In the long term, education is the only viable solution to our problems. The changing nature of the world is unpredictable. In a state with nuclear weapons, an environmental crisis and a globalized economy, the only way Americans can continue to prosper in relative safety is to educate people to innovate and solve problems. If we want to compete with countries like China, with more than one billion people who can contribute to their strategic planning, we need to do a better job of educating our population. We need to make sure that every individual who can contribute to the country’s success is given the tools to do so.

As students at one of the nation’s elite academic institutions, one thing is clear to us: We are not the brightest and most-deserving students; rather, we are only some of them. Many students did not even have the opportunity to dream of applying to a school like Washington University because the tuition is so far out of their reach. Many more knew they would not be able to afford a college education at even the cheapest university. The price of college education has created a society where the American dream of social mobility is not possible for many. The United States pays a high price for its education price tags, when for economic reasons some of its most gifted citizens fail to reach their full potential.

Washington University has a very specific role in bringing the opportunity for advanced higher education to the nation’s entire population. In its Strategic Plan for Excellence, Washington University claims it would like to allow its students to graduate debt free. In order to improve itself and contribute to keeping our nation stable and productive, Washington University needs to make this goal its top priority.  Rather than focusing on construction projects, Washington University should begin a capital campaign with the sole purpose of improving the University’s financial aid. This is absolutely the best way for Washington University to fulfill its role as an institution of higher learning in a democratic society.

The United States government must make education a priority as well. Though presidents are often most concerned with security and economic conditions because these issues are reflected in public opinion polls, the presidency is about much more than catering to the public: a patriotic president does what is right for his or her country. The only way to advance and achieve security in an unstable world is to educate the public.

In order to improve higher education, the government needs to provide significantly more funding for education in the form of grants and loans. Additionally, it needs to make primary education a firm priority. In St. Louis, for example, public schools lost their accreditation because they did not meet proficiency standards. Good primary education should not be dependent on where a person lives or how much money their family makes. Offering good primary education for everyone will require increasing the standards for becoming a teacher, which will require increasing teachers’ salaries. The government must work to solve this problem by making education a priority and reflecting that priority with increased funding.

Whether on a small or large scale, offering more opportunity for Americans to pursue higher education is the surest way to protect our nation’s welfare. Both Washington University and the United States government need to put aside other projects in favor of a renewed focus on making education affordable and on giving Americans what is due to them.

Though the University does have set amounts of money it would like to allocate to the different goals listed in its plan, it has refused to make this information public, which makes it difficult to know how seriously the University will pursue each of its listed goals. For example, one of the goals of the plan is to “allow students to graduate debt-free.” This alone would radically change the composition of the University’s student body, making its education open to a larger variety of students with different economic backgrounds. The increased diversity would enrich the education of Wash. U. students and if several universities took steps like this, the American dream of equal opportunity would start to become more of a reality. The possibility of debt-free graduation is only one of several lofty goals embedded in the plan. Looking at the plan’s goals, it’s easy to start dreaming of a significantly improved University that truly fulfills the ideals of higher-education. However, it’s questionable what the priorities of this plan really are and how the different goals will be fulfilled, given the administration’s silence and secrecy about the specific details of the plan.

The University refuses to release budgeting numbers, which are the only way to discern which parts of the plan are real priorities. For example, the University could be mainly focused on renovating the Athletic Complex and thus only make a few changes to financial aid and still claim it has executed the plan. Since we don’t know what type of money Wash. U. plans to put toward increasing aid, it’s difficult to know if Wash. U. will actually be significantly increasing the amount of money it offers students in aid. Even without making the changes necessary for students to graduate debt-free, the University could claim it allowed a student to graduate debt-free if she worked many hours a week at work study and her family also had to take out loans to be able to meet the family’s expected contribution. This is all possible because we don’t know how the University will calculate need under the plan. And though it’s too much to ask the University how they plan to calculate need for a plan that hasn’t fully been developed, it is not too much to request that the University disclose the amount of money it actually plans to contribute toward the goal of debt-free graduation.

