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Good news on UO freshman enrollments

Diane Dietz has the report in the RG. Increased GPA and test scores and:

One-third of resident Oregon freshman are the first in their family to attend a university.

One-third of all freshman are federal Pell Grant-eligible.

“This new entering class is set for success, in large part because of the generosity of Connie and Steve Ballmer,” said Roger Thompson, UO vice president for enrollment management. “The Ballmers gave the largest scholarship gift in University of Oregon history, $25 million, to expand PathwayOregon.

“Additional investment from the state of Oregon also strengthened the PathwayOregon program. More than 720 incoming freshman will have the support they need to excel in our classrooms, graduate in four years, and — without heavy debt load weighing on their futures — be prepared for their future careers.”

13 Comments

  1. UO alum 09/30/2015

    This is great to hear.

    I am hopeful that the administration keeps the out of state and international student ratios within acceptable levels. It is up to the faculty and BOT to put pressure on the administration.

    • uomatters Post author | 10/01/2015

      In-state is right at 50%. I think the out-of-state and international students are a good thing though. Here are some reasons:

      1) Their higher tuition subsidizes costs for Oregon students.
      2) Their spending is in general good for the local and state economy. So is that of their visiting parents.
      3) Some of them stay in Oregon after graduation, get jobs, start businesses, pay taxes, etc.
      4) Those that leave do so with strong connections to Oregon and Oregon students.

      On 4), I haven’t seen any research proving that these networks create spillover benefits for the state and its residents, but I’m teaching an honors sequence on community economics in the winter and spring, and I’ll try and get some students interested in working on quantifying this.

  2. honest Uncle Bernie 09/30/2015

    “with average entering test scores at record levels”

    It will be interesting to know what the entering test scores actually are. Surely that information is available already. The tiny jump in GPA doesn’t mean much, if anything.

    SAT scores have been essentially flat for decades. UO lags behind all its peers and even schools like Kansas and Oklahoma. One of the fastest and easiest ways to pull out of our trouble with the AAU would be to raise test scores. I say easiest because everything else would probably be harder to pull off. I trust that Schill is well aware of this, I hope the trustees are too, and on board.

    • Anonymous 09/30/2015

      Yes, the game many privates and some publics play is to not require the SAT but invite students to send them if they think the scores might help. How is that for lopping off the bottom tail?

  3. For the record 09/30/2015

    honest Uncle: It’s 1130 combined. No break down yet.

    • honest Uncle Bernie 10/01/2015

      Yes, I read that in this morning’s RG after my post of yesterday.

      If it’s for real, it’s very good news. I hope they keep it up for several years.

  4. thedude 09/30/2015

    Easiest way to improve GPA and SAT’s or ACTs is to take 15m of the 20m advertising campaign and offer far more generous merit scholarships.

    • uomatters Post author | 09/30/2015

      Well sure, but how would Tim Clevenger’s 160over90 branders make money off that?

    • Duckduckgo 10/01/2015

      You think you could offer 1,000 merit scholarships of $2,500 each year for the next 6 years and get better results than the “what if I knew what if meant” campaign?

      • uomatters Post author | 10/01/2015

        We need a catchy name for DuckDuckGo’s modest proposal. The prize is a coffee cup with the winning name and an appropriate logo.

        I’ll start the contest off with this attempt: “The No Ifs or Buts Merit Scholarship”

        • Dog 10/01/2015

          to increase logo generation possibilities I suggest:

          ” The WTiF Scholarship Fund “

          • thedude 10/01/2015

            I’d contribute a $1000 just to have the joy of saying on my taxes I gave 1k to WTF.

        • Old Grey Mare 10/01/2015

          If you want to stay close to English, you could use:

          Pecunia discendo
          sine si
          sine sed

          literally: money for learning
          without “if”
          without “but”

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