Editorial

By The Daily Orange Editorial Board, Syracuse University

CORRECTION: In this editorial, the change in the percentage of Pell Grant-eligible students is misstated. In 2009, 26.5 percent of students were Pell Grant eligible, and in 2010, 25.5 percent of students were Pell Grant eligible. The Daily Orange regrets this error.

After changing the recruitment strategy, Syracuse University’s reported acceptance rates alarmingly rose more than 10 percent in the past two years, causing SU’s ranking on the U.S. World News and Report to drop and earning the campus a new qualifier: “A+ school for B students.”

The implications of an increasing acceptance rate require the chancellor to reach outside her top officials for feedback, as this change affects thousands of alumni, students and professors whose cumulative tenure at this institution dwarfs the current administration’s.

The chancellor and her top officials moved SU’s recruitment strategy in a direction focusing more on inclusiveness, ultimately diminishing selectivity and perhaps prestige. Ivy Leagues pride themselves on miniscule acceptance rates of less than 10 percent. The shift in recruitment strategy and subsequent rise in the acceptance rate could devalue the SU diploma, cause larger freshman classes and affect the quality of an SU education.

The administration justifies the rising acceptance rate with the idealistic goal of increasing student diversity and socioeconomic inclusiveness. The new recruitment strategy has paid off, as the number of students eligible for the Pell Grant, intended to aid lower-income students, increased by 16 percent last year.

But putting the value of campus diversity aside, the administration has chosen to change SU’s recruitment strategy to one largely untested and one that reverses three decades of working to make SU’s a more exclusive education.

SU already feels some of the negative consequences of a now 60 percent acceptance rate. 2010’s freshman class was unintentionally large, causing overcrowding in classes and especially in campus housing. If SU wants to increase diversity by accepting and potentially enrolling larger numbers, then the infrastructure — enough dorm rooms, classrooms, staff and faculty — must be in place beforehand. Likewise, the quality of education could decline if class sizes continue to increase.

Faculty know best how larger class sizes may affect their ability to teach. Declining prestige may also lessen professors’ desire to work at SU. The administration must listen to faculty concerns and input, as they have much at stake in the change to recruitment.

The acceptance rate has increased so dramatically students are watching their diploma lose value even before graduating. We should likewise have a say in the change to recruitment and rising acceptance rate, as this directly affects us and our hireability in an ailing economy.

Finally, alumni should also contribute to the conversation. Though the most removed from campus, thousands of alumni and their degrees depend upon the reputation of an SU education. The faculty, students and alumni have poured too much money and time into this university to see the value of that investment threatened, perhaps affected permanently, by the ideals of a few relatively momentary administrators.