For Release September 15
High School Students & University Picks
South Dakota's Public Universities Have a Lot to Offer Students
Pierre--Each year high school students from across the country and South Dakota take the ACT college entrance exams. When the test is administered, ACT collects some other information on high school students to help policy makers and educators plan for the future. ACT recently released information on students' institutional preferences for post-secondary study in South Dakota. It indicates that many students are not aware of the variety, low cost, and quality of public higher education in South Dakota.
Top Picks for Students
South Dakota's public universities have always been among the top ten list institutions that high school students indicate as their first choice to attend. However, this year only 48% of South Dakota high school students taking the ACT indicated one of South Dakota's public universities as their first choice--this is down from the three previous years. (see graph below)
SOURCE: ACT
A Lot for the Money
At a price few can beat, South Dakota’s public universities offer a wide variety of majors with the convenience and savings of being close-to-home.
South Dakota's six public universities offer over 200 majors of study and confer degrees from the certificate and associate level to the doctoral level. Many university departments provide unparalleled hands-on research opportunities to undergraduates, making students more attractive to employers and graduate schools. In addition, South Dakota's public universities provide students access to professors with a student/faculty ratio of 16 to 1 and are investing over $2 million in technology to improve educational opportunities and service to students.
*NOTE: Charges for Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota and Idaho are estimates, assuming admission through the Western Undergraduate Exchange (WUE) program which only applies to selected programs based upon availability. Actual attendance charges could be more. Averages are based on annual charges for tuition and mandatory fees, for 32 credit hours, for the 1996-97 academic year.
Quality
South Dakota's public universities provide a superb academic experience. Over three-quarters of the faculty hold a terminal degree in their field, new discipline councils are working on improving cooperation and opportunity for students, faculty are actively integrating the latest technology into their curricula, and more. Another measure of quality is student performance on national standardized exams. On these exams, South Dakota university students perform on par with or better than the national norms.
Below are the results of South Dakota's public university students’ performance on national standardized professional licensure and certification exams. South Dakota students perform above the national average on all but one exam.
Below are the results of a standardized proficiency exam given to South Dakota public university students in 1996. The graph shows that South Dakota public university students perform well above the national mean scores in all areas.
Higher education is one of the most empowering investments people can make in themselves and their children. South Dakota's public universities provide a low-cost, high-quality and close-to-home choice for South Dakotans to further their education.