My guess would be that schools like PSU and UIUC get more scrutiny because they are the dominant players, in terms of public higher education, in their respective states. In New York, on the other hand, Cornell only plays a niche role in terms of public higher ed. It’s true that some of the colleges at Cornell are publicly supported, but they represent only a minority of Cornell’s total enrollment, and an even smaller minority of the whole New York public education sector, which is dominated by SUNYs.
My understanding is that the contract colleges at Cornell do account for a disproportionate share of the state higher ed budget. So maybe there could a case for redirecting more state support away from Cornell and towards the SUNYs instead. But I’m not a NY state resident or taxpayer, and have no position either way.
The few schools of Cornell that are not completely private receive almost exactly as much state funding from NYS as all of UVa received from VA. Yet, despite that, the number of NYS residents who get an in-state discount from Cornell is a small fraction of the number of VA residents who get an in-state discount from UVa. And the Cornell in-state tuition is several times the UVa in-state tuition.
In fact, the people of NYS have even more reason to be upset given what you said as, despite giving Cornell as much money as VA gives UVa, not only do a much smaller number of NYS residents benefit from in-state tuition and not only is that in-state tuition much higher than in-state tuition to other state flagships/land-grant, but they are restricted to a small number of majors as well that get that in-state discount and they don’t include the majors in engineering or arts&sciences.
I wonder if the people of PA would be happier if PSU privatized Engineering and their Arts&Sciences school to be more like Cornell. Then they would not be under the expectation that PSU should do any favors for them.
@Corbett: “In New York, on the other hand, Cornell only plays a niche role in terms of public higher ed. It’s true that some of the colleges at Cornell are publicly supported, but they represent only a minority of Cornell’s total enrollment, and an even smaller minority of the whole New York public education sector, which is dominated by SUNYs.
My understanding is that the contract colleges at Cornell do account for a disproportionate share of the state higher ed budget.”
Indeed. So given that, if UIUC and PSU dramatically shrink the size of the student body that is in their public part so that they are as big as Cornell’s public population while still taking the same amount of state funding (or at least as much state funding as Cornell does) and privatizing the rest, would people be happier?
If a school like UIUC or PSU or UCLA reduces the number of discounted-tuition slots available to in-state residents, then in-staters are going to be unhappy. Cornell’s funding doesn’t really have anything to do with it.
If PSU is giving more slots to OOS students in order to gain more tuition revenue, well, that’s a viable funding strategy. The University of Vermont, for example, is a state-supported land-grant institution, but they’ve been bankrolled by high OOS tuition for decades. UVM has 76% OOS enrollment, so the in-staters are outnumbered by a whopping 3-to-1 margin.
Of course, Vermont is a small state with a low growth rate. So UVM still has enough in-state slots to keep up with the demand, and the in-state residents are OK with it. And those conditions may not apply at PSU. In that case, PA residents may have to find another viable funding strategy, possibly including higher in-state tuition or more direct state funding.
“If a school like UIUC or PSU or UCLA reduces the number of discounted-tuition slots available to in-state residents, then in-staters are going to be unhappy. Cornell’s funding doesn’t really have anything to do with it.”
And yet, Cornell has sucked up relatively large amounts of state funding while keeping a small number of slots for in-state students (in fact, shrinking them by spinning and privatizing colleges when their endowments grow large enough) with seemingly no negative repercussions.
One big difference is that the in-state financial aid in PA is worse than in CA. May not be a concern for most on these forums who would be full pay in either state, but that is a concern for most families in general.
It should be evident that different states may have different funding models and different expectations for their state universities. For example, look at the changes over just 10 years at the University of Alabama:
That’s a obviously a pretty dramatic shift, over a pretty short period of time. But as far as I can tell, the citizens of Alabama aren’t concerned about it.
