There are probably people who are very happy that Towson University looks harder to get into these days than nearby Goucher College, but I doubt they include the 6,928 applicants whom Towson rejected for its 2009 freshman class.
Not long ago it was "Towson State" and letting in nearly three of every four applicants. Now it is attracting more kids from New York and New Jersey and admitting only 56 percent overall.
This fall's admission rate for the private Goucher, which describes itself as "selective," was 72 percent. (Goucher's freshmen did achieve higher SAT scores, on average.)
Give credit to Towson's excellent education and affordable tuition, plus the recession, which makes it harder for families to afford private schools such as Goucher.
But there's a problem.
In an economy where higher education is more important than ever, barring thousands of qualified kids from places such as Towson is bad for them, bad for employers and bad for Maryland.
It's time to stop rationing Maryland education. Gov. Martin O'Malley's three-year tuition freeze, intended to make college more accessible, is starting to have the opposite effect. He should let universities modestly raise prices so they have the resources to admit those who are getting shut out.
Towson, Morgan State University in Baltimore and Salisbury University on the Eastern Shore were never intended to become elite institutions.
They and their sister state schools were supposed to educate the kids who didn't get into the University of Maryland, College Park. But to a greater and greater extent, they're not able to do that. Even as interest in these schools soared, the tuition freeze and tight state budgets forced them to put a lid on admissions.
This year, Towson admitted almost 1,000 fewer freshmen and enrolled 400 fewer than it did last year. That's even though applications hit 15,623 this year, up from 11,750 in 2005.
"We actually pulled back from accepting additional applications," said Brian P. Hazlett, the university's director of admissions. "We didn't want to accept applications from students we didn't have the ability to enroll."
This year, Salisbury accepted 54 percent of its applicants, a spokesman said. That's up from a 53 percent acceptance rate last year, but the long-term trend has been toward more exclusivity. Morgan State accepted only 32 percent of applicants this year, down from 43 percent last year, its spokesman said.
