The university reduced the cost of the QU in LA program for next semester because fewer students applied for the fall, as compared to the spring semester.
“Students seem less interested in going in the fall than in the spring. Part of it is climate. It’s cold and nasty here in the spring,” Dean of the School of Communications Lee Kamlet said. “Students would rather be in Los Angeles in the warm weather. People would rather be here in the fall because it’s the beginning of the school year, and it’s really beautiful here in the fall.”
Freshman Entrepreneurship major, Kyle Trusch, thinks that housing is more of an issue than the weather.
“If you go [to LA] in the spring, you are guaranteed housing in the fall and [you’ll] be able to room with your friends, but not necessarily if you go in the fall,” Trusch said.
Kamlet followed up with this problem and was informed by student services that students going to LA in the fall would be able to return to their assigned housing in the spring. However, it’s unclear if this solution is finite for all future semesters, but as of the upcoming fall and spring semester, this opportunity will be available, according to Kamlet.
In response to this trend, President John Lahey traveled to Los Angeles last fall to look at the program. Upon his return, he spoke with Kamlet about the imbalance of student participation between semesters. Lahey suggested lowering the price to incentivize an increase in student attendance in the fall. This would also decrease overcrowding in the residence halls on campus in the fall if there are more students in L.A.
Students from the School of Communications received an email announcing a $2,000 discount for students who are accepted into the QU in LA program on March 7.
“Thanks to a generous gift from President Lahey, students who participate in QU in LA during fall 2016 will save $2,000 on the cost of the program,” stated an email addressed to School of Communications students in early March.
But Kamlet said the $2,000 reduction was not a gift.
“It’s not a donation, it’s not a gift. It would be a reduction in the cost of housing,” Kamlet said.
Kamlet compares Lahey’s plan to fix the imbalance of applicants to that of a dealership trying to sell excess cars.
“Think of it this way,” Kamlet said. “If a dealer’s got excess cars on the lot he’s going to give you a rebate because he wants to get those cars out of his inventory. It’s the same kind of thing. You do these things to incentivize people.”
Senior Athletic Training major, Ryan Duffy, believes that the decrease in costs would lead to increased enrollment.
“Money is pretty important to people here, especially at Quinnipiac where it’s a private school and you pay a lot of money to come here regardless,” Duffy said, “I think it would be an awesome experience and people really just don’t know enough about it or maybe it’s just too expensive for some people.”
Director of the QU in LA program Miguel Valenti said in an email that the program’s budgets change yearly.
“All I can say is that the university makes many budget decisions about funding for programs. Budget decisions change from year to year,” Valenti said. “So for this fall at least, this decision has been made in support of this particular program in hopes it will help it to grow.”
This opportunity is temporary as of now and only affects next semester, though the deadline has been pushed to May 1 for students to apply for this fall’s QU in LA program .
“Remember that this program is still relatively new, which is why this policy was not in place before. This is something of an experiment,” Valenti said. “We’ll have to see whether students take advantage of it. It’s entirely possible this reduction may only be in place for the coming fall semester.”
CORRECTION: This article was updated on April 6 at 4 p.m. to include a response to one of the student reactions about housing from Dean of the School of Communications Lee Kamlet.
