I am, of course, well aware that New York and California have larger populations than Wisconsin. But New York’s population (19.7 million per 2014 estimate) is approximately 3.4 times the size of Wisconsin’s (5.8 million), yet New York enrolls almost 30 times as many students at Michigan as Wisconsin does (New York 1,654 v. Wisconsin 58). So it’s got to be more than just population. Part of it is that many Northeasterners don’t like their own public flagships, which for the most part are not as highly regarded as the top privates in the Northeast, and not as highly regarded as Michigan . Wisconsinites for the most part love the University of Wisconsin, which is highly regarded, and rightly so. So Wisconsinites in far larger numbers opt to stay home and attend UW Madison, which many deem as good, or almost as good, as Michigan. For many New Yorkers, Michigan is a notch or two above any school in the SUNY system. For similar reasons, Minnesota, a state with a population slightly smaller than Wisconsin’s (5.5 million), sends almost 3 times as many students to Michigan as Wisconsin does… Minnesota’s flagship, the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, is a perfectly respectable school, but it’s not viewed as being as good as UW or Michigan. Far more Minnesotans attend UW than attend Michigan–it’s closer, for one thing, and Wisconsin and Minnesota have tuition reciprocity, for another. But despite all that, far more Minnesotans than Wisconsinites find Michigan an attractive alternative.
The overall reputation or ranking of the school is sometimes not important particularly for students with specific interest. For ChemE, UMN-TC is one of the best in the country. Also, UMN-TC has one of the lowest OOS CoA among OOS public flagships. In addition, they offer free application (Golden Gopher) and great merit scholarships to strong applicants.
^ Agreed, billcsho. And I also concede you’re right about the in-state/OOS split in freshman enrollment at Michigan. According to the registrar, in the fall of 2014 the University of Michigan enrolled 3,571 new in-state freshmen and 2,934 new OOS/international freshmen. That works out to 54.9% in-state and 45.1% OOS + international. Still, that’s pretty danged close to a 50-50 split, and given the State of Michigan’s declining production of HS graduates and increased competitive pressure from soaring OOS applications, I’d expect the entering class enrollment balance to tip in favor of non-residents within the next few years.
If a school is in a smaller state by area, maybe the students go home on weekends. I haven’t found that to be the case. I lived 45 minutes from school, but once I went to school, I never went home. School was too much fun. My daughter goes to a flagship in a small population but huge square mile state. She’s OOS and can get home in 2 hours, but many of the instate students live 6 or 9 hours away. They aren’t hopping home on Fridays.
In a state like NJ or Maryland, many students could get home easily, but don’t go every weekend.
Numbers can be interpreted so many ways- such as a poster pointed out about why there are so many from two very populous states. Regarding Wisconsin- the distances involve either going up and around Lake Michigan or down and around greater Chicago (or I suppose an equally time consuming route using a ferry)- neither is that easy/fun. People in Wisconsin tend to ignore the U of Michigan in general- seeing no great advantages academically and often a nicer campus in Madison. A biased view, but that lake is a huge barrier to frequenting lower Michigan.
Michigan seems to have lost its mission as a school to educate it’s students. Perhaps having Michigan State makes it less important as a mission. I have also heard there is the money issue- getting more from OOS students helps the budget. Different states treat their flagship U differently.
Going home weekends depends on the campus atmosphere. Some campuses make a student want to stay to not miss the weekend activities (and not merely sports) while others lack that culture.
@wis75, these days, the money that MI provides amounts to less then 10% of UMich’s budget (it may be less than 5%). For the money that they put in to the school, MI residents get tremendous value from UMich.
UW-Madison doesn’t exactly have a small OOS population, BTW.
Among the top tier public Ivies, UNC is really the only one even close to the old model. It still gets lots of state support and has a relatively low OOS cap of 19%.
UVA is 33% OOS and UM is 45% OOS with extremely low state funding. UCB and more so UCLA have more recently gotten into the OOS/foreign game given the budget crisis in California.
If you don’t have the old-time state funding, then you really can’t have the old-time mission.
Harvard’s liberal arts and sciences grad program is small, about one third the size of the undergrad college. These are the only grad students who share faculty resources with undergrads. I don’t think it’s possible to calculate mathematically what percentage of faculty time/attention grad students get on average, across disciplines. The usefulness of the student/faculty ratio breaks down at this point.
One astonishing fact: VA spends roughly as much on UVa as NYS does on Cornell, yet the number of subsidized VA residents at UVa is several times the number of subsidized NYS residents at Cornell’s contract colleges, and the discount that UVa provides in-state students is several times the discount that NYS residents get at Cornell’s contract colleges.
I’m not saying “most” elite privates do it the way Harvard does. I haven’t surveyed most elite privates. I have looked at enough to be able to say that some do it the same way as Harvard.
