Marcos Palacios is one of more than 5,200 Texas Tech students who chose to attend college in their hometown.
The sophomore dual advertising and marketing major said that while he looked at other universities, including a couple out-of-state, he found that staying in town would be the best decision for him.
“There’s opportunities everywhere,” said Palacios, “but there were still so many here in my hometown that I didn’t want to overlook.”
The born and raised Lubbockite is far from the only student wanting to stick close to home. According to the university’s fact book, Lubbock County residents account for 15 percent of Tech’s total enrollment, twice the number of the school’s out-of-state students.
And, in a recent nationwide study by education analytics company Niche Ink, the majority, 58 percent, of college students attend school within 100 miles of their hometown.
Niche Ink’s findings: How far do students travel for college?
Palacios said he looked into attending the University of Texas in Dallas, but by staying in Lubbock, he got to keep his job, stay close to his parents, and pay inexpensive rent, all while still getting a quality education.
“It would have been an adventure to be in Dallas and be on my own there, and there’s still a little part of me that wishes I went,” he said, “but I don’t have regrets that I stayed here because I know I’m doing good things here too.”
Those who are not staying in their hometown to attend college are more likely to at least stay within their home state to get a college education. According to Niche Ink’s findings, 72 percent of high school graduates attend in-state institutions. At Texas Tech, in-state students account for 93 percent of total undergraduate enrollment.
Ethan Logan, Ph.D, the executive director of undergraduate admissions, said Texas is one of five states that has an increasing number of high school graduates rather than decreasing, and because the potential pool of students is so high, consequently, so is Tech’s number of in-state students.
“We have such a high population of students, so, that’s the reason we have such a high population of in-state students,” said Logan. “And we’re not alone, almost all of the public schools in Texas are the same way.”
However, Tech does differ from other public universities in a particular way when it comes to in-state students. Logan said about 70 percent of total enrollment comes from more than 350 miles from Tech.
“That’s a very unique concept, especially to public school,” he said. “Most public schools and metropolitan public schools have the preponderance of their students local.”
Logan credited the high percentage to the skewed population distribution across Texas. He said that in the period between years 2020 and 2023, there will be about 35,000 high school seniors in West Texas, while Harris County, which is the greater Houston area, will have 50,000 graduating seniors.
“One county in Texas will have more high school seniors than 108 counties in all of West Texas,” said Logan.
Compared to Tech’s overwhelming number of in-state students, the population of out-of-state undergraduate students is small. According to the university fact book, there are 2,644 out-of-state students enrolled at Tech, which includes undergraduate, graduate, and law schools.
Logan said this is because, for the most part, Tech has only recruited high school graduates from Texas, and has only recently started to do any significant out-of-state student recruitment.
“We have a conscientious, concerted undergraduate recruitment plan for out-of-state students,” he said, “and we’re trying to build that, but it’s a slow process.”
Logan said the out-of-state recruitment plan has been in the works for three to four years, but started its first official stages about a year ago. He likened the plan to a grass roots process, and said that it takes small incremental growth at the beginning to build the idea and prospect of it.
He said they began with target marketing, and then sent recruiters to different out-of-state communities to meet with high school students and counselors, in an attempt to build brand awareness and general word-of-mouth.
“Now we are kind of in the third stage of that culmination of our development of out-of-state recruitment,” he said, “and that is that we have two out-of-state recruiters who live in those out-of-state markets.”
Logan said one of the full-time Texas Tech recruiters lives in Denver, Colo. and the other lives in California. He said they are specifically focusing on these states because they, like Texas, are two of the biggest exporters of potential students in the country.
Dr. Ethan Logan, executive director of undergraduate admissions, working in his office in West Hall.
“We are specifically focused on the southwest region, Texas across to California,” said Logan, “so, New Mexico, Arizona, but also up into Colorado.”
Caroline McBride, a native of Highlands Ranch, Colo., a suburb of Denver, said she heard about Tech through a friend. She decided to visit, and fell in love with the campus and how friendly the people are. She said she looked into going to the University of Colorado and Colorado State University, but after trying out for Tech’s Pom Squad and making the team, the decision was a no-brainer.
“I don’t have any regrets at all,” said the senior marketing and management major, “going to college nine hours away from home is one of the best decisions I’ve made.”
Like many other high school seniors, McBride said she wanted to go to school far away from home where she did not know anyone.
“You learn a lot about yourself when you decide to go to college in a brand new place,” she said, “and you also get the opportunity to meet so many different people when you get out of your comfort zone and move away from home. ”
Logan spoke from personal experience about the idea high school seniors have about embracing their newfound independence and going off to college far from home, and said, despite Tech’s reasonably large population of students from Lubbock, that they are by far the toughest to recruit.
“That idea of getting away and, I think, the allure of college is to say that you get to reinvent yourself in a situation where you’re in a completely new environment. That’s the allure, but that’s also intimidating,” he said. “This is very compelling, and especially in a region like Lubbock that is very geographically insular.”
Logan said he thinks this idea is a misconception.
As a Lubbock native and Texas Tech graduate, Logan knows how local high school graduates feel. He said he never planned to end up at Tech after high school; he was accepted at the University of Texas and Drew University, a private liberal arts school in Madison, New Jersey, and only applied to Tech as his “safety valve.”
Logan said he couldn’t afford to stay at Drew for a full four years and found the University of Texas overwhelming, so, at the last minute, he decided to stay in Lubbock and go to Tech.
He said it was a great decision because the experience ended up being nothing like he thought it would be.
“It was in and of itself a completely brand new experience. And, so, that’s the false premise that, I think, Lubbock students have is that it’s just like high school,” said Logan, “and the fact is that it is completely different because of all of these other people who are coming here who aren’t from Lubbock. That’s what makes this a different experience.”
As a local student, Palacios said he loves to travel and get out of town as much as anyone else, but he would advise Lubbock students not to overlook Tech.
“There are great things happening here,” he said, “and not everyone gets to grow up with a great university in their backyard.”
About Nicole Crites
