What do you make of Arrupe College?

What do you make of Arrupe College? July 7, 2015

This is a new endeavor at Loyola University in Chicago:  a two-year college program sponsored by the university, intended for needy and first-generation college students, opening its doors in the fall.  See this article in the National Catholic Reporter, and the website of the program itself.  (This was featured in the news a couple weeks ago, but got forgotten about as a draft for a while.)

The core idea is this:  at a rate of $10,410 per year (that is, $12,910 less a $2,500 “scholarship” for all students), or about $1,500 when the Pell Grant and Illinois’s MAP grant are offset, Loyola University is offering a community college experience, specially tailored to its target demographic.  The classes are limited in number, with specialization offered in Arts & Humanities, Business, and Social and Behavioral Sciences.  The faculty will be specific to the program, and, in addition to instructors, there will be a heavy emphasis on advisors and advising, with advisory periods built into the schedule.  Students will also be expected to “work at a job for 20-25 hours a week and they will contribute $1,700-$1,800 towards their tuition.”

Surprisingly — or perhaps not so suprisingly — the students are not particularly high achievers:  “ They have grade point averages around 2.5 and ACT scores in the 17-22 range,” according to the NCR article.  Perhaps, for the target demographic, this is a good GPA — or perhaps the higher achievers got free ride scholarships to traditional university programs.

How did Loyola arrive at this bargain price?  On the one hand, they say they’re not “charging” any of the overhead costs — the space being used by this program was vacated when another department moved into a new facility, and other overhead costs will also not be included in the tuition —  “the admissions office, security, the health and wellness group” are mentioned specifically in the NCR article but the Arrupe website lists the whole array of Loyola facilities:

  • Access to Loyola University Chicago libraries
  • Career development counseling
  • Financial literacy programming
  • Transfer counseling as students research, prepare, and apply to baccalaureate programs
  • Accommodations for students with disabilities
  • Fitness membership to Loyola’s Water Tower Campus Fitness Center
  • Participation in Loyola’s intramural sport programs
  • Admission to Loyola athletic events
  • Student U-Pass

though whether this is all considered “overhead not a part of tuition” isn’t clear.  (And some of these items shouldn’t really be labelled overhead, as there’s a clear marginal cost to the U-Pass, or additional users requiring more slots in the intramural sports or equipment at the fitness center.)  At the same time, it also isn’t clear how much of the cost is due to the instruction, vs. the counseling.

In the end, though, the tuition rates are artificial:  Pell Grant + MAP Grant + 1,500 “earn your way” obligation.  Presumably this tuition rate will rise in line with Pell increases.  Will it also decrease if Illinois reduces its MAP grants (its program of supplemental grants for very low income students)?  This would seem to go against the “official line” that students are “paying their own way” and that tuition is set based on careful stewardship of resources, but there is, of course, plenty of room for reshuffling funds from donors or endowment, or, let’s face it, the tuition dollars of the full-pay students.

So, as I said, I read about this a while back, but it sat as a draft because I couldn’t decide what my “take” on this would be:

Is the emphasis on advising and counseling a positive, improving the graduation rate for at-risk students?  Or will there be so much hand-holding, tutoring, etc., that the value of the degree is diminished, and the student’s achievement, and ability to succeed more independently afterwards, is in doubt?  I also didn’t see any offerings in remedial coursework, and couldn’t really find any indication of whether this means students are presumed not to need these courses, or take them with Loyola proper, or if they plunge into regular coursework with the hope that tutoring is sufficient — or even whether the classes themselves are simply less rigorous so that less-prepared kids can do well in them.  (Note that their goal for the program is that the students achieve an average 2.8 GPA.)

Given that a university such as this could make the decision to simply provide generous institutional financial aid for low-income students (and could have, for all we know, simply moved some of the available financial aid from “regular Loyola” to this program or allocated it to cover the “overhead”), was it the right call to create this special program vs. admitting these students to “regular Loyola”?

Or should we abandon the skepticism? Has the university truly and genuinely come up with an innovative way to provide a low-cost education by limiting the “frills” (even if the “frills” in this case are the typical wide  selection of courses)?

To put it in Glenn Reynolds’ terms:  is Arrupe College, in its own small way, disrupting the Higher Education Bubble, or reinforcing it?

 


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