OT: More Proof UH Is Transforming to Traditional Campus

Football
508

Nailed it!

Its why UH alums brag about sending their children to UT/ Tech/ A&M/ the SEC schools or any other school not named the University of Houston because they, the first generation college graduate, went there so their future generations can go to a more socioeconomic valued school.

UH’s reputation hurts it big time.

How to fix it…target Traditional Students from other states, limit our “commuter type low ROI students” to 25% MAX, the less the better a 1/4 or 1/5 can be worked around, develop both a University District AND a real Greek Row to keep students on/adjacent to campus 7 days a week whether they have class or not.

For that 20-25%, remember Texas A&M loves to joke only 2% are those type of students

Reverse our reputation from the Outside- In. Being a regional school option is not helping us.

The acceptance of a P4 invitation all but killed our dependence as a commuter school, in my book. So we must go ALL-IN on becoming Traditional

Their concerns are counterproductive to where we are no heading.

1 Like
509

Yes…of my classmates that care about UH post graduation, almost all lived on campus for 1 year.

We should also start to see an uptick in estate donations the closer alums feel connected to their University

1 Like
510

I know about those residences which honestly could have created a community better than the prior arrangement. Wonder if they do anything more. When I was in school (late 80s and early 90s), we were able to get blocks of seating together, had a healthy intramurals program with Greek divisions, etc. it wasn’t perfect, but for those of us that participated, it was good. I think we’re the ones that continue to support the school financially and by volunteering.

511

Ya know, in the end, we can either strive to be the UCLA of Houston, or the Cleveland State of Houston.

I should hope that we would all want for UH to be the UCLA of Houston, but sadly, there appear to be people here that would rather we be the Cleveland State of Houston.

It’s kinda sad actually.

1 Like
513

Good question.

I mean, I am a life member and never lived on campus. I went to Iowa for law school, a typical BIG school, and also did not live on campus.

514

Fact is, when your university is located in a major urban area with a bunch of traffic, AND when it has two large state flagships, it is very difficult for you to get those students to switch from the flagships to the urban institution. It just is.

The reason UCLA can do it is because (i) CA is a large state that is geographically long; so SoCAL is very different from NoCAL. (ii) UCLA IS one of the flagships. It is like TAMU to Berkley’s UT.

A better comparison for UH is one of the other great UC system schools, like UC Davis, UC San Diego, Riverside or Irvine, all of which are AAU members. What are there numbers like? Well according to the most recent data, UC San Diego has only 31% on campus living, UC Irvine has 48%, Riverside 34%, and UC Davis 38%.

Anyone who has spent any time in CA should not be surprised by these numbers. Irvine is in Orange County, a relative well off area. So, not shocking that people would choose to stay on campus. Riverside, however, is notoriously not that nice, so not a surprise that a lot of people choose to commute. Also, Riverside is part of the “Inland Empire” and draws a lot of students from lower middle class areas in that region. UCSD? Sort of like Houston: located in a major urban area. However, unlike Houston, San Diego’s traffic is light compared to Houston, and its not nearly as spread out. I say this as someone whose cousin went to school there. UCSD is technically not in San Diego, but in La Jolla which is a very expensive area. Any housing that would be built probably would cost so much that very few students could afford it.

UC Davis is sort of like Texas Tech; its located in the north central part of the state near Sacramento and is semi-rural. Not a surprise that many would choose to live on campus, as many UC Davis students come from Northern CA. In fact, some people refer to UC Davis as “California A&M”, since it started as an agricultural of the UC System.

There are a few other UC branches that are also AAU: UC Santa Barbara and UC Santa Cruz, which have 38% and 51% of students living on campus, respectively.

Let’s look outside of the UC System.

Pitt - 42% on campus
Maryland - 38% on campus
Utah - 17% on campus (less than us)
UI- Chicago - 15% (less than us).
UIUC - 50%
Georgia State - 20%
Cincinnati - 25%

All of the schools listed above are AAU member and/or Tier 1 research universities, yet the number of students living on campus varies considerably. UI-Chicago I think is a great comparison for us, because it is located just outside downtown Chicago and has received huge investments from the state of Illinois, and it’s academic rep has risen dramatically. It has risen so much, that it is actually getting close to UIUC! It is now the 76th ranked university in the country, overall. Not just public universities, but of all universities. It is the 40the ranked public school. If you look at its student body, it is a mirror image of ours. That should be our goal.

