When it comes to tuition at ASU, there’s no shortage of complaints for the spikes we’ve seen in the last few years.
While the Goldwater Institute maintains that the increase in ASU’s tuition cost is a result of administrative bloat, and students probably won’t attest to an increase in classroom quality — masked by larger course enrollments and fewer classes offered — ASU has earned a spot among the colleges most worth their price.
Two professors outlined in their recent book “Higher Education? How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids — and What We Can Do About It” that many colleges and universities have lost touch with the advancement of educational ideals. Instead, they say most colleges focus on adding more money-making amenities to their campuses at the expense of the traditional ideologies of higher education.
Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus, professors at Queens and Columbia universities, commended ASU for its growth, ease of establishing new programs and even for having two engineering schools: “one for math whizzes, another for Thomas-Edison tinkerers.”
While some students will maintain the majority of the science labs — with their rusted-over cabinets, mysterious countertop stains and combination locks — seem like they’re from the '70s, we have to admit that ASU’s dedication to growth and research opportunities is undeniable.
The writers argue that many institutions are getting distracted by expanding coffers, installing “overpriced amenities” and improving sports programs and mascots as the face of a college or university, leaving academics to the background. Of course, ASU certainly has a reputable athletic department that draws hundreds of top athletes to the Valley of the Sun. But Hacker and Dreifus were apparently able to forgive that.
Among the other things praised in the top-15 schools are small classes, a lack of luster, small to non-existent athletic departments, a president that works pro bono (Notre Dame), a lack of grading system (Evergreen State College) and an internal honors college.
ASU has a somewhat contradictory rank, given Hacker and Dreifus’ chip on their shoulders toward schools that push sports and entertainment programs. It’s almost more flattering to our academic muscle that they could pardon our entertainment appeal in favor of promoting our intellectual facet.
ASU has more than 250 undergraduate degree programs to choose from and potentially hundreds of undergraduate research and internship opportunities, especially as the largest university in the nation and the greatest amount of students in need of hands-on experience.
It’s easy to be blinded by the glitz and glam of a university’s location, its dorm or dining facilities, weather, entertainment value and other such criteria that attracts students to a particular college, but when it comes down to it, those loans and four years of higher education should ultimately be justified by your academic success.
And while it’s reassuring to see our University get recognized for being worth its cost in tuition, we want to make it clear that this should not be seen construed as another excuse to spike tuition next year.
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