Good history of GW’s rise in stature under Stephen Joel Trachtenberg’s reign as president and what his luxury goods approach to re-branding and re-positioning the school (the “Absolut Rolex Plan” as the Times characterized it) has wrought.
And luxury housing called the “Ivory Tower”! How clear is an institution’s intentions when they name a dorm that!
I just read the article. Mr. Trachtenberg is honest … he didn’t blow smoke up anyone’s b*tt. He built a school for people who wanted to pay a ridiculous sum of money. Caveat emptor, people. If you can’t pay for it, don’t. No one made those students borrow that money (which I assume was in the form of private loans — which schools do not offer; they simply certify because students want to borrow them and found someone who would lend to them).
The bottom line is this: If you can’t afford it, don’t go. If it ends up being a school full of only rich people who can afford to attend, then that is what it is.
People really need to understand that more expensive does not necessarily equate to better … in handbags or in education … and that they have some personal responsibility in terms of deciding for themselves what they can and should pay for something (be it a “thing” or an education).
not sure I see an issue here. As usual, The Times is writing about what they think a college should do/be, not what is.
GW gives nice merit scholarships to lotsa folks, many of which are wealthy/upper income (to attract them). How is that any different than colleges providing automatic scholarships to NMSF, many of whom are wealthy/upper income. No different than others that have risen: WashU, USC, Emory, Miami…throw out merit discounts, and top scorers will come. School will rise in the rankings.
fwiw: maybe a rich kids’s school, but GW has more Pell Grantees (%) than Harvard.
Note: big demerits to GW for previously claiming that they were need-blind, when they were not.
It’s an essay, so it’s the author’s opinions, not necessarily that of The Times. But I thought it was an interesting piece in explaining the thought behind the marketing strategy.
And, absolutely, caveat emptor.
The author stated that 20 years ago schools like GWU and Washington-St Louis were relatively undistinguished colleges offering so-so educations. My impression is the opposite; GWU and WU were elite, at least their professional schools were. Maybe that’s the difference. In any event, it’s true today that both GWU and WU have attracted applicant pools that are very competitive and consist of students from full pay type of families. Also, what I found really interesting was the statement about internationals ponying up big dollars for an American university less because of academics and mostly because it’s located in the U.S. capital.
@LakeWashington, I don’t think that WashU should be lumped in with BU, NEU, GWU, or even NYU and USC.
30 years ago, all those other urban privates were either commuter schools or schools for rich kids who couldn’t get in to a decent public (or both) with little endowments and not much research going on (if they were known for anything, it was their professional/“trade” schools).
30 years ago, WashU was already an elite research university (definitely in the health/bio fields) with an endowment that matched Columbia/UPenn/Northwestern/UChicago (and dwarfed Georgetown’s).
Back then, to St. Louisans, WashU was their Columbia/UPenn/Northwestern/UChicago. If you asked Bostonians, Washingtonians, and New Yorkers of those days, I don’t any of them would have considered BU/NEU/GWU/NYU to be the same class as Columbia/UPenn/Northwestern/UChicago (USC is different because it has long been regarded favorably by the OC elite even when it wasn’t very selective and full of partying rich kids).
For those schools trying to raise their profile, it also helped that the number of high school graduates (and therefore the number of high school graduates with high level academic qualifications) increased over the decades. The “top” private and public schools did not expand as quickly, leaving an opportunity for less well known schools to try to move into that space.
NEU, with its co-op emphasis, is still known as a very pre-professional school.
@ucbalumnus, the number of new HS grads actually waxes and wanes as the bulge of the baby boom works its way though the system (producing another baby boomlet that just recently all made their way through HS). More HS grads go to college now, though, and now many more internationals are applying to get in as undergrads than decades before.
However, the number of new HS grads has already started to shrink in many Northeastern and Midwestern states, so colleges there will more and more have to rely on internationals to sustain them. It could get quite dire for many of them if the flow of international students suddenly cuts off (major economic shock to China and Europe at the same time, for instance).
There wasn’t too much new in the NYT article. Much of the same ground was covered in this 2010 Washington Monthly article: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/feature/the_prestige_racket.php?page=all
PurpleTitan’s historical distinctions between WUSTL, vs. GW/BU/NEU, obtains in my experience. And also with NYU and USC, though these latter two have made a more broad and substantial effort in the intervening years to boost some of their respective faculty and departmental resources (re: resources, I’m not referring to hotel-class dorms, climbing walls in the unions, and the like; it seems the majority of higher-selectivity universities are outfitting themselves with these accoutrements if they want to stay in the game). Whatever the case may have been with WUSTL’s SAT selectivity and reporting, historically it has fostered strong academics and accomplishments.
I may just be an old curmudgeon, but I still have difficulty imagining schools such as GW/BU/NEU (in truth, Northeastern has always differed structurally, with its co-op emphasis) as academic peers of some other, established academic strongholds that now rank similarly in the more recent domestic U.S. News tables. That is not to say that these schools don’t boast some specific disciplinary strengths; BU has cultivated its analytical philosophy faculty, for example.
