Local opinion: Considering what the U of A does for Arizona

Research universities are at the center of political critique and pressures condemning what we do. As a faculty member in the U of A’s Center for the Study of Higher Education, I speak as a scholar, not for the institution, offering three thoughts about what our College of Education (CoE) and university do for Arizona. Building on President Garimella’s co-authored May 15, 2025 Arizona Republic op-ed on U of A’s research impact, I consider our intersecting educational, outreach, and research missions’ impact.

At a May 6 CoE retirement ceremony, Ron Marx, retiring Interim Provost and former CoE Dean, talked of being the first in his family to go to college. He asked how many in the audience were first generation students. Many raised their hands. In the CoE, 40.5% of undergraduates are first-gen; for U of A, 28% are FirstCATS. Being a site of upward mobility befits our land-grant mission. We help fulfill the Dreams of diverse students, yielding significant economic returns on investment for them in income (+$20,706 for B.A.’s) and for the state in millions of dollars in taxes.

The U of A is a broad access public research university, admitting over three-quarters of applicants. As the CoE’s Dr. Karina Salazar’s publications have detailed, most major universities focus their recruitment on out-of-state, upper middle-class students, who are overwhelmingly white, and whose numbers are declining. Universities have overlooked and underserved the growth demographics of students nationally and in Arizona — lower income students of all ethnicities, and students of color, especially Latina/os.

Salazar’s presentation of her research on such patterns at Tucson’s Sunnyside High School, where she had graduated ten years earlier, led to a partnership in 2019 between the U of A and school district to cost-share a recruiter. That has yielded a nearly doubling of SunnysideCATS (with now nearly 200 UofA matriculants). There was an 18% increase in 2024, amid a record number of in-state students, which given our state’s demographics has meant an increase in Latina/o and first gen students (with more than 25% of undergraduates being Latina/o, we are designated an Hispanic Serving Institution).

SunnysideCATS have comparable retention rates to other UofA students, and a slightly higher six-year graduation rate (69.4% vs 65.9%). We are engaging these students, as good educators do, meeting them where they are and respecting their communities’ funds of knowledge. We see them for their strengths, their capacity to enhance our university and state.

Another often overlooked and underinvested in student population is TransferCATS, coming to the U of A from community colleges. An NSF grant on which the CoE Interim Dean Regina Deil-Amen is co-principal investigator, the Pima-UAZ STEM Bridges Program, has a 90% success rate (in persisting and/or graduating) with low-income transfer students in STEM. One of those students was featured in a video in President Garimella’s message to campus about his op-ed. Trisha Lane, Navajo woman, returning student, and parent, is working toward a B.S. in environmental engineering. Her journey uplifts her child, tribal nation, and our state. So many CoE (and other UofA) grants intersect research, outreach, and education/mentoring to shepherd students through their journeys, expanding possibilities. As a land grant college of education on tribal lands, we gauge our success by who we include, not who we exclude. Yet, many such grants promoting “broad participation” in STEM are being discontinued, as if expanded opportunity is problematic.

In the CoE, as at the U of A, our education, outreach, and research are oriented to facilitate diverse dreams, by equitably engaging students to Include them all in their particularities amid the communities found here, whether of those I’ve identified, or of rural, veteran, international, immigrant, refugee, lgbtq+ students and students with disabilities. We see our students for their possibilities, and work with partners to catalyze intergenerational cycles of educational and economic success that uplift individuals, communities, and us all. Isn’t this what we should do?

I invite you to consider and support these possibilities and work, for we are integral to the lives, well-being, and aspirations of people in Arizona.