The Ann Arbor News has an article on the soon to be defunct paper front page, “Students: Please freeze tuition,” while is online version as the headline “The cry at U-M, other campuses: No tuition hikes.” Here’s the relevant part about this particular “other campus:”
Anxiety isn’t limited to students at U-M. “I’ve been here 33 years, and I have never seen financial aid, in general, the way it is now,” said Cynthia Van Pelt, director of the financial aid office at Eastern Michigan University.
She said financial aid applications are up 9 percent at EMU as of mid-March compared to the same period last year.
EMU also expects to handle double the number of appeals from students seeking to increase the financial aid packages for next year. In the prior round, 150 students appealed their financial aid awards.
“People are afraid,” said Van Pelt. “We’re doing everything we can to enable families to figure out what the bottom line is. They want to be able to plan.”
The problem with a tuition freeze is if Michigan is going to cut funding to public universities like EMU, then EMU has to make up the shortfalls somewhere. That’s a complicated issue:
Gov. Jennifer Granholm has recommended another round of belt-tightening for state universities, this time a 3 percent cut in their appropriations for the next fiscal year, which would be a reduction of $10 million for U-M.
But for universities that also adhere to her charge to freeze tuition for next fall, Granholm has said she hopes to use federal economic stimulus money to help with their budgets.
So, if I’m understanding this correctly: Granholm wants places like EMU to take a 3 percent cut and not raise tuition, and if EMU et al do this, then maybe– just maybe– we will get some of that money back from the feds. The problem with this from EMU’s and the other state unversities’ perspectives is that the state has made this sort of promise before and not held up their part of the bargain.
I have a better idea: why doesn’t Granholm hold funding to higher ed at currently levels and ask the universities to freeze tuition, and then take some of that federal stimulus money to make up the shortfalls on the state’s end?
This might be a radical idea, but why doesn’t EMU slash tuition by say, 30%? If we could figure out what level we can set tuition at to maximize our credits being taken, we’d make more money than we are now. If for 1 year, we advertised in state tuition for $60 a credit, think of how many laid off workers would come back to college.
EMU Admin won’t do it.. They have stated “the cost of an individuals degree is related to it’s perceived worth” thus, keep raising the price and it will be ‘worth more’..
I don’t agree with that at all, but that’s what they have said..
EMU tried going the way of the cheapest tuition in the State during the Prez. Shelton era. It did nothing for enrollment. Remember the old saying: “Pay cheap, buy dear!”
I think the econmy during shelton was better than it is now, eh? I’d say that COST is a serious factor in terms of selection of University… EMU is positioned well in terms of location to DET/Metro Area and if we got our cost in line.. who’d want to go to CMU/WMU?
Reasonable:
How do you know our costs are out of line? Facts please! Why is EMU positioned well geographically? As far as the geographic literature is concerned in regards to suburbia in Southeast Michigan, EMU is located in the most racially segregated region of the U.S. I’m not sure whether that’s good or bad.
What does being the most racially segregated region in the U.S. have to do with the cost of tuition? I think Reasonable was trying to say if we could make college more affordable, we’re close enough to large markets such as Detroit, Flint and Toledo, to bring in a lot of students. In this economy, it’s a wonder that anyone is willing to pay the price to go to a university, when they could go to a community college for 2 years and then transfer.
All indications are that enrollment will be up next year. But the relationship between the cost of tuition and enrollment/attendance in higher ed is weird at best. The current economic problems might be changing the rules on that, but there have even been colleges and universities that raised tuition in part to appear to be “worth more” because of their expense.
Location, Location, Location. A lot of people could care less about EMU’s location. And the location in an area of the country that has experienced the largest amount of white flight from Detroit, without a recovery, says quite a bit.
I know this is kind of off topic but seeing as some have spoken about enrollment I was wondering as a citizen of Ypsilanti and EMU student if there has been any talk about raising entrance standards at EMU.
I know many of us would say that in this economy the more the students the better but at what cost. I now have friends that will not send their children to EMU because the crime and general opinion of the University. That makes me extremely sad as I take a lot of pride in EMU and the education I have recieved from its many fine professors.
I recently spoke with an admissions employee who will remain nameless, I directed my question to her and she responded that “EMU is committed to diversity” and therefore will not raise standards.
I know many of you have been around the University for quite a while and as someone who has two degrees from EMU I think its fair to say that the quality of the student in terms of ability when enterring EMU has dropped significantly.
I worked at EMU a few years back and was told during the orientation that EMU graduates only 33 percent of all students who ever enter the University. Could some one please tell me what that has to do with diversity? A couple of us posed that question to the person giving the speech and she only gave us ways that as employees we could help with retention.
I’m wondering that if we were better screening our applicants it may be possible to improve our graduation rate by making sure those that come to EMU are better prepared to succeed.
Sorry for the rant but as some one who loves EMU I think that with a lot of the good things that many of us acknowledge are going on around campus it wouldn’t hurt the University’s image to maybe improve our entrance standards.
I’m not sure I’m getting the location thing, Alum. There has been a lot of white flight from Detroit over the last 40+ years of course, but much of that flight has been to the counties that surround it, and we attract students from Detroit city and its suburbs– not to mention other parts of the area.
I think the larger demographic concern I have about EMU’s location has to do with the whole state. How long can Michigan continue to lose population and age and still maintain as many public universities? I have no idea, and of course if things look up in Michigan in the next 10-20 years, that could all change again.
Forget I ever mentioned the subject of location and the suburbs. You guys just don’t get it.
The Board of Regents does not want to “improve” or change the admission standards.
