WaPo: Capping University Enrollment is Hypocritical
To date, D.C.'s higher education lobby—the Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area—has made the case that trying to restrict the growth of the city's college student population would run counter to the push for economic development. But no one's said that the city talks from both sides of its mouth when it yammers on about fostering innovation, while at the same time backing strict enrollment caps on schools like Georgetown University. Until yesterday's Post editorial page:
Imagine a city telling its largest private employer—one that pays millions in taxes and salaries, strives to hire local residents and voluntarily does community service—that it can’t grow anymore, that it might have to cut back. That seems far-fetched in light of today’s scary economy, but it’s essentially what D.C. officials are telling Georgetown University by insisting it either house all its students or cut back enrollment. The District seems distressingly disinterested in promoting a knowledge-based economy.
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What’s most troubling about the city’s posture is the notion that an increase in young people, particularly those in search of an education, is somehow undesirable. What happened to the idea that these are the very kind of people that should be lured to make the District their home?
Can't disagree with the ed board here. Requiring a university to house all of its students on campus is unrealistic and unreasonable, not to mention counterproductive to the goal of getting them involved in District affairs, which Mayor Vince Gray has explicitly pushed. At the same time, Gray says he "supports the community" against the "creeping presence" of universities into neighborhoods. But does the administration really want those jobs to be housed at satellite campuses in Arlington? If so, it's done a pretty good job so far.
1:28 pm
like a lot of "community planning" issues, there is a difference, usually, between citywide, district/sector, and neighborhood objectives and goals.
The city government generally does a piss poor job of simultaneously defining and articulating the goals, objectives, and actions according to these different spatial and planning scales.
So the points that the Post and you make wrt this issue are what we could call "citywide" economic development/creative class and residential attraction issues.
Whereas the residents in Burleith and Georgetown apparently don't want the students to move off their Bantustan within the campus.
The city needs to be direct and say that the U (and other Us) contribute x, y, z to the city and that this is important, and that the desires for the residents to keep the students down has to be balanced with other goals.
But that wasn't/isn't typically done. So we get the boneheaded s*** (stuff = the other s word) like the proposal by the City OP to the ZC/BZA that the U has to accommodate 100%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! of its students on campus.
That is an unheard of request in an urban center.
WRT the points that you/Gray etc. make, Baltimore and Philadelphia have very active college student support organizations, focused on retaining the students in the region after they graduate.
- http://www.baltimorecollegetown.org/
- http://www.campusphilly.org/articles.nsf/frontpage?OpenView&Start=1&Count=5
2:33 pm
Thank you for a common sense view of the current Georgetown situation. Neither side is perfect, but certain citizens, in my opinion, have drawn a line in the sand from which they will not budge without any sensitivity to all the contributions which Georgetown University makes. Thye also seem to want to ignore the very positive steps the University has taken relative to noise, trash and security in response to concerns made by these certain citizens.
9:43 pm
Kudos to Lydia, Richard, and Edward for talking sense, and to the Post for sticking its neck out when it's clear that absolutely no politician will.