Originally Posted by
LAS2AMS
The Detroit News reported in January that Illitch was seeking to lure the School of Business to its District Detroit as part of the $200M in new development.
I'm very critical of this move: Many Michigan colleges & universities continue to press forward aggressive expansion plans, despite the state's shrinking base of school aged residents. And Wayne County, which "supplies" nearly half of WSU's students, is seeing the largest declines.
WSU's enrollment is down 17.5% from its peak in 2007, and the drop would've been over 20% if not for the surge of students from neighboring states and Ontario now paying in-state tuition. Instead of accepting reality, WSU wants to pretend that 'if you build it, they will come.'
The overwhelming majority of WSU's facilities are antiqued, especially the classrooms which look straight out the '60s and '70s. Yes, Illitch is paying for most of the new building, but WSU is still contributing millions, plus absorbing the annual operations cost -- money that would be better spent on incumbent facilities.
This past January, the School of Business scheduled a handful of classes at a Downtown location -- all were cancelled due to low enrollment. Most of WSU's commuters will drive past the school en route to the new business school, whereas persons living on/near campus will now have to take a shuttle [[or ride the M-1). That's a head scratcher! Of course, maybe WSU's trying to attract Graduate students, student counts which were free-falling until WSU reversed the trend this year. You know how? By moving most classes to online, 7.5-week formats.