As I have patiently tried to explain, there are two problems with the way Harvard calculates its s/f ratio. First, it squarely violates the instructions given by the Common Data Set–they’re DOING IT THE WRONG WAY, therefore they end up with a s/f ratio that is simply not comparable to the s/f ratios of schools that FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS and make the correct calculation. The information put out by these schools is therefore highly misleading. Second, even apart from the comparability problem, I don’t think it’s the least bit reasonable for a school like Harvard that has more graduate students than undergrads to pretend that the graduate students don’t exist and don’t take up professors’ time in teaching, advising, mentoring, etc. That’s precisely why the Common Data Set instructs them to count the graduate students as “students” for purposes of calculating their s/f ratio, unless the graduate students are in “stand-alone” graduate/professional programs like law, medicine, divinity, etc., which have their own separate faculties who don’t deal with undergraduates (except possibly occasionally, at the margins). It’s a completely fictional world they’re creating in which roughly 1,000 Harvard faculty are attending to every need of 6,663 undergraduates. It’s a good bet most of those faculty spend half or more of their faculty-student interaction time–teaching, advising, supervising, mentoring–with graduate students, not undergraduates. And it’s completely misleading, and deeply unfair to a LAC like Amherst for Harvard to claim the same 7:1 s/f ratio as Amherst. Like other LACs, Amherst is an undergraduate-only institution. Its faculty spend all their teaching, advising, and mentoring time with undergrads. As a Harvard undergraduate you’re not going to get the same level and quality of faculty-student interaction that you would at Amherst, because the Harvard faculty are going to be spending half (my rough guess) of their faculty-student face time with graduate students. Yet the gullible will look at Harvard’s phony 7:1 s/f ratio and compare it to Amherst’s legitimate 7:1 s/f ratio and conclude they’re likely to have the same kinds and levels of interactions with faculty at Harvard as at Amherst. And that’s just pure hogwash. Shame on Harvard. Lord knows, they have plenty going for them; they don’t need to gin up a fictitious s/f ratio to attract students.
Not only Michigan but also UVA, Wisconsin, Georgia Tech, University of Texas-Austin, and every public university whose CDS I’ve looked at (admittedly a small and unscientific sample) FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS and calculate their s/f ratios exactly the way the Common Data Set instructs them to, i.e., including graduate students (other than those in “stand-alone” programs) as “students” for purposes of calculating their s/f ratio. Perhaps because as public institutions they have a greater commitment to transparency and accountability. You may think that’s quaint or “goofy.” Some would call it honest. And yes, I do think the CDS way is better, because it gives you a truer picture of the level and quality of faculty-student interactions you can expect, insofar as it accounts for the time faculty spend teaching, advising, supervising, and mentoring graduate students, all of which reduces the time they have available for undergraduates.
BC – I just checked UVA.
Looks to me like they divide undergrads by all faculty (excluding professional schools). So are you saying my alma mater can’t read directions just like those dopes at Harvard? I’m fine with being in that club. : )
Actually, the directions don’t appear to me to say whether grad students should or should not be included. It just says students, and in many other parts of the CDS “students” means undergrads. But as a Hoo, you know I can’t read directions.
I understand english profs spend time on grad students in addition to undergrads. They also spend time on lots of other things – writing, giving speeches, research, deparment meetings, etc. Seems reasonable to post the ratio of faculty who teach undergrads to undergrads.
I get that the number would be more pure at an LAC without grad programs.
Cheers.
LOL. I’m well aware of that lake. Funny, though, Minnesotans don’t seem to have nearly as much trouble getting around it as Wisconsinites. And the University of Michigan draws ample students from much farther away than Wisconsin, lake or no lake. No, I don’t think Lake Michigan is such an impenetrable barrier. It’s mostly just that Wisconsinites are satisfied with UW-Madison, and either don’t see Michigan as much of a step up, or not enough of one to be worth paying more for. But not many Wisconsinites attend elite private colleges and universities, either, for much the same reason.
“Lost its mission”? I don’t think so. The University of Michigan still educates thousands of state residents in every class, at a tuition rate approximately 1/3 what it charges OOS students, and unlike the vast majority of public flagships including its sister public Big Ten institutions (cough! cough!) it meets 100% of need for Michigan residents. The University subsidizes residents of the state far more heavily than the state’s taxpayers subsidize the University through legislative appropriations. The people of Michigan are getting a great deal–a truly world-class university that they essentially no longer pay for, unless they attend in which case they’re getting a great bargain. The state began to de-fund the University 30 or 35 years ago. So the University needed to carve out a new model as more or less a public/private hybrid. A key part of the strategy was to build the endowment, which at $10 billion is now the 9th largest of any college or university, public or private. Another key part was leveraging the University’s formidable research capacity into a mighty engine of research grant funding, now standing at well over $1 billion annually. And yes, the University made active efforts to attract highly qualified OOS students, who not only bring in more tuition revenue but also add talent, strength, and diversity to the undergraduate student body. The result is that the Michigan residents who do attend are able to be part of a much stronger university, financially, intellectually, and in the breadth and diversity of its student body. They’re getting an outstanding deal. As for those Michigan residents who are unable to attend because they don’t make the cut at admissions time–well, that’s always been the case, though perhaps it becomes more painful as admissions standards continue to rise. And yes, it helps to have Michigan State to pick up the slack.
