Higher education or a higher calling?

Higher education or a higher calling

By Chase Christensen

On Oct. 6 Thomas S. Monson, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, announced at the church’s 182nd Semiannual General Conference that the age members could serve a mission would be lowered to 18 for males and 19 for females, formerly 19 and 21 respectively. This may create a unique situation at Utah State University, according to Corey Mikkelsen, associate director of recruitment at USU.

Due to the large number of Mormon students who attend Utah State, the school has begun research to determine whether or not the reduction in mission eligible age will affect the enrollment rate, Mikkelsen said.

“There is a task force that is working on it and that’s a part of what I’ve been doing,” Mikkelsen said. “As of now we don’t really have much information.”

Some students worry that the possible decrease in enrollment could lead to higher tuition, in an effort by the school to compensate for the losses.

“I think it’s great that girls can go on missions earlier,”said Nick Thompson, a marketing major at USU. “But I am kind of worried that with everyone leaving they will increase tuition, I want people to go on missions but I don’t want to pay more.”

Still, other students are finding positives in the pending shift.

“It could possibly reduce class sizes,” said Heather Thain, a student at Utah State. “And that’s never a bad thing.”

According to Mikkelsen, tuition for spring semester will most likely remain unaffected, since data on the upcoming enrollment rates will not be available for several more months. He added that he could not predict whether tuition would change next year due to decreased attendance.

“If we were just to stay status quo and keep going, it would probably dip down for two years and then go up a third year and then level out,” Mikkelsen said. “We’re trying to ease that so it’s not a roller coaster, possibly looking at transfer students to help.”

The school is seeking help from the church in order to calculate possible enrollment declines.

“We are trying to work with the LDS church to try to gain information and predict how many students could be leaving,” Mikkelsen said.

Putting college on hold seems to be only a temporary inconvenience for some who are leaving.

“As soon as they announced that they had changed the age limit, I knew I wanted to go,” said Celeste Jenkins, a USU student who recently turned in her mission papers. “I’m terrified to put school on hold but it isn’t going anywhere and I feel like this is something I needed to do.”

Data on the possible shift in enrollment will not be available to the task force untill next semester.

“We’re really just in a waiting game right now,” Mikkelsen said.