Does Size Matter?: Big School vs. Small School Satisfaction

Our research study examined the overall school satisfaction of students from two schools, Kalamazoo College and Texas State University at San Marcos (UTS). Our findings show that students who attend a larger university are more satisfied with their experience than a student who attends a smaller school.
One major factor in school satisfaction that arose from the responses is dining services. The ratings of the dining services at UTS were rated higher than the dining services of Kalamazoo College. On a 1 (worst) to 4 (best) scale, UTS dining services received a rating of 2.81, while Kalamazoo’s received an average of 2.48. This statistic was found to be significant using hypothesis testing.
Security satisfaction was another important factor. The average rating for TSU was 2.97, while Kalamazoo received a 2.32.
Although other factors were explored during this survey, dining and security began to emerge as the two most statistically significant factors. A much larger sample from more colleges and universities may reveal other important factors. From this research, colleges and universities should look to improve these parts of their schools to attract more students.