For years, Portland State’s University Honors Program has drawn in students who wanted the education of a private liberal arts college but couldn’t afford it. The honors program focuses on writing and critical thinking, and, best of all, it comes at the same price as the traditional University Studies program. Next year, though, that may change.
For years, Portland State’s University Honors Program has drawn in students who wanted the education of a private liberal arts college but couldn’t afford it. The honors program focuses on writing and critical thinking, and, best of all, it comes at the same price as the traditional University Studies program. Next year, though, that may change.
Raising the tuition for honors students is being heavily considered to help meet costs next year. In addition to tuition hikes, the honors curriculum may be revamped to fit in with the urban focus of the University Studies program.
Neither of these things is necessary, and following through with them would do a lot of damage to PSU. Keeping the honors program the way it is should be the administration’s top priority.
Let’s start by looking at the current honor’s curriculum. The section of honors I’m in focuses on authors like Montesquieu, Pascal, John Stuart Mill, Descartes and Dickens. Is this because the program is outdated or only focuses on the past? No, it’s because the way these authors wrote challenges readers to find the real meaning of the work or forces them to draw their own conclusions from careful reading.
Since we focus on critical thinking rather than urbanization, are honors students less able to “let knowledge serve the city?” Not at all. We are simply going to be equipped with a different kind of knowledge.
While the paper I had to write on the public image of Louis XIV may not apply directly to a future career, it taught me better skills of analysis and showed me how modern media has developed. It was a rewarding (but difficult) thing to write.
The honors program was what originally inspired the University Studies program. There is still so much value in the kind of books our program uses, and any changes to the curriculum should be very carefully considered.
Raising tuition for honors students is problematic because it decreases the ability of lower-income students to join the program. The program’s website encourages first-generation college students to participate, but when it costs more to be an honors student than it would to join the University Studies program, the program’s accessibility is automatically limited.
People have accused honors of being an elitist program (a claim I absolutely refute); by raising the tuition required to be a part of it, the university would be validating that claim.
Most honors colleges charge higher tuition rates for admission, like those of Oregon State University and University of Oregon. Since it provides a kind of special service and is considered more prestigious, paying more to be a part of it is argued as logical.
That still does not justify the loss to the university that increased tuition rates would bring. The fact that our program doesn’t charge extra helps keep us competitive with other state universities and private colleges like Lewis and Clark and Willamette.
“Everyone else does it” is a bad reason to change something. PSU is great because of the fact that it does things differently. There’s a reason we are home to so many non-traditional students: it’s because PSU allows them more opportunities than other institutions would.
Performance and grade point average should be the deciding factors of a person’s ability to join an honors program, not whether they can afford it.
I know that there are budget shortfalls and that the money has to come from somewhere. I’m willing to pay more if it means I keep getting the kind of education I’m currently getting, but only if absolutely necessary.
The lack of transparency on this issue is particularly frustrating, because students don’t feel like they have a say in the matter. Most of what we hear is more speculation than solid information, especially about tuition increases. But honors is such a small program that a tuition hike would be a drop in the bucket.
An increase wouldn’t solve very many problems, and I don’t believe it’s a fair policy at all, after all the fighting PSU and ASPSU have done to keep tuition down. I would feel this way even if I wasn’t in honors. I think it’s an arbitrary decision.
Honors classes don’t require special materials, extra class hours or more professors. At the junior and senior level, the program is largely self-directed. At the very least, I believe that if a tuition increase is unavoidable, the program should be able to retain the current curriculum, since the curriculum currently used is what makes the honors program at PSU comparable to the other institutions.
In the coming weeks there will be more information, and a group of honors students will be preparing a petition. I encourage anyone who has a chance to sign it to do so. No particular organization of students should be paying more than the rest without a good reason for it. Keeping tuition low for everyone is important, and it benefits us all in the long run. ■
