“If you’re staying in a residence hall or some other of those kinds of expenses, students may see some slight increases there,” Haynie said. “But it’s in terms of those academic tuition fees, those are restricted.”

Overall, the administration is still striving towards their goal of helping students find a home here at MSU.

“We will continue to focus on access and success,” Haynie said. “That’s our mantra. We wanna make sure students like you find us in those community fairs, whether it’s campus visits, or it’s our communicating our story better. But we want to make sure students find MSU and that when they do, they come here and find their space and their place and be successful.”