Like many colleges and universities across the U.S., the University of North Carolina-Asheville (UNCA) has had falling enrollment — down 25 percent in the last five years. Inevitably, budget cuts have to be made.

The trouble is that UNCA’s purpose was to serve as a liberal-arts institution, and the cuts downgrade that mission. In today’s Martin Center article, Jenna Robinson looks at the situation and suggests that it’s time to start over.

She writes:

UNCA now touts “relationship-driven education” and “small class sizes, close collaboration, and high-impact experiences” as selling points. But these aren’t enough to make up for a curriculum that is almost indistinguishable from that of most other UNC schools. To be sure, the school still calls its humanities program “a hallmark of UNC Asheville.” But a school that eliminates philosophy and classics isn’t taking humanities seriously. (In fact, the words “liberal-arts curriculum” were also victims of the 2022 mission-statement revision.)

Robinson would like to see UNCA strive to rebuild itself as the UNC school that focuses on and excels at giving students a good education in the liberal arts.