Schools "buying" quality students

interesteddad · May 31, 2005, 12:00am

Patuxent:

A chunk of the additional cost at a “boutique” school is the size of the faculty. For example, Williams and Swarthmore both have an 8:1 student/faculty ratio. William & Mary is 12:1. That means 50% more professors at Swarthmore.

The average rate for a full-time faculty position ranges from $62k for an assistant prof. to $114k for a full prof. ($61k to $106k at W&M). That doesn’t include benefits or the associated costs of addtional faculty (office, secretarial, sabbaticals, etc.).

The faculty size translates directly to class size. Here are the percentages of total class sections in each size category for Swarthmore versus W&M:

1 - 9 students: 37.5% versus 10.7%
10-19 students: 37% versus 30.9%
20-29 students: 19.5% versus 24.6%
30-39 students: 3.3% versus 18%
40-49 students: 1.3% versus 8.2%
50-100 students: 1.0% versus 4.2%
100+ students: 0.3% versus 3.4%

And, this is in comparison to what is probably the most undergrad oriented quality public university in the country.

So, yes. Some of the difference in cost relates to fancy buildings and immaculately maintained campuses. But, some of it also relates to real educational costs.

mini · May 31, 2005, 12:13am

“So the more seats you sell the less associative appeal the school will have and the less the seats will be worth.”

Oh, I AGREE! I wouldn’t sell many of 'em. Maybe 5%, or 10% at HYP. The reality is that they do that now, but privately, under the table, in exchange for “future considerations” (like a draft pick to be named later.) That is, over the long term, what gives each of these schools their prestige. Use the extra money to bring in more gosh certifiable geniuses or whatever.

I agree with ID about the money being spent on things like profs, and facilities, and libraries, and books, as well as the food of course. At Swarthmore, much of the difference comes from spreading the costs of the physical plant (and the books at the library) over a smaller number of students.Whether doing so equates to better educational quality is for the buyer to decide. I happen to think it does. But would I have paid for it? Non-issue - I wouldn’t have it to pay. So I rented my d. out in exchange. Works for me, though I am sure she learned as much in the four weeks we spent doing tsunami relief, and the 10 weeks she now has working in Cambodia and India as she did for most of the academic year.

So I know that “education” can be had at lesser cost. I am a veena player (a south Indian stringed instrument). My teacher in the U.S. costs me $50/hour. When I am in India, my better teacher (my “guru” as it were) used to cost me (20 years ago) 17 cents an hour, which was triple what she charged local students. If I wanted any “credits”, though (which I never did), I’d need to take them with a teacher at a U.S. college or university .

patuxent · May 31, 2005, 12:21am

Well you are making the assumption that smaller classes are better classes and I think past a certain point that would be very hard to substantiate. For instance when you (or somebody else if this is not your arguement) are making the case that diversity is important because a student needs to be exposed to different perspectives and points of view how do you achive that diversity in a class with 8 people in it?

And what does no TA’s mean? It probably means no graduate students and no research so how up on their fields are your professors at the boutique school? When they really do unlock the key to cold fusion what are the chances it will be at AW or S? Yeah I know some real physics was done at Swarthmore decades ago.

patuxent · May 31, 2005, 12:23am

"The reality is that they do that now, but privately, under the table, in exchange for “future considerations” (like a draft pick to be named later.) "

We definitely agree on that one mini.

SBmom · May 31, 2005, 12:38am

C’mon, patuxent. You make some good points, but you lose me when you assert that Williams is a “finishing school.”

A seminar of 8 is in fact a much better place to actually engage in conversation with someone completely unlike yourself. (A dorm room of 2 is an even better place!) Putting a diverse group together is not enough, the idea is to HEAR other opinions and other world views & bat them around.

Only in a one-size-fits-all world could HYPS beat AWS for every kid.

Quentin · May 31, 2005, 12:40am

A side note to this debate: The argument that schools “buy” good students by hiring world-famous faculty should be taken with a grain of salt because the schools that hire Prof. Nobel and Prof. National Academy of Sciences are research schools, which have the dual missions of education and research.

That the Harvards and Berkeleys of the world have hundreds of world-renowned researchers isn’t as much a function of the schools’ desires to attract better students, as it is a function of the schools’ desire to be on the cutting edge of exciting research (and hopefully to attach their schools’ names to new developments, as in the element berkelium or the Chicago school of economics).

interesteddad · May 31, 2005, 12:54am

From what I’ve read, the current educational research strongly suggests that interactive classroom settings are significantly more effective than passively receiving information in a lecture setting. This hypothesis would tend to be supported by the substantial over-representation of LAC graduates (on a percentage basis) in virtually all fields of upper education, be they PhD or professional.

