This could well be an unstoppable downward spiral. That 23% of students they lost? I’d wager a majority of them are the students with the highest moral and academic standards. What will be left in that incoming Freshman class will be too scary to even contemplate having students with values to attend.
That is exactly my feeling, they did not lose incoming students from the bottom tier, they lost them from the tiers above the mean. Anyone serious of going to college for academics is not going to go to a place full of distractions and controversy, unless they are planning on majoring in some social program or bomb throwing. Of course that will help to put more dead wood on the fire. It becomes a death spiral for the school as they accept more of a less qualified group. Thanks to the loan programs they will not be hurt though, as even the least qualified will be a paying seat. The only losers in this scenario are the well qualified state students who will have to go elsewhere, either out of state or to a private school where the costs will be much higher than had they attended their in state college.
“This could well be an unstoppable downward spiral. That 23% of students they lost? I’d wager a majority of them are the students with the highest moral and academic standards. What will be left in that incoming Freshman class will be too scary to even contemplate having students with values to attend.”
__________________________________
I think the situation is even worse. It’s not like 23% of the typical freshman class was eliminated.
They accepted all they could and still have a 23% deficit. I’d wager about a quarter of the class actually met their usual admission standards, which don’t seem very high to begin with.