Increasing Graduate Programs

Veronika Kondratieva
Assistant News Director

Texas State University President’s office set the goal of increasing the proportional size of university’s graduate population.

While university doctoral programs are nearly at their student capacity, the focus is aimed at the master’s programs.

Comparing Texas to the other most populous states, like New York and California, only 6.6% of Texas residents hold a master’s degree.

In her Fall 2014 convocation speech, Texas State President Denise Trauth said that more Texans need to be educated on the master’s level. So the President’s office is currently doing a number of studies to find out where to add more master’s students, Trauth said.

“The master’s degree is really increasingly a stepping stone to higher level employment categories,” said Trauth. “It really helps you move from one place to another. Really we are doing people a favor, by making more masters’ level education available.”

In order to achieve the goal of graduate increase, the President’s Office is concentrated on three main aspects, like recruitment, scholarships and retainment of already existing students.

During the “Pride In Action” campaign the university has already raised more than $25 million for scholarships for students across the entire university. In addition, this fall Texas State added a new online master’s degree in dementia. Next fall the addition of a master’s degree in engineering is already projected.

Trauth said that graduate students also contribute to the intellectual climate of the university.

“Graduate students are inherently interested in their subject,” said Trauth. “That’s what you focus on in graduate degree and you become intellectually very engaged in that subject and that kind of bubbles out of people and infects, if you will, and I mean infect in a good way. Infects the whole university. And that is a benefit to the undergraduates to be in a cultural environment where intellectual activities are valued.”

The future growth of the graduate population will not affect the admission requirements for freshmen. However, in order to achieve the research university status, Texas State does require 50% of the freshmen class to come from the top 25% of their high school class.