OK that is very wrong.  It is asinine to use out of state tuition to subsidize the UW’s role as an elite university for our own kids.

However, that does NOT mean we do not need more out of state students.

Look at Husky Stadium.  The UW recruits football players who do not look at all like most of the kids on campus.  Why not also recruit scholars?  But, just as with athletes,  recruiting the best academics ought not ever be used as a way of decreasing the ability of a kid from Renton or Walla Walla attending the UW.

Maybe we need a new term. Are “student academics” as important as “student athletes”

Look at our rival, the University of Alabama.  The NY Times reports that the University of Alabama’s football program has matched its aggressive nationwide recruitment machine for athletes with an equally ambitious recruitment program for nonathletes. “With 30 full-time admissions officers across the country armed with millions of dollars in scholarships, the university has more than quadrupled its class of out-of-state students since 2000, to the point that they now represent the majority of all freshmen arriving in Tuscaloosa. Many if not most of the undergraduates bleeding Alabama crimson in Bryant-Denny Stadium on Saturday afternoons come from somewhere else.”

“Alabama accomplished this in part by substantially expanding the total number of students it enrolls, including in-state students. Other public universities have made space for out-of-state students by allowing fewer in-state ones to attend. The University of California, Berkeley, enrolled 384 fewer in-state freshmen in 2012 compared with 2000, while out-of-state American students grew by more than 300 and the number of international students increased eightfold. This happened at the same time that in-state tuition and fees increased to $13,200 from $3,964. (Out-of-state and international students pay more than $36,000 per year.) Purdue University cut annual in-state slots for incoming freshmen by more than 500 students, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign by more than 300, and Auburn and Michigan State by more than 200, with each enrolling hundreds of additional out-of-state and international students in their stead.”

Back at Husky stadium, does anyone want to imagine a Saturday game without imported athletes?  All athletic departments argue that they need to import the best athletes to make the programs world class and offer local students a chance to play with (and see) the best.  At a white school like the UW, the AD even argues that its recruitment of African American kids adds to our diversity. 

That is not a good argument ut it could be if we also recruited black scholars.

High School Class in Alabama

The argument is even more so for undergraduate academics than it is for athletes.  At a level of race, recruiting the best American academics from the under represented minorities to this school in the white Northwest would mean recruiting in Mississippi, Arizona  and Puerto Rico.  Why don’t we do this?

Having a way of recruiting these academics ought not, and need not, ever be used as a way of decreasing the ability of a kid from Renton or Walla Walla attending the UW.I would go one step further.

If the UW is to offer Washington state kids a world class  education comparable to what our kids can get at less cost  they can get into Princeton, we should offer the WAS state students diversity more like they would see at Princeton.  This means that “diversity” should include students going here mingling  with the best kids not only from  Mumbai and Sweden, but from Compton and the south side of Chicago.