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SMU updates Strategic Plan Progress Report for 2017-2018

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Re: SMU updates Strategic Plan Progress Report for 2017-2018

Postby tristatecoog » Mon Oct 29, 2018 7:59 pm

I believe SMU owns the homes east of campus, south of Burleson Park. That's plenty of space. There's also the possibility of growing across 75.

So, you'd freeze tuition and grow the number of students? I've heard that only 23% of students pay full price. As Model T showed, there are plenty of families with money. You just have to show that SMU is worth the price relative to UT, Baylor, TCU, etc.

Just because people are Texans doesn't mean they're into watching football. The geographic diversity is one of the benefits of attending SMU.
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Re: SMU updates Strategic Plan Progress Report for 2017-2018

Postby deucetz » Tue Oct 30, 2018 8:05 am

Do the opposite, stop trying to compete with Baylor, TCU and UT--it's a losing game that we have kept playing.

Keep student size the same or even shrink it. I'm not sure why one would want to increase the student size before we maximize what we currently have. Increasing the student size will only exacerbate our current issue with academic quality. Our increasing student quality is a false narrative--High school GPAs are increasing with inflation, and SAT scores have gone up over time as well. SMU isn't outpacing the competition thus the stagnant US News rankings when it comes to academic quality, student quality, and resources.

Steps SMU should take:

-Build up funds so that the majority of undergrads will graduate with no student loans or under 15K upon graduation, increase scholarships for our competitive graduate programs.
-Spend money on faculty to get higher quality with more competitive academic backgrounds that focus on research and teaching.
-Reduce administrative bloat.
-Go the Rice route but make sure that we still invest in competitive sports.
-Build academic resources so 85 to 90 percent of students graduate in 4 years.
-Focus on half the students getting MDs, PhDs, and JDs, while the other half get competitive jobs nation wide (and get MBAs later).
-If you want to cheat the system a little, build up international student population.
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Re: SMU updates Strategic Plan Progress Report for 2017-2018

Postby AfricanMustang » Tue Oct 30, 2018 10:55 am

deucetz wrote:Do the opposite, stop trying to compete with Baylor, TCU and UT--it's a losing game that we have kept playing.

Keep student size the same or even shrink it. I'm not sure why one would want to increase the student size before we maximize what we currently have. Increasing the student size will only exacerbate our current issue with academic quality. Our increasing student quality is a false narrative--High school GPAs are increasing with inflation, and SAT scores have gone up over time as well. SMU isn't outpacing the competition thus the stagnant US News rankings when it comes to academic quality, student quality, and resources.

Steps SMU should take:

-Build up funds so that the majority of undergrads will graduate with no student loans or under 15K upon graduation, increase scholarships for our competitive graduate programs.
-Spend money on faculty to get higher quality with more competitive academic backgrounds that focus on research and teaching.
-Reduce administrative bloat.
-Go the Rice route but make sure that we still invest in competitive sports.
-Build academic resources so 85 to 90 percent of students graduate in 4 years.
-Focus on half the students getting MDs, PhDs, and JDs, while the other half get competitive jobs nation wide (and get MBAs later).
-If you want to cheat the system a little, build up international student population.


Agreed - and if you read the strategic plan progress report those are the steps that the school is pursuing, it just comes down to $$$ and lots of them to be able to pay competitive faculty to compete with the Harvards of the world, enough stipeds to convince high performing students to pursue PhDs from here, enough $ to offer scholarships such that people graduate with little to no debt, etc.
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Re: SMU updates Strategic Plan Progress Report for 2017-2018

Postby JoeKidd » Wed Nov 07, 2018 5:56 pm

deucetz wrote:Do the opposite, stop trying to compete with Baylor, TCU and UT--it's a losing game that we have kept playing.

Keep student size the same or even shrink it. I'm not sure why one would want to increase the student size before we maximize what we currently have. Increasing the student size will only exacerbate our current issue with academic quality. Our increasing student quality is a false narrative--High school GPAs are increasing with inflation, and SAT scores have gone up over time as well. SMU isn't outpacing the competition thus the stagnant US News rankings when it comes to academic quality, student quality, and resources.

Steps SMU should take:

-Build up funds so that the majority of undergrads will graduate with no student loans or under 15K upon graduation, increase scholarships for our competitive graduate programs.
-Spend money on faculty to get higher quality with more competitive academic backgrounds that focus on research and teaching.
-Reduce administrative bloat.
-Go the Rice route but make sure that we still invest in competitive sports.
-Build academic resources so 85 to 90 percent of students graduate in 4 years.
-Focus on half the students getting MDs, PhDs, and JDs, while the other half get competitive jobs nation wide (and get MBAs later).
-If you want to cheat the system a little, build up international student population.


Horrible idea.

1.) Get more Texas/Regional students, get our applications up over 20,000 by investing more in sports, which leads directly to visibility and applications increase.

2.) Get only as many international students as you need to balance the budget....as almost all foreign students are a 100% pay

3.) Drive down cost by having more revenue from increased students.

4.) Do a better job of getting students good paying jobs.....I think the school is horrible at connecting with SMU alum who run businesses.

5.) Start a medical and dental school with a new fundraising initiative

6.) Get Lyle into aeronautical engineering so we can partner with all of the large A&D firms in the area, Textron, L3, etc. Both 5 and 6 will also help grow our visibility thus drive applications as well.

Tell students to go to games or they get kicked out of school. The end.
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