Point is, we need to compare apples to apples, if we want to get a good idea of who and what we are, where we can realistically be, and therefore, what we need to do to get there. Trying to turn UH into UT-Houston is not going to work.

1 Like
515

No. No. Already happens.

1 Like
516

You keep saying this, but why are these the only two options? Why can’t we be the UH of Houston?

4 Likes
517

My brother in law who was a highschool senior wanted UH but they dropped the ball during orientation

He ended up going to aggies because they offered him more money and made slightly more effort in getting him to attend aTm. I went to orientation with him and i was disappointed with the difference. Financial aid and or registration needs to clean house and hire alot more competent staff. Alot more. We should not be turning anyone away over 3k dollars. Not only that anyone in the top 10% or top 5% like my brother in law.

I know this happens alot because the unwillingness to help was evident. 3k shouldnt be a deciding factor. aTm went back and added more aid afterwards…

2 Likes
518

21.3% of our students (Fall 2024) identified as Asian American.
11.9% of our students identified as Black
17.8% White
34% Hispanic
10.5% were international, and we know the costs to come here for students in that regard.

In a lot of cases, no matter how much parents of some kids could afford it, especially in communities that I know, their parents only gave them one choice for undergrad: The University of Houston.

Anything specific that went down vs Aggie orientation?

The more and more I hear, the more I believe the process/offices need an overhaul. However, I don’t think any of us are qualified/entitled to tell them how to do their jobs. I did hear of some students recenly losing their aid/ability to attend because the offices dropped the ball (one on reddit detailing a 2.5 hour wait on the phone).

Honestly, this is a huge difference to when I was trying to get approved as a CS major (I was accepted into polisci at the time on a low gpa from my previous institution).

The guy on the phone calculated my GPA down to the class and gave me a thumbs up. At orientation, an admissions officer saw a C on my PHYSICS LAB and said ‘No’ even though my CS GPA was high. The other advisor at the end of the day did the same calculations and had my major changed a day later.

Had it not been changed, I would have been back at UHD or at Texas Tech. That admissions officer didn’t do jack squat to follow the rules, just interpreted a lab grade.

519

The put you in an auditorium and have the kids go with the residents to learn the chants and yells. Even before they actually commit. The put a career fair style expo in the lobby to tell you where to live, safety, possible jobs, gym all that stuff. Student organizations. Etc… before the presentation for engineering. They also had breakfast for everyone and a panel of people in different roles answering questions. Including the dean or president. UH gave us water.

During the tour we didnt even get to see the recreational building. We took him there and a student worker there gave us a tour.

Not to mention theres 2-3 different tour types and all see different things on the website. I will say this, you get to bring more family at UH which matters.

It could have been better. The financial aid portion where we talked to them about ways to increase or UH in 4 or Cougar Promise left a bitter taste in my mouth. They said there was nothing they could do and when they gave us a form to sign they said it was going to get processed after a year.

1 Like
520

Because the UH of Houston that people like you and Whitmire envision is more like Cleveland State than UCLA.

Anyone interested in being academically/reputationally elite will strive for a different and more UCLA-ish model.

Wouldn’t you rather UH be more like UCLA than Cleveland State?

1 Like
521

Apparently not, LAW.

Many here want us to hold on to our Commuter School image by the Jaws of Life and when you have politicians like Whitmire and SJL openly sabotaging Khator/Fertitta 's efforts to build a “destination” University a true UT v2.0 for out of state applicants…it makes it that much more difficult.

So we are left as a Cougar High Regional school that scares of 1) higher socioeconomic parents 2) developers from developing a true University District adjacent to campus and 3) greek chapters from investing in the University of Houston because they know our administration won’t help them.

And the cycle continues and GOOD potential Traditional school Applicants chose academically inferior SEC schools because they offer the complimentary amenities the University of Houston lacks

Being in the middle of a major metro has NOTHING to do with it…we’ve losted dozens of P4 examples where its worked.

Even Rice has a University District adjacent to campus…why can’t we???

522

Illinois (UIUC) probably isn’t a good example to compare with UH though.

