By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
JULY 15, 2022 | The 22nd president of the University of Georgia, Jere Morehead, addressed the Gwinnett Rotary Club recently, relaying what’s going on at the state’s land grant college. This was his third visit to the Gwinnett Rotary Club since becoming president.
Morehead has served as president for the past 10 years and proudly proclaimed that winning a National Football Championship has brought together two common themes on campus. “We are now a powerhouse in academics as well as a powerhouse in athletics.”
He is also the Southeastern Conference representative to the NCAA Board of Governors, and chairs that board. It is with wrestling with how to meet the needs of student-athletes.
President Morehead told Rotarians that for the first time, the university has now passed enrolling 40,000 students, with a record 6,200 incoming freshmen students. “We had not expected that many to be in the freshman class, and so we are scurrying to find housing for that many new students.”
Among his comments:
- That with the university’s trajectory of growth, the average SAT scores has risen to 1391 and the average ACT score is 32. “Very few institutions have students with such high scores.”
- The University of Georgia is focused on interactive learning. It has launched programs to get students engaged, and is doing so through 150 pathways to earn a bachelor’s and master’s degree simultaneously. “We’re proud of an innovation district on campus that features hubs for research. We’re also partnering with Delta Air Lines to create the Delta Hub and offering hubs for agriculture and engineering innovation.”
- The president seemed particularly proud that “More than two-thirds of UGA graduates stay right here in Georgia to work—making a significant, positive impact on the economic prosperity and quality of life in our state. The contributions that our graduates make are among the many factors in UGA’s economic impact on Georgia, which is now estimated at $7.4 billion annually, an all-time high.”
Morehead
President Morehead told Rotarians something that we had not heard before: that only 15 percent of its first-year student come from outside Georgia, and that this 15 percent represent 43 different states. Morehead feels this means that its senior state’s publicly-funded university is particularly emphasizing the education of its own people.
And then President Morehead compared UGA to another Southern school: the University of Alabama, where 57.9 percent of its students are from elsewhere in the United States. That means that Alabama ranks first among major Southern schools in educating students from out of state.
That sent us researching how other state-supported Southern universities do in this area. Here is what we found out:
University percentage of out-of-state students
- Georgia 15%
- Georgia Tech 30%
- Alabama 58%
- Florida and FSU 12%
- South Carolina 43%
- Clemson 35%
- North Carolina 18%
- Virginia 31%
- Auburn 40%
- Ole Miss 57%
- LSU 26%
- Kentucky 38%
- Arkansas 38%
Note that Alabama and Auburn are the highest in educating out-of-state students, and Florida schools are the lowest in these rankings.
In South Carolina, the legislature sets the tuition for their university students who live in that state. However, the university can set the cost of tuition for out-of-state students. This allows South Carolina universities to get a substantial portion of its budget from higher tuition for out-of-state students.
These rankings show essentially that local taxpayers are primarily educating their own sons and daughters at the University of Georgia, with Georgia not educating a high percent of students from other states.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
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