Iowa State Daily Editorial Board: Troy McCullough, Tim Davis, Jennifer Holland, Kathleen Carlson and Jenny Hykes.

Over the last few years, as tuition has been increasing and departments have been down-sized, no wonder the enrollment at Iowa State has been slowly decreasing.

ISU just isn’t attracting new students, it’s actually helping them transfer to new colleges or universities—at least for those majoring in the soon-to-be disaccredited social work program.

The university let this program slip away. The university let these students slip away. ISU clings to the idea that this university needs a broad base of liberal arts and sciences and it prides itself in having a wide variety of majors. Why did the university push the social work program out? The program needed help, but the decision not to allocate funds necessary to save it was made anyway.

The Iowa Board of Regents recently approved ISU’s request that the program go through normal faculty channels before its termination.

The students, on the other hand, will have to find new ways to seek a career in social work and move toward graduation. According to the adviser for the social work program, Cindy Starr, 80 students were registered for 1996 spring semester classes and 35 are graduating seniors.

So, the remaining 45 students will have to change to majors such as sociology, which is the easiest transition, or transfer to another school with an accredited social work program. The university has failed these students.