Saint Joseph's University

Date: Feb 26 2014
Major: Economics (This Major's Salary over time)
Saint Joseph's University WAS a good school, until recently. The university is headed on a very dangerous path to mediocrity. The administration is planning on increasing the incoming class size by 20%, and by doing so, effectively increasing the acceptance rate of incoming freshmen to 92%. This policy is highly flawed for several reasons: firstly, the university prides itself on small class sizes and high levels of faculty interaction. This will inevitably be diminished once the university increases the class size. Secondly, by increasing the acceptance rate to 92%, the quality on average of the incoming student will inevitably be lower. Not only that, but few credible universities have acceptance rates north of 90%. Within 5-10 years, students will be paying over $50,000 a year to go to university with the quality of your local community college. The rankings are already showing the declining quality of the university. Last year it was ranked #8 in U.S. News' regional universities north ranking, now it's #11. The Haub School of Business used to be in the top 60, now it barley ranks in the top 100. I can only imagine how much further the university will drop in the future. The sad thing is, this could have been avoided. Just yesterday, the university fired 2 top officials in charge of the university's finances for not performing their duties properly. And sadly, the provost (head of academics) was just fired because he was opposed to the increases in class sizes and acceptance rate. All signs are pointing to this university going downhill, and quickly. When students created a petition and got thousands of signatures to stop these policies, what did the university's president do? Responded by saying how the university has performed well in the past (which is completely irrelevant, considering students are protesting a FUTURE decision) and condescendingly told students to essentially "not worry" about it. Don't go here. The value of your degree will be substantially reduced in a very short time period, and you will not get the same quality education here that used to be offered. To close the $8 million budget deficit, in addition to increasing class sizes and the acceptance rate, the university is cutting faculty positions, and decreasing the availability of common student services. This school is simply no longer worth the $53,000 a year it charges in tuition.