The University of Connecticut received a record number of applicants for the class of 2028, according to reporting by The Daily Campus. The university received more than 56,700 applications this cycle, marking the first time in the university’s history that UConn has received more than 50,000 applications. UConn expects approximately 4,350 new undergraduate students to enroll in the Class of 2028, according to UConn Today.
The Daily Campus Editorial Board has strong concerns given this record-high number of applications and the likely growth in enrollment that will occur as a result, in conjunction with the recent announcements of budget cuts impacting the future of the university.
Despite the significant amount of protest and uproar by undergraduate students, graduate students and faculty alike regarding the budget cuts—which could be as high as 19% for some academic departments—the UConn community has yet to hear how the university will grapple supporting more students with less money.
How will UConn cater to more students when there isn’t enough money to serve the students we have right now? With impending budget cuts, community members have raised concerns that students are likely to suffer in terms of increased class sizes, increased costs of attendance and fewer resources available in general. Increasing enrollment at a university with an already stretched-thin academic budget and no plans to mediate fiscal challenges only serves to exacerbate these issues.
Another important aspect to note is that these concerns regarding increased enrollment and what that means for available student resources is not a new concern from The Editorial Board. Last year, when UConn announced then-record-high applications for the Class of 2027, we discussed similar concerns in our editorial, “Growing UConn admissions signal higher costs with less representation.”
The precedent at UConn shows administrators tend to err on the side of increasing costs of attendance rather than exploring other creative ways to reduce costs for students and proactively lobbying for state financial support. We discussed the example of “reducing the cost per credit for online courses, promoting distance learning and potentially curbing issues such as housing shortages and college area gentrification,” to no avail as of today.
In short, we’ve been here before as a university, and nothing has changed, yet here we are again with even more applicants and potential students to serve. What will it take to stop this cycle of sacrificing student interests for the money they pay in tuition?
Again, last time, we noted that the purpose of our editorial is not to say UConn should not admit more students — quite the opposite. Allowing a post-secondary education for more individuals is the core to democratizing higher education. This still remains true. However, The Editorial Board wishes to draw the attention of the UConn community to the irony and hypocrisy of administrators celebrating record-breaking admissions while ensuring that their education will be both less financially accessible and less resourced than previous classes.