Dec. 30, 2019 — Editor’s note: UTSA continues a momentous path to success with enrollment for fall 2019 hitting a record high, and graduation rates over the past year improving significantly. [First published Oct. 1, 2019]
Fall 2019 enrollment at The University of Texas at San Antonio has reached a record high: 32,792 students now are pursuing degrees and taking coursework at the university, according to new data from the UTSA Office of Institutional Research.
Of note, UTSA saw an 11% increase in its doctoral student population to 912 students this year, and enrollment in the university’s fully online B.B.A. in cybersecurity rose nearly 27% to 207 students this fall. Enrollment growth was supported by improvements this year in undergraduate retention and persistence rates for the Roadrunner cohort: first-year retention improved to 77.9% and third-year persistence to 57.6%; second-year persistence remained at 65.3%.
—TAYLOR EIGHMY, UTSA President
Graduation rates also improved significantly over the past year. The six-year undergraduate graduation rate of UTSA’s Roadrunner cohort increased to 50.8%, a year-over-year increase of 6.4 percentage points and a five-year jump of 14.8 percentage points. Four-year graduation rates for the Roadrunner cohort also increased at a similar rate over the period to 30.4%. UTSA conferred 7,029 bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees during 2018–2019, more than in any other academic cycle of the university’s 50-year history.
“Our students understand that higher education is the great equalizer, and UTSA faculty and staff are committed to providing every resource possible to help our students be successful,” said President Taylor Eighmy. “These rapidly growing enrollment and graduation rates are a testament to the exceptional work taking place across our university community.”
Over the past several years UTSA has developed and implemented dozens of student success programs to boost the retention and graduation rates of its undergraduate students. These include personalized advising and outreach programs, support communities for first-generation and transfer students, programs focused on math and STEM success, new technology that flags students who are academically at risk, and the Graduation Help Desk, which assists students in navigating their unique roadblocks to degree completion.
Highlights from the latest report show improvement in other areas, including:
“We are making steady progress on our institutional goal to be a model for student success,” said Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Kimberly Andrews Espy. “UTSA is on the move—our intentional interventions have yielded important progress over a relatively short period of time. UTSA is graduating a record number of students who are well prepared for today’s knowledge economy to address the workforce needs of our city and state.”
UTSA’s fall 2019 enrollment also includes a 1% increase in new transfer students to yield an overall population of 41% this fall. In 2018 UTSA launched a transfer portal with an online course credit calculator to ease the transfer process for Texas students. Between now and the next admissions cycle, the university will continue to aid transfer students as a partner in the Alamo Area College Access and Completion Consortium and in the South and Central Texas Transfer Compact. Both organizations enable higher education professionals to collaboratively establish best practices that help transfer students ensure the courses they take are transferrable to a four-year degree program.
In January 2020 UTSA will unveil its second fully online degree program. The bachelor’s in multidisciplinary studies will allow students to merge three programs of study, including one liberal arts area of study, to develop a personalized program that meets their interests and professional goals. Like its campus-based counterpart, this online degree program is expected to support working professionals to return to UTSA to earn their bachelor’s degrees.
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Community input is central to developing a well-conceived roadmap for the next 50 years of the ITC. To date, the visioning process has included opportunities for public input and ideation through two rounds of Community Conversations that sought input from a wide variety of ITC stakeholders.
Virtual EventPlease join us Thursday, July 7th, 2022 for a discussion with Colonel (ret) Michael Davis, MD, FACS, FRCS (Hon), former Director of the U.S. Combat Casualty Care Research Program. Dr. Davis will discuss how to best identify strengths at UTSA that can be effectively leveraged for funding proposals to the Department of Defense.
Business Building (BB `2.06.04,) Main CampusEducators will develop strategies that can be implemented to stimulate, guide, and build capacity of diverse student populations.
UTSA Downtown CampusParticipants will be introduced to applications included in Adobe Creative Cloud, a tool that is free for all UTSA faculty, staff, and students. Attendees will be able to complete short projects that will give them the opportunity to produce artifacts that they can use to improve digital literacy in their courses
Virtual EventThe Innovation Academy is an 8-hour online hybrid course designed to introduce faculty to a variety of educational ideas, best practices and resources for becoming more comfortable in teaching in different modalities. This academy will run July 18 – August 21. Upon completion of all activities, faculty will receive a one-time incentive of $1,000
Virtual EventLearn how to design surveys that are scientifically valid and are inclusive of diverse populations. Anchored in culturally and linguistically competent practices, this interactive workshop will explore and apply concepts related to the lifecycle of survey development from design to implementation.
Virtual EventThe virtual conference will bring together information professionals and academics to discuss current research, ideas, insights, and best practices that advance STEM research and education.
Virtual EventThe University of Texas at San Antonio is dedicated to the advancement of knowledge through research and discovery, teaching and learning, community engagement and public service. As an institution of access and excellence, UTSA embraces multicultural traditions and serves as a center for intellectual and creative resources as well as a catalyst for socioeconomic development and the commercialization of intellectual property - for Texas, the nation and the world.
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We encourage an environment of dialogue and discovery, where integrity, excellence, inclusiveness, respect, collaboration and innovation are fostered.
UTSA is a proud Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) as designated by the U.S. Department of Education.
The University of Texas at San Antonio, a Hispanic Serving Institution situated in a global city that has been a crossroads of peoples and cultures for centuries, values diversity and inclusion in all aspects of university life. As an institution expressly founded to advance the education of Mexican Americans and other underserved communities, our university is committed to ending generations of discrimination and inequity. UTSA, a premier public research university, fosters academic excellence through a community of dialogue, discovery and innovation that embraces the uniqueness of each voice.
