This will always be the issue. UA knows this, as well as other schools. UA has taken the initiative in academics as it does in athletics. UA has laid down the gauntlet–give high-achieving students a scholarship as early as September, and ask families to wait until the following March to decide whether or not they want / can / choose to pay $65k/yr for an undergraduate degree. The commitment to excellence and making it happen at UA is impressive. Anyone who has had that personal attention on a campus visit knows exactly this point.
Arizona State just announced it will be offering full ride to its 2016 incoming MBA class. Wow! It is already an elite business school and the best in the country in at least supply chain management. Go figure. The gauntlet is being laid down by those who understand these trends. And Michael Crow, ASU president, is the most innovative and influential college president in the country (google him). Yes, more than any of the Ivy presidents.
The big-picture schools are figuring out is that the USA will not be able to support so many outstanding universities in the future. The declining state budgets for higher education will be the death knell of the regional state universities that can’t draw OOS or international students. Public universities, though non-profit, need to be profitable. Forward-thinking flagships like Bama --a true innovator in this process–see the return on investment in hiring the most expensive coach/teacher in college football and hire away great teachers from other institutions (Texas did this in the 80s and 90s with the oil money)–the prestige bleeds into every aspect of a university today. This is a great time to take advantage of these trends, our historical moment. And historical moment is defining.
Prestige vs. pragmatism. The kid that toured us around Duke engineering was a nice guy, but a bit of a doofus. The two ChE majors in UA’s CBH we talked to were intelligent and engaging. Grad schools and employers know the difference.
And so should we.