This study presents detailed data from a survey of 1,076 students at four year colleges in the USA about how they evaluate their college or university. The 183-page study imparts detailed information about how students feel about the quality of their instructors, financial aid availability, public safety on campus, student internships and opportunities for student employment, student housing and many other facets of college life. In addition, the study presents student assessment’s of their overall experience, of the likelihood that they will graduate from their current college, and the likelihood that they would recommend their college to a friend.
Just a few of the report’s many findings are that:
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25.65% of respondents were “very satisfied” with their college or university.
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Older students were particularly dissatisfied with the state of public safety on campus.
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Students studying journalism and communications were the least satisfied with their internships.
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64.59% of students sampled felt that that they were sure that they would graduate from the college that they currently attended.
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67% of female students but only 59.5% of male students were satisfied or very satisfied with financial aid packages available on campus.
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African American students were the most satisfied with campus housing; Asian Americans, the least satisfied.
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Students who grew up abroad were the most dissatisfied with opportunities for paid work on or near campus.
Data from a nationally representative sample of 1,076 in the report is broken out by more than 20 personal and institutional variables, so, for example, readers can get specific data on the percentage of first year students who would recommend their college to a friend vs the same sentiment for sophomores, juniors or seniors, or for students in level 1 research universities vs. doctoral institutions, or for male vs. female or vs. transgender students, or for business/economics majors vs fine arts majors, etc., etc.
Breakouts include age, year of school standing, major or intended major, religion, gender, sexual orientation, income level, SAT/ACT scores, college grades, regional origins, race/ethnicity, level of school tuition, size of school of institution attended and many other variables. This is a critical resource for policy makers in academia as well as a unique data source for social scientists and other studying higher education.