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The University of Florida series, Measuring University Performance, will continue with the issue of April 1, 1996. Future issues will take up additional topics reflecting the university's commitment to measuring university performance in quality and productivity of research, teaching, extension, and service.

All of us at the University of Florida welcome comments and suggestions prompted by this series. Please write to the Office of Institutional Planning and Research, PO Box 113115, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611-3115 (ufdata@aa.ufl.edu).

Summary

Students represent one of the primary reflections of university quality. This quality comes both from the initial scores of the entering class and from the performance of students after they leave the university. In determining institutional quality, we review these indicators of quality recognizing that they benchmark the university against national standards and help us understand how well we do relative to our peers. At the same time, we also recognize that these measures do not easily link to budgets or specific annual evaluations, being the result of long term activities and characteristics of the institution.

In addition, student satisfaction with the program of the university offers a somewhat different perspective on quality, and the better the students and the better their performance, the more important their evaluations of our programs. While student satisfaction remains an important indicator, it too reflects the cumulative reflection of many years of experience both in class and after graduation.

University of Florida undergraduates rank among the top ten AAU public institutions in various measures of quality. This year, U.S. News & World Report rated the University of Florida the second best buy in higher education in the United States, reflecting the very high quality education delivered at a very low price. Our alumni are overwhelmingly satisfied with the education they receive, and after graduation they become successful and productive citizens. This issue of Measuring University Performance provides a variety of indicators that reflect the quality of our students, the quality of their experience at the University of Florida, and the success they demonstrate after graduation.

Initial Quality of Undergraduates

As the University of Florida increased enrollment over the last ten years, it also increased selectivity in admissions. In 1985, the middle 50% of SAT scores fell between 1000 and 1170; ten years later, by 1995, the middle 50% fell between 1080 and 1250. This increase in scores reflects not only the increased quality of the institution and its attractiveness to Florida high school graduates but also the substantial growth of college-age population in the state.

In 1995, the University of Florida ranked eighth among all universities and fourth among public universities in the number of National Merit Scholars. The university also ranked among the top ten AAU public universities in both SAT scores and in the high school standing of its freshman class.

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Alumni Satisfaction

Surveys of alumni offer another perspective on the quality of undergraduate student experience. The Florida Survey Research Center contacted alumni in 1993 and found that 94% remembered their overall experience at the University of Florida as positive, and half of the alumni rated their undergraduate experience as excellent. The Survey Research Center used a randomly selected group from a list of all 1990-92 graduates.

Given these almost universal positive overall impressions of the University of Florida undergraduate experience, it comes as no surprise to find that most alumni surveyed (85%) would definitely recommend the University of Florida to a friend or relative considering college.

Another survey, of the graduating class of May 1993, found graduating seniors also give highly positive ratings to the university, although they express somewhat less enthusiasm at the moment of graduation than they will probably feel after a few years as alumni. About nine in ten seniors rate their academic experience as excellent (28%) or good (60%). Nearly three-fourths (72%) of graduating seniors say they would definitely recommend the University of Florida to a friend or relative considering college. An additional 21% would probably recommend UF while only 4% said they would not recommend the university.

Alumni Success

One of the reasons alumni rate the university so highly is their success in gaining employment after graduation. Of the undergraduate degree recipients surveyed, 91% reported that they had employment or were pursuing further education. Only 6% remained unemployed after graduation. Most of the graduates had relatively high status jobs with only 5% in blue collar occupations while the remaining 95% worked in professional/ executive or white collar occupations.

Those who went on for further education pursued a variety of advanced degrees. Just under half (47%) worked on Master's degrees, another 12% pursued doctoral degrees, and the remaining 41% sought professional or other degrees.

This survey also looked at combined Master's and Ph.D. graduates. Among these advanced degree recipients, only 7% remained unemployed at the time of the survey.

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Professional Degrees

Students who graduate in a professional program often measure the quality of their professional education by tracking their pass rates on professional licensure examinations. The high opinion University of Florida graduates have of their professional programs derives in considerable measure from the high pass rates they achieve on these exams.

Ph.D. Recipients

A separate survey of Ph.D. recipients in science and engineering showed that only 1% were seeking employment. Among the employed, 83% of these graduates reported that their Ph.D. degree proved important in obtaining their current position. All but 1.4% found their Ph.D. training important in preparing them for the work they performed in their present position. Of the Ph.D.'s surveyed, 42% ended up in jobs with salaries greater than $30,000.

Conclusion

None of these data provide an exact representation of quality, and each indicator offers but an indirect measurement of the quality delivered to students and contributed by students to the educational mission of the university. The key to understanding these data is not to take them as absolute measures but rather as relative measures of an underlying quality that may be hard to identify but whose indicators we can find consistently in many places.

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