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Reputation growing markedly
5 December 2009
As all universities receive funding based on student numbers, tracking the perceptions of intending students as well as their preference and enrolment patterns is an important facet of our planning as these are indicative of reputation.
For any university, reputation takes time to build, and even our oldest national universities lag behind the world’s best. So we all have work still to accomplish.
For USC to grow, it is our reputation in the Sunshine Coast Region that is vitally important when it comes to building scale and enhancing complexity of offerings in academic programs, because it is this Region that is, hardly surprisingly, the source of most of our students.
A recent survey of Sunshine Coast school-leavers, parents and school guidance officers suggests we have made strong headway since taking our first students in 1996.
The market survey was done to measure the effectiveness of a recent advertising campaign, with a similar school-leaver study in 2004 for comparison. The campaign itself was highly successful and credible, with strong levels of awareness and understanding of our new positioning, “the best of both worlds” which reflects quality education and the Sunshine Coast lifestyle.
But what I found most gratifying was, that of all tertiary options including TAFE and Brisbane unis, about half of the Sunshine Coast school-leavers had seriously considered USC as a study option and, for 27 percent, USC and UQ were equal first study choice. Other institutions were well below. This compared with 33 percent who had considered USC and 21 percent first choice in 2004.
For some students and parents, USC was still new and small and I acknowledge that for students expecting an OP 1-5, we still need to attract more. On the other hand, being smaller has positive perceptions of “more personal” and “approachable lecturers”. “Closest to home” is obviously a plus for many students.
We now have 7000 students and a fairly extensive range of courses. Our teaching quality and staff qualifications rate 5 stars in the Good Universities Guide.
Given that students rate the course they want to do and the reputation of the university as the top determiners of where they will apply to study, it is not surprising that first preferences for study at USC next year are up significantly on 2009 and growth in demand for our courses is 5 percent above the State average for universities.
With strong demand, a growing reputation and a sound balance sheet, the University is poised for an exciting next stage of development, with planned enrolments to at least double in the next decade.
Professor Paul Thomas AM is Vice-Chancellor and President at the University of the Sunshine Coast.