It is hard to not have diversity in a school that is only 62% white. Likewise, the percentage of Pell Grant recipients at Swarthmore is high enough that, on average, every class of 8 students will have 1 from a family making less than the $40k per year cut-off.

Diversity is very expensive. That’s another big chunk of the difference in per student spending.

I don’t believe that cold fusion will be investigated by many undergrad lab sections. However, there is a pretty decent chance that it could be unlocked by an LAC graduate.

5 of the top 10 per capita undergrad producers of science, engineering, and math PhDs over the last decade were small undergrad-only colleges with no graduate school.

<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=61288[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=61288</a>

As for staying current, Swarthmore has a mandatory paid sabbatical following every three years of teaching. Another example of a heavy expense to ensure a fresh, vibrant faculty.

Let’s turn the question around. Of the professors beating the bushes for research grants on cold fusion, how many do you think actually teach significant numbers of undergrads?

For a very detailed analysis of science at the undergrad level, see this essay by Nobel Prize winner, and current head of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Thomas Cech. He compares and contrasts the pluses and minuses of the education at boutique schools and research universities. He’s in a good position to know, having gotten his B.A. from Grinnell, his PhD from Berkelely, and being a research faculty member at U of Colo.

<a href=“http://www.collegenews.org/prebuilt/daedalus/cech_article.pdf[/url]”>http://www.collegenews.org/prebuilt/daedalus/cech_article.pdf</a>

TheDad · May 31, 2005, 1:25am

Well, Patuxent, it’s a single data point I realize but my daughter is doing research at an LAC in the field of computational geometry with applications to protein folding. The team she’s on is interdisciplinary, with neuroscience, mathematics, computer science and engineering students involved.

In terms of ultimate and overall undergrad education, I’ll stack up the top LAC’s against the major research universities without losing any sleep.

On the other hand, given your characterization AWS as “finishing schools,” your head is lodged in a place such that you can not see and dare not inhale. So what the heck.

musicmom · May 31, 2005, 5:32am

Re: buying students in NJ-

Rutgers also ‘buys’ its students similiar to TCNJ. I think all the NJ state schools do. There is a strictly numbers driven format, posted on each school’s website, that outlines the combination of rank and SATs that will get you what at that school.
Out of state numbers are higher than in state.
Or course, it’s difficult to hit those points in most good public NJ high schools…our son’s graduating class was very accomplished and his very credible stats paled against the competition. Now, had he attended a very different high school, he’d have been much higher up in rank. So, it’s quite a trick to grab that merit aid at some colleges where the numbers rule. Talent based merit awards are a different animal.

frazzled1 · May 31, 2005, 6:37am

patuxent, I too find the references to Williams and Amherst as “finishing schools” so off-putting as to cast incredulity on anything else you may say. What do you know about these schools, their curricula, their admissions standards, and their student bodies? They’d be a poor value for parents who actually want finishing schools for their daughters. And, um, “… not too challenged by the teaching staff”? Where’s your evidence for that one?

Also, do you know a LOT of young women pursuing their “MRS” these days? I don’t, and I imagine it would be particularly difficult to find them on the campuses of Williams, Amherst, and Wesleyan.

btw, none of my kids have any interest in attending a LAC, boutique or otherwise, and my current senior was proud and thrilled to be “bought” by a top 20 university. I’d like to agree with your point that top colleges can be run more cost-effectively, but your presentation makes it tough.

taxguy · May 31, 2005, 7:09am

I can’t believe that some folks are deriding merit aid.
First, many are making the assumption that these “merit” kids are going to substandard school or are getting more of a substandard education than that of a more reknown school. Frankly, nothing can be further from truth.

I would say that well over 75% of the schools provide a very similar undergraduate education in my opinion. In fact, I browsed the bookstore of Yale vs. U of Maryland and U Md vs. wharton undergraduate and found that they use many of the same textbooks.

Moreover, many of the schools that offer marit aid are terrific. I certainly wouldn’t sneer at anyone who went to Emory or Wash U St Louis or Carnegie Melon.

In addition, schools that offer merit aid usually have strong endowments, which provide a lot of benefits. Wash U (3.6 billion) and Emory( 3.8 billion or thereabouts) have higher endowments than most of the schools in the US including some of the IVYs.

Merit aid kids also are beneficial to hiring good faculty and to the other students. It has to be attractive to faculty to have more top students. It also provides a higher bar for the “A’s” and “B’s” for all students.

