In the Fertitta student section thread to be precise some posters brought up a subject that deserves its own thread.
Quite a few of us have children. Some will choose UH and some others won’t. This thread is not about to be judgmental. I am bringing this up for one reason.
How can we build a legacy, a fan base legacy if our own children do not attend U of H?
This has to be asked. I understand that it is your child’s decision and I agree with it. But consider the consequences/ramifications. Two/three other schools have bigger enrollment than we have. The same three other schools have a multi generation fan base. Let’s be clear. We do not or we do not to their level and far from it.
Now let me ask you this. You are a parent and most often than not you pay or help pay the tuition.
What should we do to increase multi generational attendees?
Everyone of us should think about it. This can only benefit our alma matter. This is where our alumni association has to play a role.
Does our school offer an “alum” discount for our alum child to go to U of H?
What kind of incentives does UH offer for alums to send their children to U of H?
I have no idea. I have two children and I have not received anything about it since I graduated many years ago.
Do other school be in Texas or Nationwide offer such discount?
Thank you for responding and thinking about this controversial subject.
Make UH fun again. It was well on its way to becoming a residential campus in 2015 but then whoever owns the stuff on Calhoun aka MLK raised the rent and killed Rooftop plus many other things.
Thats not counting the Sonic, Chilis too and many maby other hangout spots on campus.
Make UH a residential campus and it will sell itself. If UH was this boring 15 years ago when I was still in high school, I would have NEVER came here.
Does our school offer an “alum” discount for our alum child to go to U of H? No.
Do other schools offer such discounts? Yes, directly or indirectly. Iowa gave my son a large scholarship because I was an alum. So that is at least one. I know that some of the high-end non-Ivy private schools like Bucknell and Emory do as well. If UH does, I did not see any.
What you are really asking is, how do we build up a legacy at UH so that the alumni base, and by implication, the athletics program, continues to grow and thrive? Honestly, this is really up to the school and to the students. My son, for example, had nothing against UH per se; he just did not want to go to school in Texas or really, anywhere in the South (for political/legal reasons). So, he did not go to Baylor, TAMU, South Carolina, Auburn, Bama, Mercer, LSU or Mizzou and a few others he got into for the same reason; most of these schools offered him a scholarships, and he still said no. He did say, however, that if he was going to stay in the South, it would have been either UH or South Carolina.
Ultimately, UH does not have an issue getting applicants; the acceptance rate is actually low (about 65 percent) last I checked. That is low for a large, urban public university. To put it in perspective, Michigan State, Bama, Iowa and Penn State have higher acceptance rates. What it needs to do is put a winning product on the field! You see the Fertitta Center and how loud and full it gets. You never hear any complaints about fan support. Why? Because the team is a winner. When our football team was winning consistently under Sumlin and Herman, we had consistent sell outs. Heck I was there; I had season tickets in 2009 and 2010. Even though 2010 was tough because Case was hurt in the 2nd game, we still had a few sellouts. People had a reason to believe. I think people don’t understand how bad CDH was for the football program. He was close to destroying all the progress we had made since CAB stepped on campus in 2003. Honestly, he should never have been hired, but it is what it is. Hopefully, Fritz can do some good things.
I’d do discounts for tuition , more residential buildings and more bars or restaurants in or near campus along with admitting 2 nd gen Coogs as preferred over first time even if scores are lower, so grandfather their admittance.
We didn’t even sell out during the 2015 year under Herman lol
It took him calling us out after the SMU game when we entered the rankings in mid-October.
The stadium was only full for Memphis, Navy, and the conference championship.
Now onto the legacy stuff of generational attendance, this should have started with the UH grads in the 70s and 80s but apparently that didn’t happen combined with the drop to CUSA in the 90s.
The boomers were the last generation to be able to support 3+ kids 3 decades ago.
This decade leading up to the 100 year anniversary will be the most crucial as there are less children now as families are not having multiple children anymore.
Universities across the country will have to fight and beef up marketing to the few kids that are left due to the downtrend of large families.
Unless we can somehow build and develop an international and out of state pipeline to maintain the 45,000+ enrollment, I can see college attendance declining in the next decade or so.