The proportion of OOS will continue to increase at UMich for many reasons. First, the high school graduates in Michigan is gradually decreasing in the recent years along with the population. Second, UMich is attracting more and more OOS applicants in the last few years (e.g. by joining CommonApp, increasing financial aid, school ranking increase, etc). Third, State funding is so low that the school does not feel the obligation to maintain the in state student population. Fourth, the gap in admission statistics between OOS and in state is getting too big if maintain at current ratio. Fifth, the total undergraduate enrollment increased slightly in the last decade by admitting more OOS and international students.
The difference, though, it that at UW-Madison, roughly 2/3 of the OOS students come form just two immediately adjacent states, Minnesota and Illinois. The Minnesota numbers are boosted by tuition reciprocity, but that’s a two -way street; roughly as many Wisconsinites attend the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities as Minnesotans attend UW-Madison. Illinois doesn’t enjoy tuition reciprocity but Madison is only 2-3 hours drive from any part of the Chicago metro area and UW-Madison is seen by many Chicago-area students as an attractive alternative to UIUC, a very good school in its own right but located in a small town stuck out in the cornfields. Wisconsin does attract some “Coasties” as they’re known in Madison (to distinguish them from “Sconnies”), but only about 1/4 to 1/3 as many as Michigan.
No, that’s incorrect. On UVA’s 2014-15 Common Data Set, line B.1, they show a total of 16,482 undergraduates and 7,249 graduate students, for a “grand total all students” of 23,732. On line I.2, Student to Faculty Ratio, they calculate a s/f ratio of 15.2 to 1, based on 18,363.3 students and 1,211.7 faculty. So clearly they’re using a student figure that’s larger than just the number of undergraduates (16,482). Their s/f ratio includes some (nearly 2,000) graduate students. The other 5,000+ graduate students are presumably in “stand-alone” graduate/professional programs like the Law School, Medical School, Darden School of Business (graduate-level only), or what have you.
It’s a shame they didn’t teach you to read better, because clearly they can read and follow directions. 
You’re correct that the directions don’t expressly state that grad students should be included, but it’s clearly there by implication. It says:
It would be nonsensical for them to expressly and singularly instruct you to exclude students in stand-alone graduate or professional programs, if the assumption was that all graduate students were to be excluded. That particular instruction would then be perfectly redundant and meaningless. So by implication, graduate students are to be included UNLESS they are in stand-alone programs. I don’t think there’s any other way to fairly read this, and it doesn’t take a Ph.D. to figure this out. My law professor friends tell me there’s a name for this interpretive principle: “expressio unius,” short for “expressio unius est exclusio alterius,” Latin for “to include one is to exclude the other.” In this case, expressly stating that graduate students in stand-alone programs shouldn’t be counted clearly implies that other graduate students aren’t subject to that same exemption, i.e., they should be counted; otherwise it would make no sense to expressly identify graduate students in stand-alone programs for singular treatment. But again, you don’t need to be a lawyer; this is just the only common-sense reading of that instruction that works.
btw- eons ago UW upped OOS tuition because of “too many” OOS radicals circa the Vietnam War era. Since then times have changed and overall students are far more docile than then. Far fewer causes after all of the social changes that occurred regarding the draft/war, civil rights and women’s roles.
I agree that Wisconsinites do not see compelling reasons to apply to Michigan (and vice versa for Michiganders). I have heard some from Minnesota’s Twin Cities want to leave the area for college- I understand that urge for something different.
True that, but even so, there are more than twice as many Michiganders attending UW-Madison as undergraduates (135) than Wisconsinites attending Michigan (58). I suspect some of these are Yoopers, from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (UP, hence “Yoopers”), most of which is closer to Madison than to Ann Arbor. From the extreme western end of the UP to Ann Arbor is about a 9.5 hour drive, while to Madison it’s only a 4.5 hour drive. There may also be a few Michiganders who were denied admission to the University of Michigan given its somewhat loftier admission standards (fall 2014 entering class middle 50% ACT composite 29-33 at Michigan v. 26-31 at Wisconsin; 2014 admit rate 32.4% at Michigan v. 49.8% at Wisconsin) but see Wisconsin as a more attractive alternative than Michigan State. Finally, I’ve heard a few Ann Arbor HS kids say they were interested in UW-Madison because they love Ann Arbor but just needed to get away from home; for them, UW and Madison were similar enough to UM and Ann Arbor to be comfortable and attractive, yet a sufficient change of scene. Though on this last point, you’d think it would be a two-way street. Pretty trivial numbers moving in either direction, though.