Agreed. TCNJ is a good school. We know a number of kids who have attended or are attending. All seem to have very positive experiences.
and 143 was in response to #55. just sayin.
Wow, post #55 certainly goes way back. There are definitely posters on these forums that don’t seem to think too highly of New Jersey schools. I don’t really get it but I’m not from New Jersey.
What amazes me a lot is the many preconceived notions or opinions regarding schools that some of these posters have never attended or even visited .
Well, in response to #143, TCNJ is better than Rutgers, but you’re maddeningly overrating TCNJ if you say that it’s by a “wide margin”. There’s only one school in NJ that could even claim that to be true. And about my post #55, I’m right. Only five schools in NJ (Princeton, TCNJ, Stevens, Rutgers, and Rowan) are worth touching with a ten-foot pole; and even then I’d only touch #s 1, 3, and 5.
^^^ Ugh. Talk about deju vu all over again!
Remember this thread isn’t about NJ.
And no one can say with certainty that school A is better than school B, period. Rankings only matter for you or your kid in particular. If school A doesn’t have your major it’s not going to be a great fit.
“@lostaccount, What’s so bad about the SUNY schools?”
austinmshauri, problems with the SUNY system are related to its history. More than 100 years (give or take) before SUNY was established many states, especially in the midwest and west, established what would become their flagship universities (for example, Michigan 1872). They wanted their residents to have access to outstanding educational opportunities but the established colleges were in the northeast;too far away. Thus they founded top notch public universities. Students in northeast, and especially those in NY, had access to a ton of private schools. In those days and until the mid 1900’s, there was not sentiment that every student should go to college. Rather typically higher education was reserved for the wealthy who could easily afford private schools. There were rumblings about starting a state university system in NY but great resistance from those invested in the private colleges. And, those in positions of influence were educated in those private schools, where they also sent their kids.
Pressure created by returning vets after WW2 pushed the issue. Those supporting creation of a state system in NY were concerned about students who could not afford to attend the private schools. Eventually they were able to move the proposal forward but only with a “gentleman’s agreement” that promised SUNY schools would not compete with the private schools and would not attract students who would otherwise attend private schools. The SUNY system would be explicitly for those who could otherwise not afford to attend college. Aside from Harpur College which already existed as a liberal arts school, none would offer liberal arts, at least not for the first 10 years. They were to be utilitarian schools for those who could not afford better.
And, in many ways they still show their roots. They even look utilitarian, with few exceptions. They are poorly funded and top (administration) heavy. In good times and bad, NY strangles the system financially. They have been underfunded and poorly administered. And they have suffered from internal corruption, at times. There are about 64 state institutions in the SUNY system. The redundancy is costly. There is no flagship. None of the 4 University Centers come close to the quality of most flagships-at least not close to the flagships of, say, 30 states. They are at least a decade behind the better flagships, in most ways. Budget cuts keep SUNY from improving. Buildings planned decades ago were put on hold at various times and then built to specs based on 20 or 30 +year old needs-obsolete before they are finished (except plush dorms and always spanking new student centers and office buildings for administrators). Some are trying to shuffle so many student through that the campuses are busting at the seams. Numbers over quality. External funding is handled by a nonprofit (Research Foundation) that has been described as “rogue” and “corrupt”. SUNY has had well publicized corruption and scandals.
Naturally there are positives too. It is cheap. In fact, I believe it is so cheap NY tax payers subsidize the educations of OOS students. Yet that isn’t even enough to attract them in appreciable numbers. I’m sure there are other states that have even bigger problems. But, it is safe to say that the SUNY system was not founded to be an outstanding university system. It was founded to offer a cheap and efficient education. And a quick and cheap degree is preferred over a lot of debt for many students. It is completely understandable.
This information is based on material published in the New York Times and in SUNY’s own publications.
Citations?