Finally, it works for the school to raise its prestige. Schools that have traditionally invested heavily in merit aid have seen their admission standards climb significantly. In fact, if you check out the schools that have had the highest rise in SAT scores and GPAs over the last 20 years, chances are they also had given among the highest percentage of merit aid.

Frankly, I can see only benefits and no detriments. There aren’t many things in life that are true win- wins. Merit aid is one of these.

jamimom · May 31, 2005, 9:44am

Most of us are in agreement that there is a place for merit aid. It is a luxery for a school to be in the position not to offer any, as it then has a large enough pool of diverse applicants that it can fill its needs and wants without buying any of them. So it is no surprise to anyone that schools use their money to lure the students they want most to join them. THe problem with merit aid comes it starts competing with financial aid. Do schools like Johns Hopkins or Wash U really need to pay for top kids who don’t need the money when they are need aware and gap? Some schools are definitely on the fringes where they need to carefully assess their merit/need budgets, in my opinion. When that starts to happen, I see more detriment than benefits.

The other use of merit aid which is really a form of discounting since I don’t see that much merit in some of the recipients of that money other than the fact that their famiies can afford the cost of the school, has become an economic necessity for some schools that are hard pressed to fill their seats. Although I don’t like what is happening in this area, I can see the need for this kind of aid.

Whether there is a trend towards giving merit aid over fianancial aid, or not, it is something that I think deserves monitoring.

driver · May 31, 2005, 9:52am

Patuxent, I hate to pile on, but that was surely not your finest moment here. Finishing schools? The academic version of Army Ranger School is more like it. Any student pursuing a math or science curriculum at those schools is doing serious, rigorous work. To add another single data point to TheDad’s, my daughter is also doing cutting-edge research, including a paid position that will keep her in the lab all summer. Her small LAC has won more Apker Awards–the top national award for undergraduate physics research–than any other school in the country, including HYPS, CIT, MIT, and all the other biggies. Having just declared her major in the hard sciences at the end of her sophomore year, all of the courses in her major for the next two years will be in the form of an “Oxford-style tutorial”–that is, her, one other student, and a professor. Her school spent big bucks, expanding the faculty by 10 or 15% in order to make this happen on a wide scale.

I also have to comment on your notion of LACs as playgrounds for latter-day Thurston Howells or contemporary Paris Hiltons. I suppose I’m “rich” by some standards, as when the tuition bill comes, I write a check. But I’m always reminded of that old commercial line: “How do you think I got SO rich?” (I think it was an ad for cheap wine). We’ve been saving for this for 20 years. And instead of the exotic Italian sports cars we’ve always wanted, my husband and I buy certified used Hondas and put Williams College stickers on 'em–for about the same price.

To get back to the topic, and in reply to Jamimom–is there any actual evidence that merit awards are causing worthy low-income students to forgo college? And do you disagree with my opinion that “impact students” are at least as important as “impact athletes” and “impact minorities” in rounding out a college class?

mini · May 31, 2005, 11:26am

I would note the same is true in the arts as well. My d.'s paid research assistantship is to prepare a publication edition of the first opera ever written by a woman (in 1626), which will actually be performed next February (with her as manager for the production). Her work was overseen by the founder of the Folger Consort. None of the Ivies or prime state u.s could come close to matching it. Her college, half the size or less than all of the Ivies, this year received more Fulbrights than any of them (and more than AWS combined, but that’s another story.)

Of course, at all of these schools, the quality (and wealth - and it is sometimes hard to separate the two) of the students going in significantly over-determines the outcomes. But if they are “finishing” schools, they sure are finishing them well!

jamimom · May 31, 2005, 11:31am

I have not found any statistical evidence that merit awards are causing worthy low income students to forgo college. I have not looked. I don’t think this is a “FIRE!” call, but a situation to watch. I have seen, and colleges have admitted this, that discounting does occur at schools. These are not so much merit awards, since the kids often do not have such stellar stats, but are incentives to get full or nearly full pay kids to attend schools. It is so nice to be able to say that Johney got a nice scholarship at XYZ College, and if the school is also priced slightly below many $45K schools, it can be a nice break for the family. The incentives do work. When you do this alot, there is less money for financial aid, and indeed most of these schools do not guarantee full aid, do not profess to be need blind in admissions, and often gap or offer large loan amounts. The reason this hurts is because the stats of those schools are often more in line with what low income kids can match. Though I believe fully that Harvard is need blind, and I also believe that it will give a tip to low income, challenged kids, the threshholds for entry to such a school, are such that very few low income kids qualify even with some leeway given. But XYZ college may well be a match academically, and be the right place for such a kid in all ways except for the price tag. I do not profess to know the answer to this issue because as I have stated, many of these schools are having problems filling their class and meeting their budget in tution payments. They simply cannot afford to be need blind and give 100% of need. In fact very few schools fall into that envious position. I am bringing this scenario to everyone’s attention, not because I condemn it, but to show that it does exist. To what extent, I do not know. But if you are the parent of a kid with a 1500SAT1 (new SATs) and a 2.8 average–in the midrange of his graduating class, unless the parent can somehow come up with the money, the options are very limited. If you can pay, there are many schools that will take you. But beyond government aid, these kids are going to be hard put to get financial aid grants from the schools that would accept them. They may well be the type of kid that would do the best in a private school rather than a community college or a large non flagship state school with many adjunct professors and disorganization everywhere which is where most of these kids end up going for financial reasons.

