University of Texas System makes salary data and student debt data available via smartphone

AUSTIN – The University of Texas System is launching a new version of the seekUT tool that can be accessed from smartphones. This new version, which is suitable for Android and iPhone use, is designed to provide users with the three key pieces of data from seekUT: median first-year earnings, median fifth-year earnings and average student loan debt for UT System graduates by major.

The seekUT website and interactive tool, which made its debut in January 2014, evolved as a result of recommendations by the Student Debt Reduction Task Force to explore potential solutions to the issue of growing student debt. With seekUT, users can access data for UT graduates from 2007 to 2011 who were working full time in Texas one year and five years after receiving their bachelor’s degree. Remarkably, 79 percent of the students during this time period who received a bachelor’s degree from one of UT System’s 15 institutions were found working in Texas their first year out of college.

“The point of compiling all of this information is to get it into the hands of prospective students, current students and their parents. Information is power, and we want students to make informed decisions about their education and future career,” said Stephanie Bond Huie, Ph.D., vice chancellor for the UT System’s office of strategic initiatives. Huie and her team built the seekUT tool.  “The fact that seekUT is now available via smartphone will make it even easier for students to get the information they need.”

Brenda Pejovich, a member of the UT System Board of Regents, encouraged Huie and her team to develop a mobile version of the seekUT tool.

“This is an invaluable resource for students and prospective students, and making it available on platforms that young people use most often is extremely important,” Pejovich said. “Now the information students need to make life decisions will literally be in the palm of their hands.”

Links to the smartphone-friendly tool and the Mobile BI app can be found on the seekUT website.

About The University of Texas System

Educating students, providing care for patients, conducting groundbreaking research and serving the needs of Texans and the nation for more than 130 years, The University of Texas System is one of the largest public university systems in the United States, with nine academic universities, six health institutions and a fall 2013 enrollment of more than 213,000. The UT System confers more than one-third of the state’s undergraduate degrees, educates two-thirds