2008 Woodie Awards
Enrollment survey reveals information
Marisol Urratia
Issue date: 2/19/08 Section: Other News
A web-based survey, funded by UST reveals that cost and location and lack of familiarity with the University's reputation as an institution of high-quality education as the main challenges for increasing enrollment.
According to Vice President of Student Affairs Steve Sutton, the survey confirmed much of what the University already knew were challenges and will serve to help develop a stronger marketing strategy.
"It's really designed to drive some of our strategic thinking, in terms of how we spend our dollars in marketing, the names we might buy into admissions, doing a better job of working with parents and their families on how they can finance their UST education," Sutton said.
By conducting the survey through Hardwick-Day, a firm that helps institutions pinpoint weaknesses associated with image, the questionnaire reached 200 Texas high school seniors. Although randomly chosen from approximately 5,000 records, the survey respondents were known to be aware of the University.
More than one-third of the survey's respondents said they planned to apply to UST. Their primary reasons were religious affiliation, quality of education and location. The remaining two-thirds listed tuition and lack of familiarity with UST as the top reasons for not applying.
The survey also helped pinpoint problems such as limited name-recognition, especially outside of the Houston area.
UST sophomore and psychology major Elizabeth Elliot said that she thought UST needed to provide more scholarship funding for its undergraduates because, she said, loans become a huge problem for graduates. She said scholarships are an important incentive to go to a certain college.
"Loans get to be ridiculous," Elliot said.
Sutton acknowledged that the matter of scholarship funding has been a gray area for the University.
"Academic scholarships, this is something that we think we do a pretty good job with, but obviously students probably feel we don't do enough to help them cover the costs of their school," Sutton said.
According to Sutton, one of the University's long-term goals has been to grow by 5 percent, which would bring the University's enrollment total close to 4,000. The 2008 spring semester 12th day report shows that UST currently has 2,423 undergraduate and graduate students.
According to Vice President of Student Affairs Steve Sutton, the survey confirmed much of what the University already knew were challenges and will serve to help develop a stronger marketing strategy.
"It's really designed to drive some of our strategic thinking, in terms of how we spend our dollars in marketing, the names we might buy into admissions, doing a better job of working with parents and their families on how they can finance their UST education," Sutton said.
By conducting the survey through Hardwick-Day, a firm that helps institutions pinpoint weaknesses associated with image, the questionnaire reached 200 Texas high school seniors. Although randomly chosen from approximately 5,000 records, the survey respondents were known to be aware of the University.
More than one-third of the survey's respondents said they planned to apply to UST. Their primary reasons were religious affiliation, quality of education and location. The remaining two-thirds listed tuition and lack of familiarity with UST as the top reasons for not applying.
The survey also helped pinpoint problems such as limited name-recognition, especially outside of the Houston area.
UST sophomore and psychology major Elizabeth Elliot said that she thought UST needed to provide more scholarship funding for its undergraduates because, she said, loans become a huge problem for graduates. She said scholarships are an important incentive to go to a certain college.
"Loans get to be ridiculous," Elliot said.
Sutton acknowledged that the matter of scholarship funding has been a gray area for the University.
"Academic scholarships, this is something that we think we do a pretty good job with, but obviously students probably feel we don't do enough to help them cover the costs of their school," Sutton said.
According to Sutton, one of the University's long-term goals has been to grow by 5 percent, which would bring the University's enrollment total close to 4,000. The 2008 spring semester 12th day report shows that UST currently has 2,423 undergraduate and graduate students.