The student body composition consists of more graduate students than in the past two years.
APSU’s graduate enrollment since 2016 has increased by 30 percent.
Word of mouth helped grow the university to the size it is today along with strategic marketing.
“The biggest reason why [people come to APSU] is Austin Peay has a very high quality educational program at the graduate and undergraduate level, and that word has disseminated across the state,” Chad Brooks, Ph.D., Associate Provost for Research and Dean of College of Graduate Studies and Biology Professor said. “I think it is about quality. Second, I think we are much better about telling that story of quality than we ever have in the past.”
Word of APSU’s programs has gotten out by paid advertisements, ads on NPR, local radio stations, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google Analytics and word of mouth.
Marketing helped grow the enrollment of graduate students in several areas.
The affordability of an education at APSU also has helped increase the number of graduate students.
Three colleges have seen significant amounts of growth since 2016.
“The entire college of STEM has gone up by 155 percent over the past two years, 45 percent in this year alone,” Brooks said. “The college of education has gone up right at 19 percent over the past two years, and the college of behavioral health has gone up almost 30 percent so 29.6 percent in the past two years.”
In the college of STEM, the biology graduate program has gone up 17.9 percent.
In the behavioral health college, human health and performance’s (HHP’s) master’s program has gone up 40.7 percent this year.
“Another key player in our growth is in the department of leadership and organizational administration,” Brooks said. “It has gone up 77.9 percent this year.”
The number of international students at APSU also has increased.
International enrollment has gone up by 193 percent over the last two years in the graduate programs.
At the undergraduate level, the enrollment has gone up by 22 percent for international students.
“Another reason why our graduate enrollment has gone up is because since 2016, we have added seven more graduate programs and 9 more concentrations.” Brooks said. “One of the fastest ways to grow graduate enrollment is to offer relevant programs to our community and state.”
The increase in graduate programs lead to an increase in graduate research on campus.
“The more graduate students we have, the more research has to be done on our campus because graduate students, often in order to graduate, have to push the envelope of their discipline and they have to provide something useful to the discipline, to society at large.” Brooks said.
Graduate programs help to grow the campus closer towards innovations and discoveries.
The existence of more graduate assistants has helped increase those break throughs.
In 2016, there were 86 graduate assistants on campus.
Now there are over 220 graduate assistants on campus.
Graduate students through choosing APSU can help shape it and change the campus for the better.
