Statistics Polling Project

Katelyn Fraser, Mike Allred, Whitney Hancock

OBJECTIVE
We sought to gather the opinions of people on the prices of the ever-rising tuition in Utah.
We did so by asking the following four questions:
1. Are you seeking higher education/have you already?
2. Do you currently have any student debt/have you taken loans?
3. Do you consider the University of Utah to be equally credible to Stanford?

4. If the U of U matched Stanfords prices per quarter for tuition, would you still be
interested in attending the U and the education you could get from there?

Stanford
$14000 undergrad

University of Utah
Living on campus:

$16000 medicine

$24996 (resident)

$15160 engineering

$42348 (non-resident)

$19850 business (MBA)

$16800 Law

Living off campus:

$24096 (resident)
$41428 (non-resident)

POLLING METHODS

We gathered our data by three different methods: A convenience sample, which we

conducted by asking people walking around at Gateway, a phone sample by which
each of us contacted 10 people via the telephone, and through the use of social media.

Polling Results: All Polling Methods

100
95
90
85

80
75
70
65
60
55
50
45
40
35
30

25
20
15
10
5
0
Question
1:

Yes

No

Question
2:

Yes

No

Question
3:

Yes

No

I don't
know

Question
4:

Yes

No

I dont'
know

"Is the U as credible as Stanford?"

3%
22%

yes

75%

no

undecided

University Preference

5%

Stanford

University of Utah

40%
55%

Undecided

BINOMIAL DISTRIBUTION

Using binomial methods, and excluding the answers of those who responded I dont
know, we can assert that the sample mean s of the fourth question (would you be
interested in the education at the U for the price of Stanford?) is 50. (n*p= 100*50%) and
the standard deviation of the fourth question is 5. (square root of n*p*q= square root of
100*50%*50%) Using the range rule of thumb, we find that the usual minimum value is 40
and the usual maximum value is 60. Considering the values are 42 and 58, our data for
number of yes and number of no answers falls very nicely between these two values,
and our data is not unusual.

RESULTS

We found through our survey that most people didnt think that the University of Utah is as
credible as Stanford, however, when it came to the tuition price rising to match Stanford,
there was a much smaller gap between the people who would attend Stanford and the U
as opposed to those who thought the U was less credible than Stanford.

CONCLUSION

We concluded through our study that rising prices in tuition are a considerable deterrent
for college education. However, to our surprise, we found that if prices at Stanford and the
University of Utah were to match, the amount of people who would attend Stanford is less
than those who believe it is more credible than the University of Utah. The gap is much
smaller. Errors we should have considered would be that adding an I dont know option
makes certain statistical procedures impossible, as well as not specifying whether the
education at the University of Utah would advance as the tuition prices did.