By: Gabrielle Thompson
NSU puts quite a lot of emphasis on their 2020 vision and the recruitment of possible new students. The school hosts events such as Shark Preview and constant school tours, as well as many community events. All of these occasions make the school look amazing and persuade prospective students to become a Shark. While the school puts most of their focus on the expansion of the student body, they tend to forget about the students they already have.
NSU does a great job at marketing themselves. From the first step I took on campus in my junior year of high school, I fell in love with the atmosphere and I knew this was where I wanted to be. While I don’t regret becoming an NSU student, I do notice its downsides.
According to US News, the retention rate at NSU is 74 percent from freshman to sophomore year. However, I have met countless people who tell me they plan to transfer after the school year is over — and many of them tell me that after only being at NSU for a couple of months. This alone should be worrying, because although NSU does a great job of getting people here, they don’t do a very good job of keeping them. Instead of putting all this effort into recruiting new students, maybe NSU should focus on keeping the ones they already have.
Yes, NSU is making some awesome improvements to the school, including a new hospital on campus. But these improvements only benefit the students coming to NSU in the future. The 2020 vision has nothing to do with the current students. It’s great to have goals for the school, but what about the students already here? There have been requests for better food selections, prayer rooms, awnings and more that seem to get brushed aside constantly. If NSU can spend $80 million on a research facility, you think they’d be able to spend a couple thousand to renovate the food selections.
Enrolling new students is a very serious and important task, of course, and I’m not saying that NSU should push aside all their efforts. However, it would be nice for the school to give some thought on ways to improve the university for the students who are already here, paying their $45,000 tuition. If more effort went towards keeping the current student body content, maybe fewer people would transfer and the school wouldn’t have to try so hard to recruit.
