By Rachael Bentley
Junior CCSU student Pernell Edwards admits that he didn’t know much about CCSU when he first applied.
“I knew it was a good school, with a well known physical education department and that it had student housing, but I never really researched it before I eventually decided that I wanted to go here”, he said.
What many students might not know is that information is just a few clicks away.
The information can be found by scrolling over the “About” tab on the CCSU homepage.
Resources like the US Census and CCSU’s Admissions Office can provide prospective students, current students, alumni (and anyone just curious) with tons of information and statistics about CCSU and other Connecticut schools. Students in high school searching for that ‘perfect fit’ college could also use the data to help narrow down the search.
CCSU provides “Fast Fact” information on their website in the form of a single page which has information from student enrollment to the breakdown of how many students are in each academic school; lots of information.
The School of Arts and Science has the largest student enrollment, claiming a little over 40 percent of CCSU’s declared majors. In second is the School of Education and Professional Studies with 24 percent; the School of Business and the School of Engineering and Technology come in the running with 16 and 12 percent.
Central’s Office of Recruitment and Admissions, and the Office of Institutional Research and Assessment both have links on their web pages to statistics and information.
The U.S Census releases a study every 2 years with national data about colleges and universities that can be narrowed down to each state. Connecticut has a total of 45 degree granting institutions, compared to Massachusetts which has 125 schools, and the US total of 4,495 schools.
The Census also released a study that discovered 35.1 percent of people 25 years and over living in Conencticut have completed a Bachelors degree. This was based on data collected from 2005-2009.
Nicole Peterson, a CCSU Junior, took time out of her studies in the library to reflect on some of the statistics provided about her school. When told that CCSU had 47 percent of students enrolled under the age of 22, she said, “It’s not very surprising that the majority of the student body is so young, but its nice to know that CCSU also has a decent percentage of people who don’t fit into that demographic. It’s what makes CCSU so unique”.
CCSU students may be impressed with some of the data collected by the Office of Institutional Research and Assessment.
CCSU monitors the employment of graduates after graduation through an alumni survey conducted through the System Office, as well as through participation in a study conducted jointly by the Connecticut Department of Higher Education and the Connecticut Department of Labor. Their research revealed that 86.3 percent of 2008-2009 CCSU graduates became employed within a year of graduation, compared with 76.9 percent in 2006-2007.
When learning about this statistic Edwards seemed pleased. “If I had known about this kind of research I’m sure I would have used it to make an informed decision, but it seems like I made the right one”.
These studies and research are collected because there are certain laws that require universities to release data on topics like graduation rates and student aid under the “Student Right To Know Act”.