My kiddo has UPS high on her list. We loved our recent visit. However, I just noticed their enrollment trend and got concerned. Is anyone here a parent of current student who might have insight into how the school is addressing it and what impact(s) are being felt?
My daughter is finishing her freshman year. She is having an excellent experience and thriving socially. I don’t know all of what the school is doing to address enrollment trends. I think this is an issue facing most institutions outside of the “top name recognition” schools. Uni of Puget Sound is still raising quite a bit of donor money. It still has a healthy endowment and from what I researched (as a parent who needs to count dollars & value) seems financially stable. You can Google the schools debt rating and financial status. My daughter was fortunate to receive wonderful scholarships, grants and work study she may not have received at other schools.
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Thanks for the feedback and thoughts! I worry less about the credit/endowment side as much as the “lived experience” for the students, like if campus was feeling less energetic/engaged. Sounds like your kiddo is having a good experience and that matters a lot! How has residence life been for her?
Oh! Yeah, got it. I felt cautious about a similar small school vibe. Living there has been great for her. I expected to get a mid-October call about making a mistake, too isolated, etc. We went up during Family Weekend this year and it was pretty bustling with students and faculty, in the cafes and the grounds. This was beyond the events they had planned. By that she had already made a cohort of close friends. When we arrived her residence hall students were doing something called “Brownies and Bouquets”. Super sweet social time. They made a ton of homemade brownies in the kitchen and got a bunch of flowers from Trader Joes. My daughter will be in Smith Hall next year. She lives in Anderson/Langdon now and apparently they have budgets to let students pull together these kind of gatherings. I wasn’t thrilled about the condition of the carpeting and old furniture, however, my takeaway was that the University doesn’t waste money on some things in order to support scholarships, paid internships, funded study abroad etc. So I am alright with the the low-lux living. Our state school, Colorado State University, had an air stream food truck with a rotating menu of global street food INSIDE one of the freshman dorms. That school of 33,000 was the same cost as our cost for UPS. My daughter was horrified, thank goodness. I took photos of all of the social things going on that are plastered on posters around the UPS campus while we were there. There was a ton they could join and do on a weekly basis. My daughter gets socially burnt out fairly quickly and needs more alone time then some, so she wasn’t doing everything. She reports the college is intimate, but if she felt isolated and poorly connected because of the smaller enrollment she would definitely share this. Other things she talked about - they occasionally make communal meals in there kitchen, they meet in the residence for organized study group time. Her bunch of friends sometimes leave campus to go thrifting in Tacoma or to Seattle for the Ballard Lochs and West Seattle where they found a swing dance event on Sundays. She went by herself to see this Berthold Brecht play performed by the theater students and to hear some history lectures with visiting professors. We talk maybe once every other week, so I bet there’s a lot more she’s been exploring. From what we could see the personality and character of the community was down to earth, intelligent and kind. In my experience I have found Gen-Z kids generally support each other. It’s a wonderful thing!
That sounds awesome. Thanks for all the insight — it’s super helpful and reassuring. My kiddo is pretty reserved and is actively seeking a smaller place, but I still worry she will go somewhere and “disappear.” I’m hopeful she will find a good community like that wherever she goes. As of now UPS is still first on her list!