By Nancy McCann
It’s remarkable news, said USF St. Petersburg’s Regional Chancellor Martin Tadlock: The projected freshman retention rate for students who entered USF St. Petersburg in the fall of 2018 is over 82 percent.
The “retention rate” is the percentage of a school’s first-year undergraduates who continue at that school the next year.
Tadlock told a large audience of USF St. Petersburg faculty and staff on Aug. 19 that there is an 8 percentage point increase in freshman retention when compared to the fall-to-fall figure for 2017-2018.
He applauded the hard work on the part of faculty and staff who made this happen.
“Nationally, the average retention rate is 75 percent,” Tadlock said. “You can’t find another university in the United States with that significant of an increase in the freshman retention rate over the last three years as we have had at USF St. Petersburg.”
He also reported that the projected number of incoming freshmen at USF St. Petersburg in the fall 2019 semester is down.
But he said that’s no surprise as St. Petersburg heads toward consolidation of the three USF campuses. The final number of freshmen will be available after the first week of classes.
The student profile of USF St. Petersburg’s first-time-in-college freshmen went from a 3.82 GPA in 2017 to an estimated 4.1 GPA in 2019, climbing to meet the requirement that all three USF campuses use identical admissions criteria when they operate as one university.
The average of incoming USF St. Petersburg students’ test scores also went up.
State law requires that the three USF campuses operate under a single accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges by July 1.
The average GPA of all freshmen enrolled in the fall semester is the number that appears with test scores in a school’s “student profile,” one of the first things students applying to college want to know.
The Tampa Bay Times reported that the goal last year for students attending the Tampa campus was an average 4.2 weighted GPA.
“We expected (lower freshman enrollment) to happen because when we are competing for that profile throughout Florida, throughout the nation, we are competing against top universities throughout the country where those students have many choices,” said Tadlock.
He said he anticipates higher freshman enrollment next year because of the new residence hall, more scholarships and more national recruiting.
“We need to get over the old model of thinking that the way to start school is to come in as a freshman in the fall semester,” Tadlock said.
“Bogus. No more. You come to the university when it’s appropriate, when you can get in, when you can be successful, and we need to get that message out to the community.”
At many schools, currently including USF St. Petersburg, one of the benefits to starting as a freshman in the spring semester is that the desired student profile is lower.
The freshman retention rate and the average GPA/test score for incoming freshmen in the fall are two of the 11 out of 12 metrics that must be met to maintain the status of a preeminent state research university.
An average 4.0 weighted GPA and a retention rate of 90 percent are the minimums required to meet those metrics. When consolidation occurs, data from the three USF campuses will be combined.
Other positive news from Tadlock included a record-breaking amount for USF St. Petersburg research awards. Last year, research awards totaled $6.2 million, and the St. Petersburg campus has already exceeded that amount in August of this year, with faculty receiving $6.8 million in grants.
The decision by the Florida Legislature to add $3.5 million to USF St. Petersburg’s operating budget in the 2020 fiscal year — thanks to the Pinellas legislative delegation — is also a vote of confidence in the St. Petersburg campus, he said.
“We are going to be hiring some very carefully targeted faculty and staff because we have some new programs we are launching and some critical shortages of faculty in some of our programs,” Tadlock said.
Finding space for labs, offices and classrooms was also mentioned as a priority, including remodeling Davis Hall.
“I have never been more proud of a university than I am,” said an emotional Tadlock. “There has never been a university that has climbed and made so much progress in such a short period of time as USF St. Petersburg.”
