The Overenrollment Problem

As has been discussed in this blog and elsewhere, many public schools are dealing with the problem of overenrollment this year. That is, more students will be attending than in years past. These schools claim it is an accident, but it is a very fortuitous accident for them. These overenrolled students will be paying just as much as other students, but they will be living in overcrowded dorms, and be taught by TAs. Couple this with the fact that many schools are accepting more foreign students to drive up tuition revenue, many of whom need help with their English, this can only deteriorate the quality of education.

There is an interesting article from a couple weeks ago in the New York Times about just this situation happening at Iowa. As always, the comments are quite interesting. It turns out this is becoming an increasingly common practice.

While this makes sense from the school's perspective, because it gets more money, it is detrimental to students' education. A school might see it as a good way to pick up more money, but it also hurts the "brand" of a school, because class sizes become bigger, and people have little desire to go someplace that is overcrowded, and  where fellow students are hoping they flunk out so everyone can have enough space and teaching resources. It is a huge turnoff for high-paying out of state students, because they feel they are not getting what they pay for, and for that money could go to a similarly priced private school, which is much smaller. Also, most public schools have limited resources, so spreading them out among many more students only exacerbates this problem.

What do you think? Is this happening at your school? How are they dealing with it? We want to know about it.