When U.S. News and World Report recently released its annual rankings of the nation’s universities, Southern Utah University was rated the best public regional university in the eight-state Mountain West. In addition, SUU is the top-rated regional university in the West and number three in the United States for lowest student debt and the 34th “Best Value” in the West which includes regional universities in states from the Pacific coast to Texas.
“We’ve long focused on providing quality academic excellence while ensuring our students aren’t overloaded with debt upon graduation,” said SUU President Scott L Wyatt. “Higher education excellence and affordability are not mutually exclusive and this year’s U.S. News and World Report rankings confirm our commitment to providing both to our students at SUU.”
To make a college education more affordable, SUU has not increased tuition for on-campus students for the past two years, while cutting tuition for online degree students. In addition, with these difficult economic times, the university cut student fees by 40 percent for the current fall semester.
That commitment to students has also led to larger enrollments. SUU’s student population has doubled in the past decade. And despite the impact of COVID-19 leading to declining university enrollments across the country, SUU forecasts double digit growth for the Fall 2020 semester.
SUU is also reinventing the process for admissions and awarding merit-based scholarships. SUU is the first Utah public university to drop the ACT/SAT requirement for both the admissions process while making it optional for merit-based scholarships beginning with the 2021-2022 academic year. This permanent change was made in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and will continue to stand as an effort to offer equitable access to both admissions and scholarships for a larger number of students.
“Our students are more than just a test score to us,” said Brandon Wright, SUU’s assistant vice president for enrollment management. “This new approach gives students an option. They can either use their GPA or standardized test scores to qualify for a scholarship. It’s really that simple. This is our way of recognizing the individual strengths of each and every future SUU student.”
With this new modification, students will have the chance to use either their unweighted GPA or their ACT/SAT score to apply to the university and merit-based scholarships. This not only eliminates a requirement made difficult to accomplish because of the pandemic, but it also gives students an opportunity to qualify for more generous scholarships based either on their high GPA or their high test scores rather than a combination of both.
Many universities are waiving ACT/SAT scores for the admissions process, but not for scholarships. Nearly 84% of students are eligible for some type of financial aid, but under the current circumstances, not all students can take and/or retake standardized tests to fulfill scholarship requirements. Even during a global pandemic, students should have access to the scholarships they would otherwise be awarded.
“This new scholarship index casts a much wider net of financial support for students, and we are able to provide support for students who otherwise might be overlooked,” said Amie Tukuafu, associate director of admissions and recruitment. “This semester we would have been able to award more than 800 additional scholarships to students who did not previously qualify, and this will continue for future T-Birds.”
The new scholarship criteria is another example of SUU’s student-centric approach to higher education and shows the holistic approach from administration, faculty and staff in serving the university’s growing student population.