First of all, it has a freshman housing MANDATE; we should as well, except that dumbass Whitmire torpedoed it.

Second, it has the nation’s LARGEST Greek system, with 87 fraternities and sororities with over 6000 actives, nearly all of which have residential houses on or near campus.

Third, it has a way larger percentage of dorm dwellers (half).

Fourth, even those students that aren’t living in either dorms or Greek houses are nearly all living within a small radius of campus, and are traditional, full-time, destination, “go off to college” students……you know, like UT or aTm, and UNLIKE UH.

Fifth, it’s an AAU member, land grant, public flagship.

TOTALLY different from UH.

Illinois is more or less a combination of UT and aTm located out in the country in a college town environment.

Illinois-Chicago would be more like UH, except with crap sports.

3 Likes
523

Dude, she’s mentions her vision every chance she gets

Do you even listen to her annual State of the University Address?

Did you watch the Centennial Project Presentation where they talked about the type of campus they want to become by year 100?

Spoiler: its not one to serve low ROI Commuter Students.

I"ll post this again, because apparently its not resonating with you:

https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-culture/power-issue-renu-khator-working-nonstop-turn-commuter-school-world-class-university/

Why do you hate the evolution of UH so much??

524

Have you thought about trying to join the board of regents? It might be the perfect outlet for you to express all of your thoughts and feelings about UH.

2 Likes
525

What are you trying to compare between ucla and UH?
Academically we need to do whatever we can to aspire to be close to ucla. Can I happen? We can but it will take decades and who shall aspire to do so.
Trying to compare ucla’s campus to UH? IMPOSSIBLE.
You can’t compare California’s landscape to the greater Houston area. There is very little space between the ocean and the mountain ranges. Therefore every is condensed in a relatively small area. The greater Houston area is constantly evolving since there are no zoning laws. An area that was nice 25 years ago might different today. That is rarely the case in California.
I mentioned it before. The Third Ward “rebirth” (it was an upscale African American neighborhood) has to be helped by the City of Houston. Some cities have had a renaissance. Downtown San Diego used to be a dump. You would not want to spend five minutes after dark. City leaders changed/helped that transformation. The very same thing can be done to help UH and TSU.
Traffic in San Diego County and all around California is horrible. Again this is due to the geography/topography.

526

image

1 Like
527

Mixed Martial Arts Sport GIF by UFC

1 Like
528

My thought on this is we can be both but need to trend up to more residential and traditional students. Maybe we can get to 30% in the future. Right now we’re at about 25% or close which makes us an official residential school by the metric , especially by 2027 with that new dorm. The point many are missing is we can be both so commuters won’t go away and we can achieve a critical mass of 10k or more then 3 k around campus which we will have by 2027.

Khator understands the need for that critical mass of on campus otherwise no new dorms would have been built. It helps make a vibrant campus and improves grad rates and we’re climbing in rankings bc of her push.

We can have a mix of both and commuters do help bc as costs increase , we have them to help keep enrollment up.

Best of both worlds which is a strength other schools might not have .

Key is a critical mass on campus then we’re good.

So I don’t see why anyone would argue since we can have a perfect blend.

If you disagree then your disagreeing with dr Khator who initiated this and understands it’s the only way to correct the issues we have.

I agree with Cullen and law that we need more traditional students bc it solves attendance and donor issues and it’s why many p4 teams don’t have the issues we have so we must trend upward on that with dorms etc. It’s not an all or nothing game and commuters can still be a part of the equation.

Again businesses and organizations need to improve or stay stagnant or die.

If we don’t embrace change , you’ll soon see Utep or another Ucf etc go past us and suddenly be acceptable to the sec or big10 while we sat stagnant not wanting to change. All schools are trying to move forward and Khator gets it. The new rankings for us are a direct result of Khator’s vision which is more a more residential campus. Why are we spending money on the 100 yr plan? It’s to move us forward.

To say me , law and Cullen hate UH is ridiculous bc all we want is improvement and it’s what needs to happen. You can be both proud of your school and want improvement at the same time. I notice more people taking pride in UH bc of said academic improvements with tier one etc. It’s also not racist to want more traditional students bc we’re gonna end up with a good blend of traditional and commuters.

Your missing the point if you disagree and Khator gets it.