This week, we have a guest debater.
Tufts Students for the Improvement of Residential Life and Community (TSIRLC) is a group that believes on-campus housing is "inadequate at best and is in dire need of reform." Its members are pushing for short- and long-term improvements for dorms. But do the costs of these improvements outweigh the benefits?
TSIRLC: First, we must address the notion that changing residential life at Tufts is all about money. Money is only a part of the equation. If the university were to throw all its funds behind ResLife, it would not solve some fundamental problems. In truth, residential life suffers from a lack of planning, imagination and funding. While institutions like Harvard University, Yale University, University of Chicago and University of Notre Dame have realized that on-campus housing can be used to instill a sense of belonging in students, Tufts has remained in the dark.
Let us pretend that to solve the problem, all the university had to do was spend more money. Would this be a worthy investment? Surely other important aspects such as faculty resources, need-blind financial aid and academic facilities should take precedent.
An individual who thinks along those lines fails to understand the potential long-term financial gains of investing in residential life. Tufts suffers from a 28 percent alumni contribution rating (this means 72 percent of alumni did not give money last year). As this is by far the lowest rating among peer schools, it is part of the reason Tufts dropped a spot in the U.S. News and World Report rankings. Furthermore, corporations may begin to ask a fundamental question: "Why should we give you money, if your own graduates refuse to?"
Alumni are sending Tufts a clear message: They do not feel a strong connection to the university.
It's time to realize what our peer schools have realized: Increasing funding for ResLife does not amount to ignoring other essential aspects of university life; instead, it lays a foundation for them. An active, motivated alumni body is the bedrock of a successful institution. Competing schools have long realized that the way to create an active alumni body is by creating a student body community - a family. They have used ResLife as the tool of choice to create a tradition and build a community that later becomes the bedrock of financial aid and faculty resource funds.
With this in mind, Tufts should not shy away from investing in new community-focused housing, spending money to guarantee on campus housing, or making sure that common rooms bring people together.
Residential life is one of the cornerstones of a residential college, and ignoring it is like removing one of the legs from a table. Tufts cannot treat residential life as if its students were simply traveling in taxis, or staying in hotels. We must do our best to ensure that students truly feel at home and among family. Let's not fool ourselves into believing that ResLife is not a worthy investment.
Peter and Sudeep: The members of TSIRLC claim that money is not the only problem with ResLife - they say it lacks planning and imagination. But the best "planning and imagination" will result in zero progress without funding. ResLife can only be improved by charging students more money or by reprioritizing Tufts' finances. In either case, costs outweigh the benefits.
The price of college has skyrocketed over the past three decades. Colleges have increased their tuition by 90 percent since 1976. During the same period, the median family income has grown only by 10 percent. Families now pay considerably more for a Tufts education (almost $49,000 a year). Any increase in college tuition will only add to their woes.
Almost 75 percent of students in America's top 146 colleges come from the richest economic quartile. Just 3 percent come from the poorest. Higher tuition costs hurt the poor the most and increase the inequality already prevalent on our campus.
Besides harming the already disadvantaged, higher tuition may also reduce the quality of students coming to Tufts. Recent research by economist Caroline Hoxby has shown that high aptitude students prefer lower tuition, lower room and board charges, and generous financial aid packages. Fancy dorms aren't the best way to attract these students.
Instead of higher tuition, Tufts could reprioritize some of its expenditure and cut funding to academic activities and financial aid. But this goes against the fundamental goals of providing the best education to as many people as possible, hurts the quality of students and thus the alumni returns available in the future.
Even if better residential life increases future alumni donations (though no evidence for this fact has been provided), there are other ways to invest current funds. Tufts could put more money into athletics or into our horrendously coordinated intramurals, increasing student involvement in communal activities. It could also spend more on research and faculty, thereby attracting lucrative state grants and increasing its reputation in the academic world.
Tufts has already spent a lot on its students - remember the $22 million Sophia Gordon Hall? Don't forget that it's still a growing university with limited finances. To require the dorm quality of Harvard and Yale on our campus is not only naive and unnecessary, but also counterproductive.
Sudeep Bhatia is a junior majoring in philosophy; Peter Radosevich is a junior majoring in political science. They can be reached at Sudeep.Bhatia@tufts.edu and Peter.Radosevich@tufts.edu, respectively.
