State universities step up outside recruitment

I’ve been seeing quite a few television commercials recently for the University of Massachusetts. UMass has joined the ranks of many state colleges/universities in a quest for out-of-state students to increase their diminishing coffers.

UMass-Amherst Chancellor Robert Holub is seeking new sources of income, amid dwindling state subsidies, to increase the size and prominence of the faculty, update deteriorating postwar buildings, and invest in scientific research. To help reach that goal, he envisions increasing undergraduate enrollment by 15 percent, to 22,500 students, over the next decade by exclusively courting out-of-state students.

But Holub’s vision, coming as Bay State residents are facing stiffer competition to gain admission, is raising some concerns on a campus whose traditional mandate has been to make higher education accessible to citizens of the Commonwealth.

“We’re not abandoning our obligation to our students, but in order to provide a very good education for them, we obviously need to have real revenue sources. And one of them has to do with increased tuition and fees that come with a higher number of out-of-state students,’’ said Holub, who became chancellor a year ago. “It’s an important shift, one we haven’t really done in the past.’’

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