GW Alum Abroad wrote:

All these schools moving up to DI in hoops (including recent opponent UCSD and this season´s opening night rival Stonehill) could soon find themselves in Cal´s predicament, albeit with less eye-poping amounts of junk bonds floating around.
(one quibble, the San Diego comparison is a bit misleading; Cal did not have the land of a former NFL/Major League stadium to build on and instead was hogtied to its on-campus facility sitting on top of California´s most active earthquake fault and severely limited use dates set by law).

 

One other addendum here: You're thinking of SDSU for that former NFL stadium, not UCSD. The latter, instead, has a ridiculous location right next to the beach and Torrey Pines in La Jolla, nowhere near an active fault line. Which, not a bad consolation prize.

Before going any further I'm going to just assume cutting tuition is off the table. That is going to be the last resort. I can see the case that it should happen, but if you think this conversation is ugly the consequences of that would be...something to see. Cost cutting in labor-intensive organizations is never pleasant.

Mike, completely agree with your question on whether the education is "validated". I think the question here is how to evaluate "validation". This is the age-old question of whether the value added from a university is the knowledge accumulated vs. signaling. I.e., are Princeton graduates successful because the kids who go there learn so much, or because by getting in they showed that they had the background and existing skills in the first place to be successful, and the degree is just a signal to employers that the school is a rich pool of talent? I'd argue that question is pretty unresolved by researchers, with some evidence that college prestige is really just a signal.

With that said, depending on which one is correct, what are the implications? Well, if it's knowledge added, the university needs to accumulate resources in teaching students what employers want. If it's signaling, well, then those kids already have the skills, but you have to attract them to attend by offering interesting resources in that area, and staffing up to make the courses available so kids will be able to major in them.

In either case, you build resources in the fields employers want and find kids talented in fields demanded by the economy. For the former I would be surprised if the Career Center wasn't soliciting feedback from larger employers on their students; if they aren't then the Office of the President is not doing its due diligence in proposing these changes. For the latter, I'll wave my hands and assume the university knows how to figure that out.

So to me "validating" the GW education means students being able and interested in (re)paying tuition withou