On the whole, however, I just don’t buy it – Gucci bags or not. Good on Trachtenberg for the transparency, at least.
Location matters. What GWU (and NYU, too) can offer that many of the uber elite schools can’t, is access to year-round internships in the 2 power capitals of the world.
What GW offers over Georgetown to smart, upper income kids is merit money.
Those are great benefits, both. Of course, what I’m offering here is my subjective opinion (though not so much the historical comparison). And maybe I’m just out of touch with the modern world.
Yet, from the bit of mine you’ve quoted, I don’t really feel location or merit money would, in and of themselves, create academic peers where they once weren’t. I suppose over the long haul, consistent merit money could bring up the level of student cohorts, but it’s still the burden of the university to address their teaching, research and facilities.
Those schools were always located in the major metropolises. Maybe internships could help, but they’re typically – though not always – not run by faculty, nor do they feature campus resources. It’s more a variety of (pre-)professional arrangements to support career experience.
I think in more specialized cases, such as engineering co-ops, and perhaps advanced students in sciences who may be able to land an internship where there’s a relationship with the university, such as affiliated research parks, maybe there’s more of a correlation to raising the academic caliber of departments. But that doesn’t apply quite as much to these particular schools.
Who cares if a Congressional or White House internship is run by faculty.
Really ingrained snobbery… The reality I’ve observed in the workplace is that the successful people I have met are mostly graduates of flagship State U. No ivies.
A LOT more people attend state flagship than attend ivies. So yes, we all know more successful people who attended state schools.
GMTplus7, I don’t think we’re on the same page re: academic peers. It’s not privilege that defines a peer class of institutions. Nor is it location. It is, by and large, the structure of the institution; the depth, breadth and quality of the teaching faculty, and their respective departmental strengths; and the research output, facilities and support.
I went to a public flagship for undergrad, too. I really don’t see why you’re disparaging my observations. Especially as I mentioned that they are my subjective view, backed up by a quite a few years in academia.
Perhaps the way I stated my opinion of WU was imprecise. With the exception of GWU Law, I don’t believe that GWU is the equal of WU, and I wouldn’t place Northeastern, Boston U or New York U on the same level as WU. I was just trying to say that I didn’t agree with the author’s premise that WU was a so-so commuter school that built its image with all sorts of new capital programs; new dorms, rec centers, etc. WU has been a great and strong university for a long time.
A generation ago USC was a backup school for UCLA rejects. It was also known as the University of Spoiled Children.
Northeastern is proud of this emphasis and does not pretend to offer a classical liberal arts education. Coop and experiential learning are the only things that have not changed there in the past 20 years.
^^^I agree, I was surprised to see WUSL lumped together with some of those other schools as well. They may have raised their standing and profile over the years the way Penn and Columbia have, but I never would have placed any of them on the same academic tier as commuter schools like GW of the early eighties.
anhydrite, you’re talking in terms of graduate education. Research output and departmental strengths DO matter for undergraduates, but academic peers are either judged by rankings or by student input and/or outcomes.
How do you measure, say, Hendrix vs. SUNY Geneseo, or Whitman vs. Dickinson, or College of Charleston vs. UMN-Morris or Grand Valley State vs. UNC-Wilmington?
Departmental strength is only one factor.
For undergraduate education, other factors come in, especially average GPA/SATscores, admit rates, % students in the top 10% of their HS class (or 7% or 9%, depending on State), retention rate, % who graduate in 4 years (5 years, 6 years), innovative teaching, first year structures (LLCs, cohorts, FIGs, honors offerings), resources allocated for undergraduates (advising system, tutoring, support centers) in addition to university resources; other factors that play a role include size of classes, location/weather, what percentage discussion or classes are taught by full-time faculty (vs. adjuncts or TAs), access to research for undergraduates, scholarships (both for the undergraduate level and support for post-undergrad), admission to PHD/medical/Law schools, Nursing/Teaching credential pass rate, alumni network, job placement, “prestigiosity” (which is highly subjective)… In short, whatever simultaneously makes the level of learning comfort and academic challenge for undergraduates high while providing good ROI.
BTW, privilege DOES play a role in determining academic peers, ie., being a college where the country’s elite has historically sent their kids plays a role in determining academic peers - for instance, Wheaton MA or Connecticut College wouldn’t have the same peers as now if they were located, say, in Iowa or Missouri.
Interesting map:
http://chronicle.com/article/Peers-Interactive-Data/134262/
MYOS, thanks for the additional undergrad data and Chronicle link.
The points TomSr and Lucie both made are precisely my experience, too. I don’t quite know how our memories reconcile with the metrics, but there was (and still is, I’d reckon) a pretty significant difference between, say, WUSTL and GW.
Does anybody still call USC the U. of Spoiled Children? It was not uncommon a couple decades ago.