Enrollments have been falling since 2010, and the trend line is clear: Fewer Americans think college is worth the time and expense. It’s their own fault in large measure; they decided to exploit the situation of high demand by raising tuition, while at the same time allowing their far-left elements to run wild with curricular and administrative changes designed to produce social justice warriors. Now, they’re reaping the consequences.
What to do? Some are moving to “direct admissions” to fill the seats. In today’s Martin Center article, Harrington Shaw explains what’s going on.
He writes:
Direct admissions aim to increase enrollment by offering seats to students who have not submitted an application. Direct-admissions initiatives have originated at both the university and state level and typically operate by automatically admitting students with particular characteristics, such as attainment of a threshold GPA, class rank, or test score.
This might lure in some additional students for a while, but they’ll almost certainly be academically weak.
One state that is going this route, Shaw informs us, is New York:
New York governor Kathy Hochul recently announced a direct-admissions initiative for the SUNY system, aiming to boost enrollment from its current total of 368,000 to 500,000 students. Hochul’s plan offers direct admission to state universities for the top 10 percent of New York high-school graduates. Part of her scheme is to require all New York high-school students to complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).
Of course — resort to coercion.
Moreover, direct admission appears to be another leftist gambit to get around the Supreme Court’s ruling against racial preferences. Shaw continues:
Unfortunately, some of the motives underlying efforts to expand direct admissions are more insidious than mere financial self-preservation. A Biden administration report on “Strategies for Increasing Diversity and Opportunity in Higher Education” indicates that direct admissions are part of a broader scheme to expand DEI and subvert the Supreme Court’s rulings in SFFA v. Harvard and UNC. The report, which dedicates an entire page to direct admissions, touts such initiatives for disproportionately increasing applications among “first-generation students, low-income students, and students of color.”
Shaw makes a strong case that direct admissions are another milestone along the road to the subversion of higher education. Be sure to take in his whole argument.