On Tuesday, the university announced the two-year endeavor that was MSU Dubai’s undergraduate program is at an end. MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon said the decision was based on “a lot of factors, many of which … were out of our control.” The news means a few summer classes in Dubai will finish, but undergraduate fall classes will be canceled and MSU Dubai will not accept new undergraduates. The students will have the option of attending class on the East Lansing campus, Simon said.
All told, MSU did the right thing, the wrong way. The MSU Dubai campus wasn’t exactly thriving. Enrollment at the campus initially was expected to be in the 400-800 range. Right now, there are 85 students enrolled. By no stretch of the imagination is that even mildly successful.
Simon cited the low number of students as a reason MSU Dubai would not have been a “terrific academic experience for the small number of students in Dubai.”
Without a great deal of interest in years past and no indicators the situation was going to improve, the university was right to cut its losses and get out before things got out of hand. As it stands, the closure will cost MSU an estimated $1.3 million to $1.7 million. Better to lose a million and a half now, than sink more money into an investment that might never pan out. It echoes what we have seen in East Lansing with program moratoriums and discontinuances: Programs with low enrollment or redundancies are reorganized or cut altogether.
The situation also echoes some of the concerns of transparency. There are now 85 MSU Dubai students who will not be able to attend classes when fall arrives. Simon has said those students have the option of attending the East Lansing campus, but that seems highly unlikely.
It is practically impossible for those students to uproot their lives and move halfway across the world in a month. Simply transitioning from high school to college can take three to four months. Given the expenses, logistics and cultural changes involved in moving to the U.S., it is highly unlikely any students will be able to take advantage of MSU’s offer.
Moreover, the handling of this situation shows a callous disregard toward the students. There should have been explicit statements telling these students that they would need to find another university or make travel arrangements if they wanted to continue their studies. For all intents and purposes, they were left in the dark. The statement MSU’s actions send is “out of sight, out of mind.” MSU Dubai students aren’t going to rally at the Administration Building or show up in force at the MSU Board of Trustees’ meetings. Their voices and faces are thousands of miles away and, because they are few, the impact — if any — of their protests would be small.
Simon has couched some of the most important factors of this decision in terms suggesting the closure was in the students’ best interests. The lack of transparency combined with the lip service given to the consequences says otherwise.
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