Meanwhile, here in California, there has been widespread and vocal outrage because the share of state residents among new freshmen at Berkeley and UCLA has fallen to only ~ 70-75%. The UC system has been forced to cap out-of-state and international enrollment in response.
So yes, there are differences in reaction between different states. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the citizens of State A are wrong and that those of State B are right. Maybe they have different priorities.
re#24: “in fact, shrinking them by spinning and privatizing colleges when their endowments grow large enough) with seemingly no negative repercussions.”
I only know of two instances of this.
The Hotel School spun off, but that was in 1952.
I have no idea what effect that event had on state contributions, in 1953 and afterwards. It was a really long time ago. And undoubtedly other things were also happening that might impact funding levels.
The only other instance I can think of of is only just happening right now, as Dyson is in the process of separating from the Ag school to, along with the hotel school, become the undergraduate wing of the Johnson school, their graduate business school which is already established and private . Whatever impact this will have on state funding levels for the ag school is yet to be determined. It is too soon to say there will be no negative repercussions. But agricultural economics has long been part of the Agriculture College, and the university’s land grant outreach programs probably include economic issues to some extent. So there clearly is a lot to be worked out. But I doubt anyone is ignoring it. Maybe they will decide to up the in-state proportion for the remaining part of the Ag school to make up the body-count difference and therefore justify the same state contribution levels. It’s just too early to tell.
Cornell’s land grant colleges have very strong articulation agreements with some NY State CCs. So, it’s surprisingly common for kids who attend public NY state CCs to transfer to Cornell and graduate in two years. See, e.g., https://admissions.cals.cornell.edu/apply/transfer/transfer-agreements
So, a disproportionate percentage of NY State residents who attend Cornell are juniors and seniors. I think one reason NY State is willing to fund Cornell is that this ability to transfer to Cornell is highly prized by local legistators, particularly those from upstate.
@jonri: UVa has very strong articulation agreements with VA CCs as well. In fact, you hit a certain GPA at a VA CC and you are automatically accepted for transfer in to UVa.
That doesn’t change the fact that NYS gets much less bang for the buck (in terms of both slots and tuition discount as well as choice of majors) from Cornell than pretty much any other state does from schools they spend money on.
I live in NYC. In all sorts of ways, NYC residents get ****!!! by the state legislature, which is controlled by upstate. As far as I know, UVa doesn’t have a highly ranked School of Agriculture.Most of the kids who take advantage of the Cornell CC articulation agreements live Upstate. While New York State may not get “its bang for the buck” from Cornell, upstate DOES.
Interesting point you make, PurpleTitan. Maybe NY legislators just figure seats at an Ivy are worth more per unit than seats at their own public universities?
A likelier story is path dependency. Once they awarded the land-grant franchise to Cornell back in the 19th century, it became the state’s ag school, notwithstanding that it was private. Since then it’s just been a series of deals between Cornell and the state as to how much the state contributes and how many seats are reserved for NY residents, and for that matter whether Cornell kept the ag school open at all.
An alternative model would be Massachusetts, which awarded its land-grant franchise to MIT. MIT doesn’t maintain an ag school. I’m not sure whether it ever did, but the lack of one prompted the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to establish a (non-land-grant) Massachusetts Agricultural College at Amherst in 1918, which developed into UMass-Amherst. As far as I know, MIT receives no state funding, and it doesn’t set aside a specific number of seats for Massachusetts residents. New York could go that route, cut off funding to Cornell, and set up its own ag school. But I’m not sure that would be cheaper or give the state more “bang for the buck” insofar as the new ag school would almost certainly be seen as less prestigious, and perhaps not much up in actual quality (apart from prestige, which is a question of perceptions, not quality).
My understanding of the history is a bit different.
The Morrill Act encouraged states to set up “land-grant” universities covering “agriculture and the mechanic arts”. That’s why some land grant schools are associated with the “A&M” initials. The “mechanic arts” are what we would today call “engineering”.
