BTW, since someone above compared UIUC with UF, note that FL gives UF more money than IL gives the entire U of I system (which includes UIC and a smaller campus in Springfield as well as UIUC).
And UF has a higher student-faculty ratio than UIUC.
Once again, while people love to blast a public school for charging higher tuition, it comes down to the state not funding that school enough.
I have no doubt that Penn State finds ways to spend its money other than financial aid. That’s just my point. Its institutional priorities appear to lie elsewhere than in making education affordable for Pennsylvania residents.
As for state aid. Michigan State’s FY 2016-17 state appropriation is $276 million and Penn State’s is $316 million. On a per-undergraduate basis, MSU receives slightly less state aid than Penn State.
You make spending money on education sound like a bad thing.
I mean, a college could be even more affordable by only charging for room and board, cutting out 100% of the actual education part, and charging $10 for printing a diploma.
That college would be very affordable for state residents. Would you advocate that approach, @bclintonk?
The Auditor isn’t arguing that PSU can’t raise tuition to compensate for a drop in state allocations. It’s arguing that the university isn’t managing it’s cost (tuition drivers).Over the last 4 years, instructional cost have gone up 17%.
If the $%^^&^% Florida Governor hadn’t veto’s this year’s higher education budget, most of the in-state students at UF would have achieved this glorious goal (Bright Futures scholarships covering 100% of in-state tuition). Bias alert: I have two at UF starting this fall… X(
I’m not sure where you got those figures, @PurpleTitan. Per its 2016-17 Common Data Set, PSU had 418 classes with 2-9 students and 948 classes with 10-19 students, for a total of 1,366 classes in the <20 students category, out of 4,833 classes of all sizes. So my math tells me classes with <20 students account for 28.3% of all classes at PSU.
At MSU, the figures are 179 classes with 2-9 students and 561 classes with 10-19 students, for a total of 740 classes or 27.1% of the school’s total of 2,734 classes. Pretty close, I’d say.
Student-faculty ratios are also similar, 15.9 to 1 at PSU and 16.5 to 1 at MSU.
Nor is Penn State much better than MSU when it come to large classes. At PSU 19.0% of classes have 50 or more students, compared to 23.3% at MSU. A difference, to be sure, but very much in the same ballpark.
Anyway, my point isn’t that small classes are a bad thing, only that Penn State stands out among its peer institutions in the low priority it places on affordability.
Money is only part of the formula for running a college; competent and professional management is more important. I am not going to dredge up the scandals at Penn State, but UIUC has been horribly mis-managed over the years. Lets take a look at scandals associated with UIUC:
2009 Clout Scandal - 7 out of 9 UI trustees resigned over preferential admissions scheme.
2012 Law School Scandal - University fined $250,000 for reporting inflated LSATs over many years. Dean of Law School resigns.
2012 Architect Scandal - $4.6 million contract awarded to an architectural firm partially owned by the husband of a key administrator who oversees the planning of campus construction projects
2012 Faculty Unrest - New reform president resigns after 20 months due to faculty revolt
2013 Saliata Affair - UIUC hires and fires anti-semite. Pays him $875,000 to settle lawsuit
2015 Email Scandal - Chancellor and Provost resign after it was found they used private email to circumvent public scrutiny
2015 Sports Scandal - Head football coach fired right before the season starts due to mis-treatment of players. Athletic director fired shortly thereafter.
Like most of Illinois government, it is very clear that UIUC has been mis-managed for quite some time. They charge the highest in-state tuition in the Big 10, they have dramatically increased the number of OOS and NRA students, and has sold out Illinois residents so they could hire more administrators and pad their pensions.
GA Tech is too narrow in focus to be compared with the major state Us. US News ranking notwithstanding…
I’ll take the school’s own Common Data Set over US News anytime when it comes to hard data like numbero f classes with <20 students.
@bclintonk US News is using the 2015-2016 CDS. They will use the 2016-2017 data, this fall when they re-rate schools.
PSU-main campus CDS info (2015-2016) matches the US News info.
https://budget.psu.edu/CDSRedesign/cds.aspx?reportindicator=facclass&Location=UP&AY=20152016
Add up the class sections for 2 to 9 (786) and 10 to 19 students (1,273), divide by the total (5,293) and it comes out to 38.9%.
A better question is why the delta? I can’t believe PSU is offering almost 500 fewer class sections. Either they reclassified some class sections as subsections (the # of subsections did increase, but only by about 300 ) or the data is wrong (2015, 2016 or both).
Georgia Tech’s focus is about as wide as MIT’s, and that has not stopped MIT from being considered one of the top five schools in the country.
@Zinhead, well, in the UChicago forum, someone stated that they didn’t consider MIT/Caltech to be peers.
Shrug
UChicago does not offer engineering beyond one new, small program. Perhaps UChicago’s focus is too narrow to be considered among the major private universities. US News ranking notwithstanding.
Regarding PSU’s audit…
Penn State fails to ensure background checks for youth camps staff, state audit says…
http://themercury.com/ap/penn-state-fails-to-ensure-background-checks-for-youth-camps/article_b76d6011-d3ad-5756-86cd-f9849a3ffb32.html
“This error rate is poor for any university, but for PSU, it is particularly concerning considering the issues emanating from the Sandusky scandal,” DePasquale said.
MIT has top depts in many areas outside engineering. Econ, poli sci, chem, bio, business- etc. Cal Tech not so much. Engineering is a small part of most universities. UC has many areas that are also top notch. GT has basically one.
Penn State University President Eric Barron received a $224,000 bonus last fiscal year, bringing his total earnings to more than $1 million and placing him among the top 10 highest-paid public college presidents in the country.
@Barrons beat me to the punch on the reply I intended to write. Well done!
It is a bit of a weird place to defend GT and engineering, but I would argue that student interests (related to broader societal changes) has made it such that a statement like they don’t have top depts outside of engineering has become similar to they don’t have top departments outside of arts and sciences, especially if you separate out life science/medical school complexes.
The reality is the UNSWR ranking of GT shows you can get pretty far with an engineering focus. Whatever measure you use, YTAR, 25-75% scores, and the usnwr, the reality is places like GT are doing well. And I don’t live in Georgia or do engineering. I also think it is why the profiles of OOS students at Michigan and Purdue have become stronger relative to some of their peers.
Using MIT as the comparison to critique GT? What engineering focused schools come out ahead in that comparison?
GT has 6 colleges:
College of Business
College of Computing
College of Design
College of Engineering
College of Liberal Arts
College of Sciences
The at least 5 of these areas can be considered “Top Notched” and it deserves to be ranked as a top 10 Public university.
GT doesn’t claim to be a great comprehensive university, but a great Institute of Technology.
I don’t even know why GT is being pulled into this discussion. NONE of the issues, raised by the auditor apply to GT.
For example:
While PSU is very “expensive” for in-state students, GT is much more affordable, plus the state of Georgia offers a great in-state scholarship.
While OOS students at PSU have a higher acceptance rate than in-state students, At GT, OOS acceptance rates where about 18%, while in-state was in the 40% range.
On Governance, PSU has an unique relationship with the state, while GT is a typical state public university.