Public Universities' Precarious Position

I ran across a cautionary tale in the New York Times about Arizona State University. The article reflects on the larger funding context in which public universities find themselves, as well as offering a rather scary parallel to PSU's current trajectory. Back in 2002, ASU hired a new president, and his goal was to increase student enrollment and revitalize the programs.

He quickly made a name for himself, increasing enrollment by nearly a third to 67,000 students, luring big-name professors and starting interdisciplinary schools in areas like sustainability, projects with partners like the Mayo Clinic and Sichuan University in China, and dozens of new degree programs...

Sound familiar? In that same span, PSU's enrollment has grown by 30% and the campus and programs have grown. But while we're still enjoying relative health, the bottom has fallen out from underneath ASU:

These days, the headlines about Arizona State describe its enormous cuts.

The university has eliminated more than 500 jobs, including deans, department chairmen and hundreds of teaching assistants. Last month, [President Michael] Crow announced that the university would close 48 programs, cap enrollment and move up the freshman application deadline by five months. Every employee, from Mr. Crow down, will have 10 to 15 unpaid furlough days this spring.

There are many ways in which the two schools are different. Arizona State was a big school and it wanted to be a bigger one. Even after PSU's growth spurt, we're still far smaller than ASU was in 2002. And ASU heavily invested in expensive research programs, which brought with them professors who did very little of the teaching of these new students.

Still, a cautionary tale. Portland State, unlike many state universities is a "success"--enrollment's up, and there's a great deal of excitement about the future. Yet ASU's example shows that sometimes success ain't all it's cracked up to be.