My criticism is more directed to the Wash U, Johns Hopkins, type schools that clearly have endowment that they could meet more of the financial need and have need blind admissions, if they give up some of their merit aid that tends to go to kid who are not so needy. Perhaps they can do something more along the lines of what NYU and BU are doing with merit awards–more along the merit within need with small merit awards for those without need. It seems to me that these schools do not need to “buy” their way up the ladder any more, as I doubt they are going to get much higher up there, so that they can behave more like the need blind schools instead of agressively using their money to buy the students they want. It makes logical sense if a school is not need blind and does not give 100% of need, then somene who is low income is getting cut so that the school can pursue someone they want more who does not have need, with an merit award. There is also an inherent unfairness with merit awards in that they generally reduce financial aid, so that those whose famiies have the money get a pure economic gain, whereas those who make less and qualify for financial aid, just get their need met which would be the case at any full need school.

zagat · May 31, 2005, 12:41pm

Has anyone else read the articles Byerly posted just above the infamous post? They are written by solid sources and make sense. If this (that going to a top college is economically more important than ever) is true, then anyone accepting merit money who doesn’t need it is shooting themselves in the foot.

Perhaps this will all shake itself out.

zagat · May 31, 2005, 12:44pm

And patuxent, Mrs. degree and grand tour of Europe? Maybe in 1950 although Williams didn’t take women back then. My female friends in the 80s had no interest in marrying before finishing their graduate degrees and getting significant careers off the ground. The wealthy ones had visited Europe often.

There is no way you could be personally familiar with these schools and made the comments you did.

mol10e · May 31, 2005, 2:17pm

Jamimom’s critique of schools like Washington U and Hopkins for utilizing resources for merit aid rather than financial need seems to suggest that the “need blind schools” such as HYP and the elite LAC’s are fairer to low income students. In support of this argument is the notion that merit aid schools have admission criteria that can be met more easily by some economically disadvantaged students and that merit aid diverts money from the needier students. There are several weaknesses in this argument some of which have been identified in previous posts, but an argument can also be made that if the HYP’s and elite LAC’s were truly interested in diversity they would be much more inclined to lower their admission standards for economically disadvantaged students. Most of these schools lower standards for athletes and other favored applicants. Why criticize the so-called next tier of schools for trying to upgrade their academic ranks in the same way that the elite schools attempt to upgrade their athletic ranks? The econmic divide between the haves and have-nots is widening and this is clearly the case in higher education as well, but the relatively small amount of money given to students for academic merit is irrelevant to the task of providing quality education to rich and poor alike.

mini · May 31, 2005, 2:36pm

Well, one potential reason why they might be criticized is that they don’t need to do this to upgrade their academic ranks. The HYPs of the world are already turning away entire classes of students as academically talented as those they are accepting, so they are going to go elsewhere in any case. So what is really going on is the WashU and JHU and Case of the world (or whomever else is doing this) end up just competing with each other.

" but an argument can also be made that if the HYP’s and elite LAC’s were truly interested in diversity they would be much more inclined to lower their admission standards for economically disadvantaged students"

They don’t have to “lower” their standards - they just have to have different ones. Aren’t too many low-income students who are going to compete for a place on the equestrian team. All the adcoms already know about the relationship between income and SAT scores, and are free to correct for it if they choose, without "lowering standards.

You need to remember that the top colleges get a class that looks like what they want it to look like. Adcoms are high-paid professionals with decades of experience, advanced training in yield management, and targets set by their president and board of trustees. If they don’t perform, they’re out. You can pretty much assume that the classes of accepted students look the way they want them to look.

zagat · May 31, 2005, 3:02pm

Mini, I agree with most of the above, but adcoms are highly paid? Don’t most make $40K or $50K, making their kids elegible for all the special consideration HYP etc. give low income kids?

Schools "buying" quality students

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