Graduate students' perceptions of the role of micro, small, and medium enterprises in local economic growth: Evidence from the University of Baguio

Abstract

Graduate students can become entrepreneurs, professionals, policy implementers, and community leaders who shape enterprise development. This study examined how University of Baguio graduate students perceived the role of micro, small, and medium enterprises in local economic growth. The study assessed graduate students’ perceptions; it did not measure actual MSME economic performance or local economic indicators. Its perspective which is cross-disciplinary graduate-student broadens the discussion beyond current MSME owners and business specialists. A content-validated structured questionnaire was administered to graduate students enrolled in Academic Year 2024-2025. Of 260 students, 49 responded (18.8%); seven were enterprise owners and 42 were non-owners. Frequencies, percentages, weighted means, standard deviations, and rankings were used. Owner-only results were treated descriptively because of the small subsample. Enterprise owners strongly agreed that these enterprises contribute through innovation and technology adoption (both M = 3.86), job creation, and diversification (both M = 3.71). They also identified technology adoption and competition from larger firms as leading challenges (both M = 3.71). Financing concerns focused on complex loan processes (M = 3.57) and collateral requirements (M = 3.29), not lack of lenders (M = 2.43). The full cohort rated policy effectiveness in the Agree range (M = 2.61), while 20.4% reported no programme awareness. Non-owners showed high entrepreneurial interest (M = 3.48) but lower confidence in starting and running a venture. Findings support simpler financing and compliance processes, stronger clusters, targeted capacity-building, and clearer institutional guidance. The MSME-owner subsample (n = 7) which is small is an important limitation and owner-only findings should therefore be read as descriptive rather than representative of MSMEs generally. For UB, the findings may also inform the relevant frameworks it adopted, QS Stars and UN-SDG, particularly the QS Stars Entrepreneurship category and UN-SDG 8 on entrepreneurship, innovation, MSME growth, access to finance, and productive work.