When the Kansas Board of Regents appointed John Bardo as university president in 2012, he offered the promise of increased enrollment.

At his former university, Western Carolina, where he served as chancellor for 16 years, Bardo almost doubled enrollment and the size of campus.

That was his selling point, and the state of Kansas bought it — hook, line, and sinker.

Bardo came in with big ambitions and things started to change, noticeably, from the previous president’s tenure at WSU.

With the forward-focused, innovation-driven goals of Bardo’s administration, come the implication that the way things have been done at WSU are outmoded, outdated, and backwards.

He has a vision for WSU, an imagined plan for the future of the entire region based on his years of scholarship on the New Economy, and it looks great on paper.

There’s no doubt Innovation Campus has increased the size of campus, and student “collisions” have definitely increased with the improved Rhatigan Student Center and additional, but unnecessary, student housing. But prospective students aren’t buying the shiny new buildings or increasingly expensive amenities thrust upon them, like a membership to the YMCA or a luxury dorm.

The kinds of students who choose a college for its amenities don’t pick WSU in the first place. Those image-driven, superficial values don’t align with the Wichita community.

Wichitans are realists.

From the time a student drives to campus — weaving through traffic cones because the city decided to jump aboard the innovation train and expand an already-wide-enough intersection to handle the traffic — to their struggle to find an overpriced parking spot, to their bug-infested classrooms, students experience a different reality from the standard press release from the university.

Perception doesn’t match reality. That’s why enrollment is struggling. The reason enrollment is struggling is the same reason the university won’t mention enrollment is struggling: WSU is so image-obsessed, it can’t face reality. That’s a dangerous problem to have when so much money is at stake.

Amid budget cuts in the spring of 2016, President Bardo tied faculty raises to enrollment.

“As state funding diminishes, we all have strong roles to play in attracting and retaining students, seeking research funding and encouraging donor support. As enrollment increases in importance to overall budget, student credit hour growth becomes a driving factor in the availability of raises,” Bardo wrote to faculty.

The Sunflower thinks it’s time for the administration to start playing an active role in attracting and retaining students — by being honest, transparent, and realistic.

In short, tell the truth once in a while.

The University of Kansas and Kansas State didn’t pad their numbers with high schoolers and senior citizens, and their reputations are still intact.

But their enrollments are suffering, too, because they’re passing the buck to students through student fees.

Bardo justifies the increased costs passed onto students by reciting a quote from one of his mentors: “Access without quality is no bargain.”

Here’s one he should consider going forward: “Sooner or later, the truth catches up.”