An overwhelming majority of University of Wyoming students are content with their education.
According to a recent UW Student Satisfaction Survey (UWSSS), over 90 percent of UW students are “pleased with their education and would recommend the university to friends and relatives.” This means that UW is above national averages in the majority of student satisfaction areas.
Vice President for Student Affairs Sara Axelson presented the results of the survey to the board of trustees at a meeting on Friday, Jan. 16.
“We are pleased to see that UW students continue to be overwhelmingly happy with the education they receive,” Axelson said. “They’re particularly pleased with campus safety, library and computer facilities and the quality of our faculty.”
The results of the survey displayed in Axelson’s presentation showed that 82 percent of UW students are pleased with classroom facilities and that 70 percent are content with current laboratory facilities.
The majority of UW students, 87 percent, also feel safe on campus. Axelson said this is a major point of pride for the university.
“This is significantly higher than the national norm and something that we should strive to maintain,” Axelson said.
The survey was not all positive, however. UW students were dissatisfied with on campus parking, residence halls and current student activity fees. Axelson said that parking is a regularly disliked by UW students in satisfaction surveys and the university’s current residence halls are “not competitive.”
“We know they’re not competitive, and our student’s are telling us that in the satisfaction survey,” Axelson said.
Axelson also advised the board of trustees that UW has to be careful of keeping the overall costs down, or students will continue to be dissatisfied with activity fees.
The survey polled “about 1,000” UW students from both the Laramie campus and various UW Outreach Schools, according to a news release on the university website.
Though the polling only reached a fraction of UW students, the university affirmed that the survey yielded a “representative sample of students,” via news release.
Multiple surveys comprise the UWSSS, including one UW student survey that is conducted every two years, and two national surveys: the Noel-Levitz Student Satisfaction Inventory and the American Collegiate Testing (ACT) survey.
The largely positive response to the survey was not a surprise to one UW student. Erich Johnson, a sophomore Political Science major, said that he is satisfied with his UW experience.
“I mean it makes sense,” Johnson said. “I would consider myself satisfied with UW.”
