<p>Article in Inside Higher Ed takes a close look at the hot debate on research output and the dramatic disparities plaguing private vs. public higher ed universities:</p>
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<p><a href=“http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/03/14/analytics[/url]”>http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/03/14/analytics</a></p>
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<p>eventually, this will undoubtedly have some kind of trickle-down effect. i buy it.</p>
<p>this could make it a self-fulfilling prophecy.</p>
<p>would-be excellent profs go to private unis because they know funding there is better. that in turn makes the private unis better, which makes them more money.</p>
<p>how do publics stop this from happening?</p>
<p>Frankly, most of the top public universities, and even many of those that aren’t considered in the top tier, have vastly more applicants than they can handle. Moreover, their applicant pool is increasing. Thus, I am not that worried about public universities, especially with the spiraling costs of tuition occuring at the top private schools.</p>
<p>Private universities should lower tuition costs. Public universities should reduce number of students and increase fees to provide more resources and scholarships to top students.</p>
<p>For one thing publics cover a far broader range of subjects than most privates. Many have large schools of education, whatever they call home ec these days, agriculture, nursing, etc. that may not be as research publishing intensive as subjects such as chemistry, psychology, etc. I beleive when you break it down into subjects areas the productivity for the publics is very competitive. Also there is the fact that some privates can afford to have highly paid people who do vitually nothing but research and supervise some grad students. Most publics cannot afford too much of that. But when you look at the numbers for total research spending the top schools are all publics–UCLA, Wisconsin, Michigan. So they are holding their own.</p>
<p>“Private universities should lower tuition costs. Public universities should reduce number of students and increase fees to provide more resources and scholarships to top students.”</p>
<p>Private universities should majorly increase tuition prices. Public universities should make their institutions more affordable to the citizens of their states, without which they are more likely to become dependent upon public services.</p>
<p>its no secret that the top privates trump the top publics overall. i don’t see how this is news. Unless the United States decides to give Berkeley, Michigan, UVa, Wisconsin, and UNC 20 billion dollars each to stick in their endowment, I don’t see how they are going to catch up anytime soon to Harvard, Yale, and Stanford.</p>
<p>the facts are, if you only are going to pay 6000 a year in tuition to go to a school like UVa instate, how is it supposed to compete financially to a Harvard which gets 30,000 a year in tuition from everyone.</p>
<p>what should be noted is that the middle of the road publics (say those ranked between 50 and 150) are most likely better than the middle of the road privates.</p>
<p>No election year this year. State of California is thinking of raising fees 10% at the UCs.</p>
<p>Some research $$$ numbers. </p>
<p>In constant 1983 dollars here is a list of some top privates and top publics for total research spending change from 1995 to 2004. I see no sign of the privates dominating. The privates avged a 26% increase and the publics 41%.</p>
<p>Cornell +15.1%</p>
<p>harvard +19.4%</p>
<p>MIT +6.4%</p>
<p>NYU +26.4%</p>
<p>Princeton +31.3%</p>
<p>Stanford +52.8%</p>
<p>Yale +32.4%</p>
<p>UCB +31.1%</p>
<p>UCLA +84.7%</p>
<p>Umich +26%</p>
<p>UNC +44.7%</p>
<p>UVa +21.4%</p>
<p>UW Mad +37.4%</p>
<p>I don’t think the University of Virginia is hurting for money even with the in state tuition rate of about $8000.00
Their endowment is over 3.5 billion dollars. Not too shabby for a public university.</p>
<p>Of course UVa is “hurting for money.” UVa doesn’t want to be in the same group as schools like the University of Maryland. It wants to compete with schools like Cornell, UPenn, Duke, etc. It doesn’t want to have a 14:1 student faculty ratio. It doesn’t want to have completely dilapidated buildings like New Cabel Hall. To do those things it would need significantly more money. For example, UPenn - which is the same size as UVa - and has a similar endowment - has more than TWICE the operating budget of UVa.</p>
<p>But much of that extra $$$ goes for security. </p>
<p>But seriously, UVa like many state schools had some lean years but they did very well in the last budget and new buildings are sprouting like mushrooms.</p>
<p>This report suggests things are not so bleak at the publics. It has plenty of number for those interested in such things. In terms of federal research funding, the publics seem to be doing just fine.</p>
<p><a href=“http://mup.asu.edu/research2006.pdf[/url]”>http://mup.asu.edu/research2006.pdf</a></p>
<p>That was the source of my research data above. Great resource even though they moved to ASU.</p>
<p>barrons,</p>
<p>i sincerely hope you’re being facetious if you think that the additional 2.5 billion dollars in operating costs at penn are for the most part “security”. Upenn’s payroll alone is higher than UVa’s entire operating budget (2.3 billion at upenn vs. 2.0 billion at UVA).</p>
<p>Post #7: “Private universities should majorly increase tuition prices. Public universities should make their institutions more affordable to the citizens of their states, without which they are more likely to become dependent upon public services.”
I don’t follow this logic. I’d rather see public schools be more competitive in quality. To be competitive, public schools must shift less qualified students to private schools. Lower tuitions in private schools will help balancing number students between public and private schools. Less qualified students should pay to go to private schools in order to have better assistance instead of swimming and drowning in large public schools.</p>
<p>A complaint about many public universities is that the researchers get too much of the money, at the expense of the undergraduate students. All the grants available for research will not pay for the buildings, the rest of the faculty salaries, et al. </p>
<p>There are plenty of alumni out there who figure they’re already supporting their state schools with their tax dollars and most likely don’t give like the private school alumni. I suspect there are also rich alumni who left their state, got additional degrees from other schools and/or get mad at their state run school for many plausible reasons (when it’s the ---- legislature doing the damage) and decline to give. </p>
<p>Maybe a more industrious person can find data to show alumni giving amounts privates/publics… I would also wonder if alumni giving will change in future years when the generation that needed to be rich to attend private schools is replaced by significant numbers of alumni who spend their earnings paying off large loans…</p>
<p>Coolweather- public flagship U’s have become more competitive, the increased numbers of college age children (thanks to the baby boomers’ kids) yields a larger pool of better qualified applicants. Many students who attended my flagship U with me would not be accepted today. Unfortunately, the increased costs have also made the student population richer than in the past, forcing some of the more qualified to go to lesser, cheaper schools, or not at all. It’s supply and demand- big increase in demand with a fixed supply of college places, regardless of public/private type. Students can use brains, money or both to get at the limited supply. </p>
<p>Private schools do not exist to educate the public, they exist to educate whomever they choose, that’s why they’re private. Remember students also have smaller nonflagship public schools in most states. Above all, remember that a college education is NOT for everyone; it is a luxury, not an entitlement.</p>
<p>Top fundraisers–public and private. COHE last reported data</p>
<p>Top Fund Raisers, 2004-5
Top institutions in total support
Stanford University $603,585,914
University of Wisconsin at Madison $595,215,891
Harvard University $589,861,000
University of Pennsylvania $394,249,685
Cornell University $353,931,403
Columbia University $341,140,986
University of Southern California $331,754,481
Johns Hopkins University $323,100,408
Indiana University $301,060,946
University of California at San Francisco $292,932,382
Yale University $285,706,955
University of California at Los Angeles $281,552,472
Duke University $275,815,542
University of Minnesota $265,498,507
University of Washington $259,118,639
University of Michigan $251,353,272
New York University $247,126,717
Massachusetts Institute of Technology $206,007,428
Ohio State University $204,598,172
University of California at Berkeley $198,863,654</p>