Don’t Let Colleges Conflate Budget Crises With Money Grabs – To The Detriment of Their Citizens

This story is about state schools admitting out-of-state students over in-state ones just for tuition.  But that is not the whole story, as I described in my comment, posted below.

Colleges’ Wider Search for Applicants Crowds Out Local Students – WSJ.

“Yes, budgets have been cut – but that is not the whole story.

The whole story is about money, period.

Anyone who has read “Paying for the Party” (by E. Armstrong and L. Hamilton) knows that.

In essence, by staying with Freshmen at a flagship Midwestern university, the authors found that the university (surely, Indiana U.) shifts resources from their educational mission to the mission of attracting out-of-state tuition from students who want to party at sororities and fraternities.  Students who needed advisors, etc…, were left to fend for themselves.  Those who wanted to join sororities were accommodated and assisted by the university.

So, when was this study done? 2004, pre-recession.

Anyone who wants to see how rich private schools  (like Washington University in St. Louis, where I taught) also go after students by treating them like pampered “consumers” can go to my blog inside-higher-ed  .

Of course, not every college is like Indiana or Wash. U., but far too many are.”