A. First of all, on behalf of most students, I want to tell you that we do NOT want to start off by talking about lawsuits. We, the students, are NOT interested in suing Texas A&M or giving it a bad name in public. There are several reasons for this, including that we have friends who are attending this school and we ourselves want to attend it despite all this confusion. I personally fell in love with Texas A&M HSC so I would not want to give this school a tarnished reputation.
B. Please undersand that although we are upset, we are still on YOUR side. We want to help you find a honest solution to this problem. There have been many suggestions to remedy this situation on facebook groups. Some of them are:
1. Increase Class Size by atleast a few students
2. Increase monetary compensation.
I know you have said there are not enough funds... but there is NO other way around this. Cut some salaries, cut maybe even some minor jobs and cut funding for unnecessary expenses. If needed to, BORROW money form the state or ask the rich of the Texas for some grants and donations. Do you really want to punish the young students of Texas? I want to repeat: THERE IS NO ALTHERNATIVE TO COMPENSATION.
3. Increase tuition rate.
I say this because even if you raise more funds, there may not be enough to pay full-rate tuition to all 50 - 60 deferring students. So, for each student entering Class of 2015 that does not defer, raise the tuition by $1500 to $2000. This would give you upto $340,000 in extra funds. Yes, I know it's difficult to raise tuition immediately. But extreme circumstances call for extreme measures. For students that are not happy about tuition rate, please consider that raising tuition bumps it up from $13000 to $15000 per year. This is STILL much lower tuition that most states. I understand that it is unfair to have students pay more money for a mistake that is made by the TAMHSC administration. However, I would much rather pay $2000 more each year than have some of my classmates (or myself) kicked out for a year when I know how hard they have worked to get here.
C. Finally, I want to reiterate that forcefully deferring students is NOT AN OPTION. It is unbelievable that you can even consider that. We chose Texas A&M because we fell in love with the campus, we admired its ethical stances and believed the Dean when he said students are treated with utmost respect. I had so many friends at the medical school who talked about how much they enjoyed their stay at this school. We really do LOVE this school. If forced deferrals happen, how can we ever believe anything that you say? When we were accepted to Texas A&M HSC, your letter clearly stated: Welcome, Class of 2015. You guranteed us a spot. Now you are saying that if we are forced to defer, we are guaranteed a spot the next year. How do you honestly expect us to trust your word again?