There are three distinct advantages to having stairs in your place of residence: You can use them as a convenient tool for fitness purposes, you can house a precocious boy wizard underneath them, and you can employ them as an instrument with which metaphors can easily crafted.
In light of the current economic situation, we prefer the last option.
Looking at the news that ASU will be reducing its West and Polytechnic campuses to just one college each as part of the fallout because of the infamous university budget cuts, we couldn’t help but feel like we were watching a Slinky ominously tumbling down a staircase.
The scaled-back campuses — something that reduces ASU’s “One University in many places” slogan to being somewhere between “One University that is kind of around somewhere” and “One University in many light-rail stops” — were just the next stair down, as we’ve watched our University stretched to its limit and knocked on its back time and time again over the last fiscal year. First, we saw last semester’s hiring freeze, elimination of 750 positions, and program fees. Second, we saw this semester’s mandatory unpaid furloughs affect more than 12,000 University employees.
Now, there’s this latest hit that has ASU disestablishing academic programs, shifting colleges away from outlying campuses, discontinuing funding of the AIMS scholarship and capping future enrollment.
And worse, just like a Slinky, the negative side effects seem as though they will just keep going — that is, until they finally hit rock bottom.
The imperative question moving forward is: What will the next step down be?
We have some ideas, and they are concerning. Even more disconcerting is the fact that they stem from the reductions we have already previously had to swallow.
With the reduction of the West and Polytechnic campuses, a ruinous chain reaction could be started. The survival of developed areas surrounding both campuses is largely dependent on the commercial, residential and industrial impact the schools produce. As fewer students and employees frequent the campus, the areas around them will struggle to bring in revenue.
Without the revenue produced by ASU, jobs will be lost, businesses will close, people will lose their homes, and the state will see fewer dollars.
And with less money in state coffers, you better believe ASU will face further cuts. In response, tuition will rise and the average student will be priced out of an education.
And who can put a stop to this current crisis by cultivating a culture of regenerative ideas and ongoing innovation? That, of course, would be the would-be college students.
Sadly, this issue is obviously so much bigger than ASU and the state of Arizona, and as disturbing as it is, that chain only stands to continue indefinitely.
So while the campus downsizing might seem like a drop in the bucket, it is, in reality, another mild drop between the high point of the world as we previously knew it, and the super-depressing bottom of what unknown misery is yet to come.
More depressing still is the lesson taught so well by our favorite toy, the Slinky: Even once you finally hit the bottom, every single step back up is a slow and laborious crawl.
