The University of Hawaii’s flagship Manoa campus eliminated application fees and increased scholarships for local high school students, helping to drive a new record for freshmen enrollment this fall — and sending overall enrollment to its highest level in 12 years.

Notably, Manoa saw its number of local Filipino and Native Hawaiian students also rise.

The Manoa campus had not seen more than 20,000 students since 2013. This fall’s preliminary enrollment of 20,012 — the highest since 2012 — represents a 4% increase over 2023 until official numbers are expected to be released in the first week of October.

Eight of the 10 UH campuses combined for an overall 2.8% increase in students this fall, except for declines at UH’s other four-year campuses, UH West Oahu and UH Hilo. All of their official numbers also are expected in October.

This fall, Manoa also saw a record 3,123 freshmen, representing the third consecutive year that Manoa welcomed over 3,000 freshmen.

This semester’s freshman class includes:

>> 1,849 Hawaii residents, up from 1,581 in fall 2023 and 1,577 in fall 2022.

>> 489 who identify as Native Hawaiian, up from 382 in fall 2023 and 395 in fall 2022.

>> 406 who identify as Filipino, up from 355 in fall 2023 and 353 in fall 2022.

Manoa officials believe the higher numbers reflect a broader outreach designed to make UH Manoa more welcoming, attractive and affordable for local students.

Manoa’s application fee had been only $70, but eliminating the cost made it free to apply.

And Manoa this fall offered Manoa Academic Merit Scholarships of $3,000 for each of four years for local students with high school grade point averages as low as 3.0, and $4,000 scholarships for each of four years for local students with 3.7 high school grade point averages.

For this fall a nearly perfect rate of 99% of local Manoa freshmen were awarded Manoa Academic Merit Scholarships, said Nikki Chun, UH Manoa’s vice provost for enrollment management.

“We put a very good offer on the table,” Chun said. “Our families are debating their choices. Our offer is competitive, and our enrollment this year shows the choices they made.”

Manoa not only saw an increase in applications from local students, but especially from Pacific Islanders and Native Hawaiians, said Chun, who is Native Hawaiian.

“We did a very good thing for all the good reasons,” she said.

Applications are still welcomed for the spring and fall 2025 semesters, UH spokesman Dan Meisenzahl said.

For local high school students, specifically, Meisenzahl said, “the message is we want you.”

Tuition rates also remain low, placing Manoa among the most affordable campuses in the country, said Manoa Provost Michael Bruno.

Factoring in inflation, this fall’s tuition at Manoa remains lower than seven years ago, Bruno said.

“We’ve kept tuition in check,” he said.

UH regents approved the last tuition increase in 2016, raising undergraduate rates by 1%. The increase includes a hike of 2% to go into effect for the 2025-2026 academic year at the Manoa, West Oahu and Hilo campuses, with no increase for the community colleges.

Manoa currently costs $12,186 for tuition and fees for in-state students and $34,218 in tuition and fees for out-of-state students.

The results of higher enrollment — particularly for students from Hawaii — was purposeful to reverse a perception that Manoa preferred out-of-state students, who pay more in tuition over local residents.

“Some families viewed this school to be closed, that the focus was on students who were not from here,” Bruno said.

This fall, 62% of Manoa’s student body is made up of local students, compared with 31% from out of state and 6% described as “international.” (Due to rounding, percentages do not equal 100.)

The number of local students is up 5% compared with 2023; out-of-state students are up 2%, and international students have increased 5%.

For local students, Bruno said, Manoa wants “to open its doors … (and) be more warm and welcoming and suggesting to them they can achieve highly” — especially for Filipinos, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, Chun said.

“It’s been the right move to make,” she said.

The higher enrollment numbers at Manoa among local students represent a desire for them to go to college on Oahu and, perhaps, stay home after graduation and get good jobs here, Chun said.

But both local and out-of-state students are drawn to the Manoa campus and its place in the Central Pacific to address real-time problems of climate change, sea level rise, sustainable agriculture and other environmental issues in Hawaii and around the world, Bruno said.

“Manoa became one of the ‘it’ universities,” Bruno said. “Those things have been really important not just here, but around the world. You hear young people with those passions. They do their homework, and they know the specific programs that are famous here.”

The outreach to local families and their students follows UH’s mandate to reflect the broader community, Bruno said.

“We’ve not strayed from our core values and our mission statement, which is to serve the community, in particular here in the Asia-Pacific.”