When you think of ASU, your mind probably wanders along the silhouette of the Tempe campus’ “A” Mountain or conjures up the sea of golden t-shirts lining the streets as students make their way to a football or basketball game. Similarly, when you think of the Downtown campus, you may envision the giant “jellyfish” above the Civic Space Park, paired with the hustle of inner-city traffic. Even if you’ve never been to the Downtown campus for a class, you’ve probably seen the giant news ticker on the Cronkite building from the light rail while visiting the heart of Phoenix.
But when asked about the West or Polytechnic campuses, we bet many students couldn’t even tell us where they are, let alone what kind of programs they offer down there.
It’s not that most students don’t care about the other halves of the whole, but those two campuses in particular have had a rough few years. Popular programs like nursing and criminology moved to the Downtown campus, leaving the “Desert Arboretum” of Poly with even fewer students than before. Administration wasn’t even sure how the two campuses would fare amid severe budget cuts of the last two years. It only seems appropriate that after building up the Tempe campus with its state-of-the-art Global Institute for Sustainability and Biodesign buildings, or the Downtown campus’ LEED certified Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, that a little thunder is restored to these two underappreciated campuses.
This is why we hope the year-old Western Undergraduate Exchange program continues to attract out-of-state students and establish some vibrancy to ASU’s two smallest campuses.
The Western Undergraduate Exchange program enables students from 14 Western states, including Alaska and Hawaii, to study within the New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at ASU’s West and Polytechnic campuses and the Downtown campus’ College of Public Programs for about $12,000 a year. That’s about $8,600 less than other out-of-state students.
It’s not to say that one campus should be cheaper than another but maybe these lower price tags for the ASU brand will be enough to continue to entice out-of-state students to the far east and west points in the corners of ASU. Already, the West campus has seen an increase in enrollment from states like California. Students at the New College are about a quarter of the incoming freshmen at the West campus this semester, and California students make up about 46 percent of those incoming freshmen.
Not only is ASU converting Sun Devils from all over the West Coast, but the four campuses may stand a chance at transcending the distance between them and living up to the mission statement of “one University many places.”
