The administration has been on a roll the past few months. The friendly folks in West College lowered our grades (but don't worry, there's an explanation on the back of our transcripts) and are convinced that we do not know how to pick a major. Moreover, President Tilghman basically admits to an X/X litmus test for her high level appointments (Christopher Eisgruber '83 notwithstanding). Though these policies get discussed constantly across campus, one part of Princeton's administrative activism does not: the expansion of the school and the four-year residential college system.
While home for fall break, I randomly met an alum from the great Class of 1962. Somewhat distant from everyday life on campus, he asked me a simple question: why was the University expanding its class size? I stood there somewhat dumbfounded — why is 1,175 too small? Why are we expanding? The alum told me that no one in the administration had ever given him any good explanation for the shift. The best answer he ever got was from a mid-level administrator who told a group of wealthy alums that Princeton simply had too much money. Apparently, you could hear the checkbooks closing over dessert and coffee.
Are we expanding because we don't know what else to do with our endowment? Neither this student body nor the alumni was, to my mind, presented with a complete and organized plan that addresses not only the rationale for expansion, but also the problems that come with it. Do we have the facilities for a thousand new students? The wait for a treadmill at Dillon Gym around 5 p.m. is already long — how bad will it get when you add 1,000 more chronic overachievers looking to burn off four cups of beast from the weekend before?
Do we have the classes for more students? Waitlists already exist for the more popular courses, many of which fill McCosh 50 to capacity. What will happen with more students? Are we hiring more professors? Will precepts get larger, or will the administration expand the number of grad students TAing to keep precepts at 14 people or smaller? Moreover, finance went the way of the Wilson School this year, preventing certain individuals from entering the program because too many people were interested. Is this the wave of the future for departments? Will Princetonians get hosed from Tower and from molbio in the coming years? Perhaps econ will start doing pickups in mid-April?
The biggest of the unaddressed issues is the social question. No matter how many times they deny it, the four-year residential college system seems like yet another chapter in the administration's 100-year attempt to get rid of the eating clubs. Things are so bad in the house system (basically a three-year residential college system) at Harvard that they hired a fun czar to keep things cheery. On a more local level, check out the nondenominational Winter Wonderland weekend at Frist, which happens to be at the same time as Winter Formals. It wasn't exactly the hottest date in town, and I hear that it emptied out after the free stuff disappeared.
This isn't to say that no University-sponsored activities are fun. Kudos to the trustees' alcohol initiative for the good work that they do. But given this — or any — university's chronic inability to singlehandedly keep its students happy over the long term, we're left with fewer people actually joining clubs as many more upperclassmen get meal plans, but more people looking to party in them. That means less revenue for clubs — and some may inevitably close — but longer lines at doors, more packed dance floors and even more ridiculous antics on the part of freshmen trying to angle passes for Ivy. Is this a good thing? Has the University even thought this far down the road?
In short, we seem to be the only university among our peers trying to increase our admit rate, and for no apparent reason. If the University does have a good reason for expanding the size of the student body, it would behoove administrators to pull back the curtain and reveal it. If it doesn't, the University's money can be spent in far better ways. Either way, a look down the path of the future is littered with unanswered questions that could make the 1,400-member classes more difficult to manage than anyone had previously thought. Matthew Gold is a politics major from New York, N.Y. He can be reached at mggold@princeton.edu.
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