Universities are projecting a decline which is why schools like UH, UT, Baylor, etc built smaller basketball arenas.
I think UH did the right thing at set TDECU to 40,000 but one can only hope we expand to 50,000 in the next decade but I’m losing hope as it goes on.
Yeah, the decrease in college age kids has been a concern for some time, but UH has bucked the
trend so far. I think because we are in a state and area that has seen healthy population growth
we have avoided enrollment stagnation or decreases. But will that hold as we go forward is a good question.
OTOH, I think we as a country have encouraged too many to go to college when they would
have been better served by going into trade schools. That’s a personal change of
position for me. I used to think more education for all should be the goal. I saw Education as
the be all, end all solution for everyone, to make the world better. I’m more concerned today of
people that should be in college being thwarted by the cost problem.
I’m not real keen on trying to focus growing international student enrollment as i think we have a good percentage now. And I don’t feel a larger international presence would help develop
a more dedicated culture of alumni. At the risk of sounding envious, I do wish we had more dedicated alums like ut and aggie.
EastCoastCoog your reply is IMO of the biggest and meaningful piece of information I have ever read on Coogfans.
What if U of H offered an “alum” discount for their child/children to go to U of H?
This to me has to be addressed.
Think how this will benefit our sports program? We ought to do that.
This will also squash the moniker of “commuter” school that is out there describing UH attending students that do not give a you know what about U of H.
Who is more inclined to attend a game? Someone with historical ties or not?
Same for ticket prices:
You are an alum’s son or daughter? YOU get a discount.
To a certain extent, we sort of stabbed ourselves in the back by moving the College of Technology off campus.
That’s more than 4,000 undergrad students that we effectively converted into not just commuters, but SUPER commuters, totally disengaged from campus life.
I wish we had built the new College of Technology on campus, created a freshman housing mandate for all true unmarried freshmen not living with their parents, and most importantly, figured out a way to get rid of the eyesore that sits right across our campus on Calhoun, and contributes to our FALSE image as an unsafe place to live and study.
That would help get rid of the whole “commuter” campus thing.
That said…
With a huge chunk of our alums living in the Houston area, a lot of students in Houston simply want the experience of “going off” to college. The children of Houston area alums from UT and aTm get that when they “go off” to college at UT and aTm. But the children of Houston area alums from UH don’t really get that experience by enrolling at UH.
We all graduated from UH while it was a “commuter” school. So what? You guys just believing the insults other schools hurl at UH? Do you think your degree is a high school level degree as well?
Exactly. Commuter school? So what I ask again. We give a discount to an alum parent for their child/children is a must.
This is how you build a legacy.
UH is my son’s first choice, but he probably won’t qualify to get in. He’s a solid B student (3.4 weighted GPA) which puts him in the 3rd quartile in his school. I’m not forcing him to go to UH. He can go wherever he wants as long as it’s in Texas, public, and not named University of Texas in Austin (he won’t qualify anyway).
Anybody connected to Mrs. Khator and Fertitta should bring this up.
EastCoastCoog answered my question. We want fans in the seats? This is a must do. How do you think these stadiums get outstanding or even regular sell outs? Of course winning will bring casual fans but what makes college sports special? It is the historical link that a family has with one institution.
Every meaningful suggestion helps and ought to be considered by our leaders.
I too like the idea of legacy admittance to help
develop a family generational connection. Along with an alumni kid discount. If the discount is 5%, that’s only about $108/semester and probably doesn’t move the decision needle for many. If the discount is higher, applies to room and board too, even better.
As for legacy admits, Aggies have sworn to me that was the policy a long time ago, but when their children tried to leverage it, it didn’t exist.
So maybe it was a thing prior to 1980, and if was , I could see aggie needing to ditch it due to their lack of diversity already.
I am flabbergasted, yes flabbergasted that we are not offering a Legacy option to alums and their families.
Who is better to come and fill our stadiums but families directly connected to U of H?
This is the very essence of building roots.
You know who and atm do not offer it because they have decades and $B’s of resources that we do not have.
We want to bridge that gap? That is one of the ways to do it. Can anyone suggest this to Mrs. Khator, Fertitta and Pezman?