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Overview

Houston Community College recently commissioned Message Factors, Inc. to conduct a value based research study of the Houston community as part of an overall strategic initiative. The following summary was compiled from the research report to provide an overview of the research process and findings. The overview also describes the issues that are valued by area residents, along with their overall perceptions of HCC. These findings will impact HCC’s operations, communications, and strategic planning.

Research Methodology

The Value AnalysisTM survey was conducted by Message Factors, Inc., one of the leading market research and consulting firms in the country. Value Analysis is a proprietary survey, which is unique in the methodology it uses as well as the information it elicits. Value Analysis identifies important themes and areas of concerns and is a diagnostic tool that provides actionable information useful for developing a strategic plan.

Message Factors, Inc. conducted an online survey of Houston-area residents from March 18 to April 9, 2013 in 5 markets determined by zip codes provided by HCC’s Institutional Research Department. The following HCC service areas were included in the survey: Central College, Coleman College*, Northeast College, Northwest College, Southeast College, and Southwest College.

The respondent questionnaire was primarily closed-ended, approximately twelve minutes in length, and included questions relating to: attitudes, attributes (such as faculty, curricula, price, and facilities), demographics, and descriptive information. In order to elicit actionable data, Message Factors confirmed that all respondents had heard of HCC before completing the survey. A total of 751 interviews were completed, representing a relevant sample of residents in the Houston area among the HCC service areas.

Online Survey of Houston-area residents

HCC Value Analysis Research Summary

Market

Central College Area

Northeast College Area

Northwest College Area

Southeast College Area

Southwest College Area

TOTAL*

Number of Interviews

100

125

200

100

226

751

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1. To measure and compare the attitudes of area residents in the overall community and individual service areas.

2. To understand how specific resident segments perceive HCC’s performance in key areas.

3. To determine which components of HCC’s services and roles most impact the attitudes of area residents.

4. To identify the appropriate strategic positions for HCC to occupy in the marketplace.

Overall Findings:

Awareness of HCC • HCC has by far the highest level of unaided awareness among area community colleges and is the only community college mentioned by a majority of respondents on an unaided basis. • Hispanics and lower-income respondents are least likely to be aware of HCC on an unaided basis, but a majority of both segments are still aware of HCC. • Aided awareness of specific HCC branches is highest for Central (68%), followed by Southwest (56%). Coleman has the lowest level of aided awareness at 23%.

Familiarity with HCC • Awareness of HCC is likely boosted by the fact that roughly half of respondents report either personally taking courses/earning a degree from HCC or having a family member who has done so. • One-half (50%) of respondents with household incomes under $35k were familiar with HCC but have not taken courses at the college.

Information about HCC • One in ten respondents (10%) report paying “a great deal of attention” to information about HCC, and another 29% pay “some attention.” • Half of respondents report seeing, hearing, reading information about HCC “Very” or “Somewhat” often. • Information about HCC tends to come from television ads (39%) or billboards (37%), with about one in five citing either print news or print ads. Among print publications that HCC advertises in, the Houston Chronicle has the highest past-three-month readership at 58%, followed by Houston Community News (15%) and Houston Style Magazine (14%). • Respondents were more likely to identify the tagline “We Keep Houston Working” with HCC (36%) than with any other school, and were also more likely to associate “Smart Decision” with HCC (21%) than with any other school.

Perceptions of HCC • Respondents felt it was most important for HCC to deliver quality, affordability, and convenience. • When asked to write in words or phrases that come to mind when thinking of HCC, respondents were most likely to mention affordability, community-oriented, education, and

* Coleman College for Health Sciences provides specialized courses; therefore, residents in HCC’s entire service area are part of this market.

Research Objectives

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convenience. When completing a similar exercise to address what makes HCC unique, top mentions included size/number of campuses, affordability, and convenience. • Two-thirds of respondents were completely or mostly satisfied with HCC meeting the overall needs of their community, and a majority rates HCC much or somewhat better than other local colleges/universities and community colleges/proprietary schools. • Respondents were asked to rate 12 issues both in terms of HCC’s performance and the importance of HCC delivering effectively on the issues. The largest gaps (where HCC is underperforming against perceived importance) are uses tax revenues wisely, has effective leadership, and offers a high-quality education.

Respondent Segmentations • African-Americans tend to have the highest levels of awareness of HCC, pay attention to information about the school, rate HCC’s performance highly, and see value in the community college concept. • Hispanics have average familiarity with HCC but are favorable toward the school. • Asians have average levels of awareness but a less than favorable image of HCC relative to African-Americans and Hispanics. • Caucasians have relatively low levels of familiarity with HCC and a less than favorable image of HCC relative to African-Americans and Hispanics. • There is little difference across income segments in familiarity with HCC, its locations, its taglines, and other information about the school.

What Residents Value

The HCC Value Analysis™ study is summarized into the following categories of major themes: • Attributes currently seen as value contributions to the community include convenient locations, meeting residents’ education needs, and serving diverse groups. Several “big picture” benefits are also seen as extremely valuable, such as the college’s overall impact on the region’s economy, patronizing local businesses, and decreasing overall social costs to the state. • Many of the traditional benefits of a community college – affordability, effective education and training, variety of classes and degrees – are seen as expectations for a community college, and are not opportunities to effectively differentiate or add value.

• Other roles that a community college plays are viewed as unessential to the community overall: continuing education courses, being a good employer, supplying an educated workforce, increasing students’ lifetime income, and training in essential services such as police, fire, etc. The “Unessential” category often includes issues that are perceived as less important based on a lack of information or understanding about the true importance of the issues, indicating an opportunity to educate the public on the importance of these issues.

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Theme Analysis

• Data in the 2007 Value Analysis showed the value issues to be high quality education, with responsiveness to the community being a theme to consider for the long-term.• Interestingly, the theme of high quality education has moved to being viewed as a basic need, and responsive to the community is not a value issue for respondents.• Currently, the most immediate and effective position for HCC to occupy in the marketplace is responsiveness to community needs, for individuals (meets education needs of residents), businesses (doing business with local companies and working to identify workforce needs), and the community as a whole (students decrease social costs to the government, positively impacts the region’s economy, provides employment for local residents).

Value Issues

The following list includes a summary of all of the “Value” issues that were identified:• Convenient locations.• Meets the education needs of residents.• Positively impacts the region’s economy.• Innovative in meeting community’s educational needs.• Educated population leads to decreased social costs to the state.• Provide opportunities for economic growth by doing business with local companies.• Responsive to the community.• Effectively serve diverse groups in the community.