New School Town Hall Meeting: Economic Challenges and Solutions for the Future of NSU

October 26th- President, David Van Zandt and Provost, Tim Marshall announced at the Town Hall Meeting of The New School University that, university wide, tuition is to be raised in the coming years. This past year the total enrollment only amounted to 22, only 5.5 percent of their expected 400-student enrollment. President Van Zandt mentioned that this is due to the worsening economy nationally and a trend for schools all over the country. The New School's revenue is 90% student charges. Students, he said, are beginning to question whether it is worth it to go so far into debt for education. As a result, however, there is concern that, due to the under enrollment the quality of education is subject to slip as well as the student makeup. Concern over the diversity and makeup of students as students and faculty alike expressed a reaction to the growing tuition.

A senior, Kathy at NSPE, made a grievance about the quality of the students themselves. She mentioned that other schools were beginning to accept students who could pay for school, but did not necessarily meet the other academic requirements. Tony Whitfield, the associate dean of civic engagement at Parsons followed up asking about the rise of tuition affecting the diversity of the student body.

"We’re the new school, we should be thinking innovatively about this and not just following what every other university does out there" said Van Zandt. He proposes doing this by rethinking the way classes are taught, when classes will meet and how students should interact with teachers. Van Zandt insists "we had a dependency on growth," he said "that's not sustainable." "We're the new school, we should be thinking innovatively about this and not just following what every other university does out there" said Van Zandt. He proposes doing this by rethinking the way classes are taught, when classes will meet and how students should interact with teachers, this will be done by shrinking existing programs including the Fashion and PhD programs.

A new faculty member who transferred from MIT brought up another solution. He insisted that grants for research based progress both for students and teachers would lessen the student supported revenue.