The Strategic Plan for Excellence has the potential to really transform the University by altering the composition of its student body and offering students the ability to engage in different types of experiences. For example, the plan seeks to increase stipends for unpaid internships and volunteer opportunities over the summer. Furthermore, it has the possibility of playing a progressive role in our country’s offering of higher education. Because the plan has the potential to do so much good, it’s important that the University truly achieve its listed goals. And if it is going to claim to do something as incredible as allowing its students to graduate without debt, then it needs to show them how it is working toward that goal. Additionally, if the University really has a set plan to achieve these goals, why keep the specifics of the plan secret from the student body? This plan is the type of program the students would readily support. Students could play a role in helping to fundraise and bring this plan about if they really understand the plan’s vision and how the University plans to execute it.

The Strategic Plan for Excellence could offer students a radically different university experience, but the plan could also simply be a façade for raising money to build a new Athletic Complex. The University has an obligation to be transparent about the details of the plan’s funding and execution since the University has stated it will work toward such lofty goals.

The strategic plan, according to McLeod, emphasizes the importance of the University’s long-term and higher-budget aims in establishing academic excellence.

“Periodically, universities participate in a long-range planning process,” McLeod said. “We think about what we need to do in the future. What are the challenges? What are the opportunities? What should be our priorities?”

The administration is currently seeking to begin with a strategic planning initiative within each unit of the University, some of which include Olin Library, all the undergraduate and graduate schools and the Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurial Studies. The goal is to eventually combine all the unit initiatives into a University-wide strategic plan.

Project 21 is the title of the administration’s previous strategic planning initiative that began in the late 1990s and has already been completed.

Named for its mission to launch the University into the 21st century, Project 21 concentrated on improving areas such as the campus community, undergraduate life and study, cross-disciplinary activity, international involvement and student recruitment.

While the University is already successful in its transition into the next century, McLeod stressed that the goals in the new planning initiatives have altered very little.

“Fundamentally, our mission does not change,” he said. “Fundamentally, we are still about you, [the students], and we are still about creating new knowledge and solving problems for society.”

In addition to academic excellence, the new initiative also focuses on the issue of need-based financial aid, according to Assistant Dean of Arts & Sciences Shelley Milligan.

“The University as a whole is really concerned about financial aid. It is among, if not the top of, our priorities, both for undergraduates and graduates,” Milligan said.

McLeod said to this year’s residential advisor staff that the estimated gap between provided and requested need-based aid at the University was $17.7 million.

“I consider them a kind of a group that needed to see [the expenses],” McLeod said. “What I wanted to communicate was that a substantial amount of resources are needed to do this.”

McLeod said he has been reluctant to present the expenses for the initiative in a more public manner, since the expenses are only rough estimates.

“[The numbers] are so soft. The soil in which soft numbers grow is pretty tricky,” McLeod said. “No one knows how much something will cost in the future. Who thought I would be paying four dollars for a gallon of gas this year?”

McLeod calls the $17.7 million estimate a “moving target” in the University’s goal of meeting the financial needs of undergraduate and graduate students.

“We are well aware of what our peers are doing and [are] anxious to be in that group,” Milligan said. “Financially, we are not in the same spot as some of them, but we are in a better spot than others.”

Whether an estimated $17.7 million will be enough to address the financial concerns of University students has yet to be determined. However, McLeod and Milligan both agree that the University has taken new, competitive steps through its strategic planning initiatives to continually improve the student experience.

“For universities, doing new things is a new concept. It was important for our university to be doing the same things it was doing last year, or last century,” McLeod said. “But now, our concept has completely changed. The University is trying to put in something new. Let’s put it out there and work with it. Let’s improve it and then roll it out to everyone. And this year, we will be able to roll out a planned concept.”