SDSU’s enrollment growth over the past decade has coincided with higher ACT scores and grade point averages (GPA).
Enrollment this fall was 12,554, up from the 9,952 in 2002. The average GPA is 3.34; our ACT is one point higher than the state average and 1.6 points higher than the national figure.
The Jackrabbit Guarantee scholarship program launched in 2001 started our university on those upward trends in both size and quality.
Yet financial need is the most-common reason students cite for not completing their degree at SDSU.
The Foundation is partnering with the university on the Jackrabbit Scholarship Initiative, an effort to raise $2.1 million in new scholarship support annually to help SDSU maintain its competitive edge as a regional school of choice.
The initiative will help students at all levels — from promising students faced with financial limitations, to high-achieving students coveted by institutions throughout the country.
For four years in a row, SDSU’s freshman class has exceeded 2,200. And 41% of the incoming freshmen are first-generation college students, meaning that neither parent completed a baccalaureate or associate degree.
Those statistics, coupled with the survey citing financial need as the most-common impediment, shows why the additional scholarship dollars are so critical, university leaders say.
The Jackrabbit Guarantee program has worked. It accounts for a large segment of the nearly $4.2 million in privately supported scholarships awarded every year.
The Jackrabbit Scholarship Initiative will do more to ensure that students committed to earning a degree at SDSU have that opportunity, said Steve Erpenbach, President & CEO of the SDSU Foundation.
To learn how you can help us impact more students by supporting the Jackrabbit Scholarship Initiative, go to www.SDStateFoundation.org/Scholarships or contact the Foundation at (888) 747-7378 or
info@sdstatefoundation.org .
