National Report Reveals Shifts in Students' Expectations and Colleges'
by Tom Quinn, Vice President
for USA Group

A new report outlines several significant shifts in the way students' expectations are changing and institutions are responding. In general, colleges and universities continue to adjust their programs and services to recruit and retain today's students, often in response to the "consumer sovereignty" which characterizes the current student-institutional relationships.

Are College Students Satisfied? A National Analysis of Changing Expectations, published by the USA Group Foundation as part of its New Agenda Series, focuses on the national changes in student expectations and institutional performance observed in student satisfaction data over a four-year period (1994-1995 through 1997-1998). These trend data are based on responses to Noel-Levitz's Student Satisfaction Inventory (SSI), which 745 colleges and universities administered to a total of 423,000 enrolled students between 1994 and 1998. Community, junior, and technical colleges, four-year public institutions, and four-year private institutions in North America use the SSI to assess student perceptions of campus experiences. Schools using the SSI are located in all regions of the country and represent the academic diversity of American post-secondary education.

Student-satisfaction studies measure how effectively campuses deliver what students expect, need, and want. The Noel-Levitz survey measures both student satisfaction and student expectations in 12 areas of campus life, including: financial aid, instructional effectiveness, campus climate, and campus safety. The data collected over the four-year period show that students expect increasingly more from their college experience. Of the 12 areas surveyed, student expectations increased in nearly every area over the past four years. As student expectations have increased, their satisfaction has not increased at the same pace. The report notes increasing satisfaction in six areas of campus life at community, junior, and technical colleges, seven areas at four-year public institutions, and eight areas at four-year privates. The greatest increases in satisfaction were in service excellence at the two-year colleges, in academic advising at four-year publics, and in safety and security at four-year privates. Satisfaction declined in academic advising for the two-year colleges and the four-year privates, and in responsiveness to diverse populations at four-year publics.

Lana Low, vice president for retention services and assessment for Noel-Levitz and author of the report, has nearly 30 years in higher education and has consulted on student retention issues with more than 100 colleges and universities from across the United States. The report notes her observations about the trends gleaned from the data and supported by her experience with college campuses. Among those observations are the following:

• In general, two-year institutions are doing a better job than their four-year counterparts in meeting student expectations.
• Although four-year private institutions continue to receive higher student satisfaction scores than their public counterparts, the students that they attract continue to bring higher expectations to campus as college costs increase and institutions struggle with their own financial challenges.
• In some instances, a mismatch exists between student and institutional priorities. Students are coming to campus with expectations that are not aligned with the mission of the institution. For example, students may seek careers, while colleges focus on the learning experience or more philosophical approaches to education.
• For all students, concerns about basic personal needs - like safety and security - are prerequisites to learning and student satisfaction.