SiteDad: I spent a month and a half in admissions volunteering (February/March), and did some research on demographics. Here’s what I found in brief: Michigan High School graduates peaked as a demographic cohort in 2007-08, with about 119,000 grads. By the year 2022 the number of grads will fall to around 97,000, due to several things, one of which is migration, however, the big cause is that more couples are choosing not to have children, which means a smaller family size. The loss of h.s. grads is about equivalent to one large regional university in Michigan.
Anonyps:
You should have your friends check the crime stats and arrest numbers on other campuses in Michigan. EMU stacks up pretty well. So the crime thing is a myth, unproven by fact. However, the fact that EMU is in a large media market has a lot to do with it. Local news in Kalamazoo and Mt. Pleasant is not covered in the Detroit Metro Area. I have compiled the crime stats for our peers and closeby schools. To hard to put the table here.
Hey Alum: If you want to send me that table, I can probably find a way to format it to fit. Or if I can’t do that, I can add it as a PDF that folks can go and look at. Just send it to emutalk@gmail.com
SiteDad: Give me a few days to finish it up and I’ll send it. And by the way, there won’t be an increase in enrollment this Fall. According to my sources numbers are down at Fast Track.
Alum:
As I stated I live in Ypsilanti and attend EMU, I totally agree that the University and city have gotten a bad rap based on recent scandals and media coverage.
I’m still looking for someone who still works for the University to explain why a 33 percent graduation rate is acceptable, and second why raising standards has anything to do with diversity.
I agree that EMU benefits from having a great number of cultures on campus, I ‘d just like to know what Eastern’s current plan is for improving the graduation and retention rate.
Something tells me that if they continue to allow students entrance that are not prepared for the course work we will continue to see the opinion of EMU slip lower and lower.
We’ll see what happens this fall because I have to say that everyone I’ve talked to says just the opposite. Anecdotal evidence all around, though.
I’m curious to know the percentage of EMU students who come here as a ‘transitional’ phase of their academic career: either taking classes with the intent to transfer to another institution, or taking classes just to take classes and not towards a degree. Do these sort of students count in the graduation rate? That could definitely skew the data since EMU certainly has a large number of transitional students.
Anonyps: If you worked in Admissions you should know the answer. A lot of our students stop out. A large percentage of our students are older and working. Could that be it? Why don’t you e-mail the Admissions Director. She is very transparent and will give you an answer. I’m not so sure that our admission standards are close to the same or slightly different than our peers. An admissions advisor told me today that the difference between WMU and EMU is 1/10 of a percent.
Eagle Talon: We also have a large percentage of transfer students, who do not count in the grad rate. Must start as Freshman.
I first learned of this issue several years ago when one of the local newspapers, possibly the Ann Arbor news (don’t quote me on it) gave the graduation rates for 11 public universities in Michigan.
Eastern finished 10th in graduation rate among “traditional” college freshman finishing within a six year time frame. EMU’s graduation rate was in the 35 percent range.
Central and Western were much higher. Now sure we can factor in continuing eduation, or older adults returning to take classes but at the end of the day the figures I’ve read and heard from our own admissions people is that EMU has a crisis in terms of retention of students.
Just to clarify I never worked in Admissions, I did however work for the University and did ask the question. The answer I recieved was that EMU is “committed to diversity”. So this leads me back to the issue at hand, in the article I read from several years ago the University of Michigan graduated close to 80 percent of “traditional freshman” who entered the university with in 6 years.
I don’t need a lecture on the differences between the two Universities, I’m fully aware of how the Harvard of Ann Arbor views itself. I do think that if EMU wishes to rebuild its image we must atleast acknowledge our faults and attempt to move forward.
Alum:
I realize many of our students “stop out”, that is the point for this conversation why is such a high percentage of our students “stopping out”. Why is the school next door keeping their students while ours quit or transfer.
When I first read this statistic and then years later heard the same from one of our employees I got a lecture on how as an EMU employee we could all help with retention by being “polite and helpful”.
I’m done with this rant for awhile and I’ll check back periodically but I’d really appreciate some actual concessions that EMU has lowered standards to the point that the students that are now enterring EMU are not prepared to succeed and the University is obviously not prepared to help them because obviously the graduation rate for “traditional freshman” is embarrasing.
The measure of a great University can be debated but we cannot deny that alumni and reputation are a huge factor, and lets face it we are graduating less people and with the media’s skewed opinion of us lately we need to start from the bottom up….
Anonyps: Good!
For the first 10 months of 2008 burglaries were down 65% from 2007. The 2008 year stats have not been published on the Web site.
A repeat posting and two new comments:
1. Graduation rates (ones that compare universities) do not include transfer students to EMU. For many of the statistics, our graduation rate is higher than posted (schools such as UM will alwayas look higher because they have more 4 year students).
2. The overall admission gpa required for EMU undergraduates and graduates might be low, but each program can set their gpa higher, and many do.
3. To say that EMU has lower admission standards because of “diversity” is, frankly, a racist statement. Is the assumption diversity means lower expectations? That comment worries me.
I don’t believe the University’s policy is racist nor do I think my posting was meant to imply racism. I really appreciate Sitedad’s research on graduation rate, I do believe EMU could improve its reputation if the standards were a little higher but at the end of the day it’s all about numbers. As the other posters have stated EMU wishes to continue to be a school of “oppurtunity”. I believe that oppurtunity is extended to everyone.
I hear what you are saying anonyps, but again, one of the things that’s important to take away from this research is the data suggests that, relative to comparable institutions, things here aren’t that bad. Certainly we should strive to recruit the best students we can, but we shouldn’t get all down on ourselves and think “oh, we are just not worthy, not even compared to places like Western and Central and Wayne State.” That flat-out isn’t true.