Every state took advantage of the land-grant funding, but Massachusetts took a unique approach: they set up one land-grant school for the “A” part, and a separate land-grant school for the “M” part. The A was covered by Massachusetts Agricultural College in western MA, which eventually became UMass-Amherst. The M was covered by Massachusetts Institute of Technology in eastern MA, which eventually became privatized. Both schools were started up at about the same time: MIT opened to students in 1865, and MAC in 1867.
MIT was historically established as a land-grant school, but since it handled engineering rather than agriculture, it doesn’t get any USDA funding today. So MIT doesn’t function as a land-grant any more, although it was originally established as one, and it is not included on the USDA map linked above.
A more apt alternative model might be Connecticut.
Connecticut initially designated the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University as the state’s land grant college, and it served as such for 30 years, starting in 1863. But there was some dissatisfaction with Yale’s performance in this role, and so the land-grant designation was transferred to Storrs Agricultural College (now UConn) in 1893. UConn continues to get USDA land-grant funding today.
So there is precedent for a state to transfer the land-grant designation from an Ivy League institution to a public university. Not necessarily saying that New York should do this, just that the possibility exists.
You see…this is about more than tuition(although that is a huge issue), it is about arrogance and lack of controls and management. With all that has transpired in the last 7 years at PSU, I have never seen a better example of “Lack of Institutional Control” from athletics, abuse, fraternity/sorority tragedy, advantage to non residents for admission, expanding branch campuses(additional funding), jailed admistrators, electing Jay Paterno to the Board of Trustees, hiring a new president involved in the major cover up of rape at Florida State…it just goes on and on in the name of self preservation…
By the way, students and fans still run around on game day carrying Joe Paterno cutouts…the sell them in the university book store…imagine if you were a victim of the Sandusky/Paterno sex abuse scandal or even a family member /friend…or if you or a family member have been a victim of this type of abuse…it is not okay.
Pennsylvania had to change their child care clearance policies because of PSU. Costs millions of dollars paid by potential employees/volunteers of any child involvement agency(s) and they are not even compliant.
PA has 4 state related Universities that receive funding yet act pretty much as private schools(with out much merit).
All of this while the PASSHE system is struggling to keep their doors open although their students are made up of 90% state residents and is the only affordable option for middle class residents/students.
Penn state has some amazing staff/ faculty and students… no doubt…but major changes are needed.
Residents have the right to demand more from our flagship.
At least Yale still has its Forestry school.
Cornell eliminated its forestry school, which was a statutory college, in 1903 after the NYS Governor withheld its funding appropriation.
Later the funding got straightened out, it seems, as the state forestry program was re-established. But at Syracuse, not Cornell.
To be fair, a part of it…especially among many NYC area(suburban and urban) higher SES families and students aspiring to elite Us…especially Ivies is the perceived lower rep of Cornell’s Ag school in comparison to its private divisions…especially Engineering and Arts & Sciences.
And it isn’t helped that back when my graduating class was applying to colleges, Cornell’s Ag school required far lower stats(Comparable somewhere between SUNY Buffalo and Stonybrook for admission.
And this attitude is shared to some extent by many Cornell undergrads in the private divisions…especially Arts & Science and Engineering according to relatives and HS classmates/friends who attended/are attending. One HS classmate who is a Cornell Engineering alum flat out stated, “Oh, the Ag school? That’s our equivalent of community college.”
Interestingly, this attitude is very similar to how Columbia undergrads tended to perceive their university’s School of General Studies or Harvard College students view the Harvard Extension School.
@cobrat: It’s interesting how so many people like to cling to outdated prejudices which aren’t based on facts any more.
One of those examples isn’t like the other. HES is open-admissions but Columbia GS, while not as selective as undergrad admissions straight out of HS, has an admit rate comparable to a top 30 (Columbia does have a HES equivalent, BTW, but it isn’t GS) and Cornell’s ag school admissions isn’t much different from engineering/AS.