2 min read March 2022 — The University of Tampa’s Sykes College of Business offers a world-class education with an international reputation for success. Highly qualified students of diverse ages and backgrounds receive advanced training in an array of disciplines from faculty members with a pulse on the business community. In an interview with Invest:, Dean Frank Ghannadian discussed the state of higher education, enrollment decline, what makes them unique, affordability, and the challenges the institution is facing.
What is the current state of higher education in Tampa Bay?
This is a growing city, and the population is increasing as more people move to Tampa Bay. Due to the influx of new residents, there has been a squeeze placed upon the real estate sector. We’ve had some of the highest increases in real estate prices, and rents have gone up around 15 to 20% in the past year. This makes it more difficult for industries to move here, and for us to hire faculty and staff, as living expenses increase. It makes it harder to find new talent given the rise in living costs.
What strategies have you developed to avoid enrollment decline?
Fortunately, the University of Tampa has had an 8-10% growth in enrollment over the last year, so we haven’t had to deal with declines yet. However, demographics show that the number of college-age students is going to decline rapidly from 2026 onwards. Our strategy is to partner with international schools in Brazil, China, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy and other areas of the world. Through these relationships, we expect to continue to maintain and increase enrollment should there be an overall decline.
What differentiates you from other universities and programs in the region?
There are several factors that have propelled us to the level of recognition we currently have. The first one being that University of Tampa is a private school, and our classes rarely exceed 30 students. This is a great student-to-teacher ratio in comparison to public university lectures that can have a couple hundred people in each class. Our small class size allows faculty to give personal attention to students.
Secondly, we have been able to hire world-class faculty over the last five to 10 years. They are some of the best out there within their disciplines. We have professors in accounting, economics, marketing, finance, entrepreneurship and information technology. We’ve recently hired faculty to meet the demand of the Cyber Security and Entrepreneurship programs, which have grown tremendously and are ranked among the best in the country.
The combination of great faculty, small classes, and modern facilities with appropriate technology allows us to deliver classes at the best level. We will be opening a technology building in Fall 2022 to house the Management Information System offices and classrooms. Given all of this, I think our recognition and rankings are adequate.
How would you analyze the progress that has been made in keeping education affordable for students?
The university policy has been to provide affordable education. We want our students to feel that private education doesn’t have to cost an arm or a leg. The University of Tampa offers an outstanding education at a cost of 20-30% less than our rival private schools. Our tuition is around $35,000 a year, which is really competitive for a private school. This helps us have a healthy number of students that want to come to our university. Unfortunately, we can’t accept them all, so we have a waiting list.
What are the main challenges the University of Tampa is facing as an institution?
We’ve been growing and have added more buildings to the campus. However, we are limited in terms of land since we are located close to downtown. To tackle this problem, we are currently building in vacant spaces within our 100-acre plus compound, but to continue to grow we will need to acquire additional land. As we are in a prime real estate area, we are dealing with price increases making it difficult to expand. Our only way to alleviate this is to build taller buildings within our campus.
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