Belmont Growth, Basic News Writing assignemnt

For my Basic News Writing class we were assigned to conduct interviews and write an article about Belmont's growth.  The opinions in these articles are no way associated with Belmont University, and any quotations were given on their own time, outside of the class room, outside of the university setting.

For the further protection of the professor quoted, I am only going to include the first initial of the last name.



 

As Belmont’s growth and prominence has continued to grow over the past ten years, the enrollment and tuition has also been setting record highs.   With Belmont’s enrollment hitting a 99 percent increase since 2000 at 5,936 students, many members of the Belmont faculty, community, student body, friends and family have started to question how true Belmont’s mission statement is, and if so, how long it will remain.

The mission statement for Belmont University is clearly stated on Belmont’s website.  The mission statement is that “Belmont University is a student-centered Christian community providing an academically challenging education that empowers men and women of diverse backgrounds to engage and transform the world with disciplined intelligence, compassion, courage and faith.”  The biggest section of the mission that is being questioned most often is whether or not Belmont is remaining a “student-centered” university – a statement that the university has been known to shine a proud light on for many years.

“It seems quantity has trumped quality in terms of how things operate here,” Belmont faculty member Dr. A said. “If only there were half the resources devoted to supporting the undergraduate liberal arts core as there were to hiring endless new executive-level employees for marketing and fundraising.”

The heightened tuition comes to no surprise, however, when taking a look at the new additions to campus. This year alone, new employees have been hired, a new 90,000 square foot building and two residence halls were opened, the planned renovation of Belmont Heights Baptist Church was announced, and the construction of a new College of Law is set to begin in October. However, there is a fog between placing the care of students first and care of university growth that parents of students cannot look past.

“The growth has become a priority over the students,” Cyndi Huff, mother of sophomore Ben Tripp, said.  “It seems like the growth of the college is now more important than the students.  The fact that the college is growing means there will be the need for more housing, which will fall upon the students and their families to pay higher tuition rates.  In our case this means my child will be deeper in debt because he has to rely on student loans to pay around 85 to 90% of college cost.”

Another parent, Ettice Wilson, who is mother of sophomore Rachel Wilson, feels tuition increases should be a last resort, especially when not all students are affected by the new additions.  “There have been new dorms and a health department added.  Since my child is not enrolled in the healthcare program she neither benefits from the new classroom space, nor does she receive any additional student medical services that were not offered prior to its construction,” Wilson said. “The new dorms have been utilized by students other than my own.  The impact of the increase in tuition will be realized when her student loans become due.”

The concern of tuition increases and debt is one that Belmont administration should consider carefully before raising tuition much more than its present state.  “If tuition continues to rise I don’t know if my child will continue to get student loans for the remaining two and a half years of college.  My child is already in debt for three semesters,” Huff said, “If the average college cost per semester is $17,000.00 and my child attends Belmont for four years the cost will be $136,000.  To me that is a lot of money to be in debt for eight semesters of college.”

“Keeping up with the increases in tuition is not always possible.  Borrowing more money seems like the easy out, but again, the idea of a huge debt looming as you start a career is frightening,” said John Goforth, father of sophomore Beth Goforth.  “As is the case with most colleges, Belmont's rate of tuition increases seems to exceed the ability of people to meet the increases.  There has to be more done to control the costs to slow these increases.”

            Parents and faculty are not the only one concerned about growth and tuition spikes either.  Students have a fair share to say as well and are looking for an outlet to voice their concerns.  Senior Susannah Thompson is concerned with how quickly Belmont seems to be growing.  She feels that to remain a small, intimate, and personable school, as well as maintain a high quality of education, the growth must be limited. 

Cassidy Hodges, who is a senior graduating in December as well as managing editor of the Belmont Vision, said that Belmont is growing, “…so fast it is hard to sustain who is here now,” and that the university is looking so far in the future it is forgetting the present.  She followed up by saying students feel as though their needs are not being served by administration.  Hodges noted that administration has yet to acknowledge the formation of a Facebook group that began last school year.  The group of 1,052 members is entitled, “BELMONT! We love you, but please take care of students that are here NOW!”

There is currently no prediction for when Belmont will consider its growth to be enough, or when the cap will be placed on the tuition increases.  In the mean time, faculty, staff, students, and parents of Belmont will continue to search for a way to be heard.