UH Hilo Reports Enrollment Gains, AI Chatbot Connecting Struggling Students to Support

Nearly 2,000 UH Hilo students reported feeling anxious or overwhelmed to an AI chatbot named Lehua last fall, a number that signals both the scale of student need on campus and the reach of a tool quietly reshaping how the university intervenes before struggling students stop showing up.

Lehua, developed with EdSights using behaviorally intelligent SMS technology, identified 1,905 students who described anxiety or feeling overwhelmed during fall 2025, flagged 251 who were struggling with a sense of belonging, and connected 389 who reported not enjoying their classes to campus support services. Over 90 percent of University of Hawaiʻi System students accessed Lehua or a sibling chatbot that semester, generating 72,089 texts statewide between August 1 and December 10, 2025. Chancellor Bonnie D. Irwin, who has led the Hilo campus since July 2019, described the chatbot's appeal directly: "She's become a friendly presence that checks in and helps students feel supported, especially when challenges arise." Interim Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Lei Kapono has emphasized that the technology is designed to extend human support, not substitute for it, with early intervention as the primary goal.

The early-intervention push is unfolding against a backdrop of record enrollment. UH Hilo welcomed 400 first-time freshmen in fall 2025, a 16.3 percent increase and the largest percentage gain among all UH campuses. Measured against fall 2024, that increase reached 18.8 percent, outpacing both UH Mānoa and UH West Oʻahu. The 2024 freshman-to-sophomore retention rate also reached its highest point in campus history, a sign that growing numbers of students are not only arriving but staying.

For Hawaiʻi Island's economy, those numbers matter beyond the campus boundaries. KHON2 highlighted the Big Island's pressing need for homegrown talent in healthcare, education, and environmental sciences, sectors where local employers consistently compete for island residents with the right credentials. Total undergraduate enrollment stood at approximately 2,292 students as of fall 2024, on a 115-acre campus with a 12:1 student-faculty ratio. University spokespeople and faculty have argued that rising retention directly strengthens local businesses and services by expanding the pool of skilled graduates available to hire on the island.

In December 2025, UH Hilo and Honolulu Community College joined a partnership with the National Institute for Student Success, a research organization whose partner institutions have seen double-digit gains in first-year retention and graduation-rate improvements exceeding 15 percentage points. Chancellor Irwin framed what she expects from the collaboration: "UH Hilo serves a unique population, many first-generation college students balancing work and family. NISS will help us identify where our systematic supports need to improve."

The Daniel K. Inouye College of Pharmacy expanded the campus' reach in spring 2026 with the PharmD Extended Online Track, a Doctor of Pharmacy program built for working adults that requires only one brief annual visit to Hilo. Students needing in-person academic help can use the Kilohana Academic Success Center on the first floor of Mookini Library, which offers peer tutoring in biology, chemistry, math, physics, astronomy, computer science, and writing.

The state's class of 2025 graduated at a record 87 percent on time, and roughly one in three of those students who enrolled in college chose a UH campus. Hawaiʻi Community College in Hilo, a separate institution serving the same island, grew by 8.7 percent in fall 2025. System-wide, UH enrollment reached 51,411 students, the highest total since 2017 and the third consecutive year of growth. Chancellor Irwin was also elected to the WASC Senior College and University Commission in August 2025, placing her at the center of regional accreditation decisions shaping higher education across the West.

Whether UH Hilo's early-intervention architecture, built around AI check-ins, peer tutoring, and a new national research partnership, can convert record freshman enrollment into a comparable surge in graduation rates will be the measure of whether this momentum is structural or seasonal.