USC has been making bold claims lately, claims that we have received with cautious enthusiasm. If anything, these claims have one meaning: Expectations will be high for our school in the coming years.
President Harris Pastides has said future freshman classes will be held to 2011 level.
Seeing all that swelling incoming classes have caused — crowded residence halls, packed dining areas and student ticketing mayhem — this assertion is music to our ears. What makes that music even sweeter is the fact that this statement comes at the end of a long line of similar statements meant to reassure students that life at Carolina is looking much better.
Housing is making a huge shift toward suite-style rooms; an initiative to hire more faculty — to match the growing student population — is taking its first steps.
Pastides made an earlier, and perhaps bolder, claim at his State of the University address that tuition would not increase for students unless it was “directly tied to improving the already high quality of their education.”
It’s no question. This university is aiming high. The question is, will it hit or miss?
Though we are excited by what this university promises, we have heard these types of promises before. USC has a tendency to overextend itself, to throw its financial weight behind senseless projects and to fail to deliver those programs that we looked at with such high expectations. We would not like to steal from the encouragement that Pastides’ words offer, but a little caution (a little taste of reality) never hurt any dream.
Optimism is a fine thing, but to take all of these claims at face value begins to nudge the borders of naïveté. Tuition will most likely increase to match inflation, and the university will be forced to revisit this whole not-accepting-more-freshmen idea, especially as state higher education funding continues to decrease. But the words themselves are a start, one that we stand fully behind.