Fordham University is currently engaged in a difficult balancing act between institutional prestige and student affordability. As current students grapple with an aggressive tuition increase this year, the administration appears to be leaning into a strategy of increased selectivity to justify the rising cost of a Fordham degree. While prospective students are being sold a “more exclusive” and high-value brand as they decide whether to enroll, current students are left to shoulder the financial burden without seeing the immediate benefits of this rebranding. A lower acceptance rate might look good on a brochure for the class of 2030, but for the thousands of us already here, it feels like a hollow consolation prize for a much higher price tag.

University President Tania Tetlow has been transparent about this shift in focus. In an interview with the Fordham Observer regarding keeping up with Fordham’s ranking, Tetlow stated that the university is focused on “getting the admission rate down” because “we do know that (selectivity is) something students look to as they’re choosing a school.” While this might be true for high schoolers, it does little for the sophomores and juniors already invested in their degrees. There is a disconnect between the administration’s push for “prestige” and the student body’s need for “value.” For those already enrolled, the prestige of Fordham being “hard to get into” is a retroactive metric; it doesn’t improve the quality of the labs we use today, the availability of housing or the cost of our meal plans.

To be clear, increasing the caliber of our applicant pool and strengthening our admissions standards is a good thing. Every student wants their degree to carry weight. However, it feels contradictory to celebrate these record-low acceptance rates while tuition continues its steady climb. It is difficult to take pride in a more “exclusive” gate when the students already inside are paying more for an institution that is declining in the eyes of students. Celebrating selectivity amid a ranking decline and a cost-of-living crisis feels out of touch with the reality of the current student experience.

This disconnect between cost and value is further evidenced by Fordham’s consistent slide in national prestige. According to historical ranking data, the university’s position has slipped year after year, with U.S. News currently ranking Fordham 91st nationally. Tetlow has argued that this drop reflects a change in “the criteria, rather than a change in the quality” of the school, but for students currently facing an increased tuition bill, this is a distinction without a difference. If the administration’s primary response to a declining rank is to lower the acceptance rate, it suggests that the university is more interested in the optics of exclusivity than the tangible quality of the current student experience. We are being asked to fund a vision for the “Fordham of 2030” while the Fordham of today, the one we are actually attending, is losing ground in the very rankings the university claims to be chasing.

New applicants are being informed of the “new” Fordham, a school that is harder to get into and more valuable. They can weigh the high tuition against the high selectivity before they sign their enrollment contracts. Current students, however, did not sign up for a tuition-hiking rebranding campaign. We are being asked to fund a rise in prestige that new students won’t fully benefit from until long after we graduate, all while our daily experience remains the same.

As we move forward, the administration’s focus on selectivity is a logical response to a competitive higher education market. However, for the students already here, the true measure of Fordham’s value isn’t found in a lower acceptance rate but in a commitment to making the current student experience worth the investment. We should strive to be a university that is not just exclusive in its admissions but exceptional in its support and resources for the students who have already said “yes” to a Fordham education.

Caydence Jones, FCRH ’29, is a journalism major from Easton, Pennsylvania.