State universities in lots of other states have the same issues with uncertain state funding and such. And, while you described them as “cheap and efficient” education, that does not automatically mean bad education. Indeed, most state universities are “cheap and efficient” compared to the well-endowed private schools, based on their spending per student (typically $10,000 to $23,000 per year for education related spending (in-state tuition is typically lower due to some state subsidy) at state universities versus probably $45,000 or more per year education related spending (not including dorms and financial aid) at the well-endowed private schools). So it is not like your criticisms of SUNY are unique to SUNY.
ucbalumnus, that is correct and I also said exactly that! " It was founded to offer a cheap and efficient education. And a quick and cheap degree is preferred over a lot of debt for many students. It is completely understandable."
citations: 3. HARPUR COLLEGE IN THE BARTLE ERA/ALMA MATER A Popular History of Harpur College 1946/1964
by Stephen McIntire and Stephen Hambalek
For the newspaper articles just google scandal and SUNY-I can’t list their titles here but you can easily find them
For the history,
EDUCATION IN REVIEW: Master Plan Offers Prospect of Early Start On $200 Million State University System Tuition Range Is $400-$600 Objections of Private Schools Keystone of System TWO-YEAR PROGRAMS FOUR-YEAR PROGRAMS Maintenance of Facilities
By BENJAMIN FINE. New York Times (1923-Current file) [New York, N.Y] 22 Jan 1950: 139.
Browse this issue
COLLEGES JOINING IN LIAISON PLAN: Coordinated System Mapped for City by 50 Educators in Meeting Here To ‘Lend’ Faculty Members
By BENJAMIN FINE. New York Times (1923-Current file) [New York, N.Y] 04 Oct 1956: 33.
OUR STATE UNIVERSITY
New York Times (1923-Current file); Feb 11, 1957; : The New York Times
pg. 28
Education for All by 1974 Is Goal of State University: Doubling of Enrollment Proposed by Gould in Huge Expansion State University Planning Expansion to Provide for Every Applicant by 1974 GOAL IS TO DOUBLE ROLL OF STUDENTS Survey of 58 Campuses Shows That University Is ‘on the March’
By M.A. FARBER. New York Times (1923-Current file) [New York, N.Y] 06 June 1966: 1.
STATE UNIVERSITY SEEKS TO EXPAND ITS REPUTATION OUTSIDE NEW YORK
By EDWARD B. FISKE
Published: June 29, 1981
“These figures contrast sharply with the situation in July 1948, when the State University was created by the New York Legislature to meet the needs of returning veterans. At the time, New York was the only state in the nation that did not have a public university.”
“This growth was sharply restricted, though, by a so-called ‘‘gentlemen’s agreement’’ not to compete with the state’s private colleges. It stated that, with the exception of the college at Binghamton, which was built around a former branch of Syracuse University, the State University would offer no undergraduate liberal-arts degrees for 10 years. By the end of the decade, the various components of the State University were still awarding fewer than 10,000 degrees. ‘Baby Boom’ Students Arrive”
"By other standard academic measures, however, the successes have been modest. Some individual departments or programs are nationally known, but most of these, such as the criminal-justice program at Albany, are in new and nontraditional academic areas. Colleges that do have national recognition, such as the agriculture program at Cornell, all existed before the State University came into being. ‘‘In retrospect,’’ Dr. Boyer said, ‘‘the university would have been better served by two major centers instead of four - each one with full-blown graduate and professional programs.’’
" If you’re sitting on top of 64 campuses, the sheer politics means that so much is not given to one that you take from the others. There is a sheer leveling process built into the system.’’ -"
UCBAlumnus, The analysis concerning why the SUNY schools are inferior to many in other parts of the country is fairly well accepted. The follow excerpt is from a recent time article called" Is college tuition really too high" by Adam Davidson, from Sept 2015,
“The next educational marketplace consists of the large regional powerhouses, home to another 20 percent or so of the higher-ed student population. Usually public, with names that often begin with ‘‘University of,’’ these schools have strong reputations in their home states and often among the residents in neighboring states. The best ones are more likely to be found in the South or West. Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz, both professors at Harvard and leading scholars of education economics, co-wrote a famous paper a few years ago in which they pointed out that states that had elite private schools in the 1890s are less likely to have developed these strong, upper-tier public schools. The reason is as obvious as it is depressing: The powerful private schools lobbied politicians to keep public institutions underfunded. That helps explain why the university systems in North Carolina, Texas, Indiana, California and elsewhere outside the Northeast are held in such high regard. (The University of Massachusetts and SUNY systems, by contrast, do not have the same reputations.) Public universities have always been cheaper than their elite private counterparts, but the gap has been closing slowly as states stop funding the schools as generously as they once did.”
UCBAlumunus, A New York Times article By PETER APPLEBOME, published JULY 23, 2010 also included these contentions as in
"But another reason that SUNY has struggled to forge an identity is because that was the idea from the start. New York was the last of the populous states to form a university system. SUNY was not founded until 1948 and over the strenuous objections of the state’s powerful private colleges and universities. And it began with the stipulation that it would only “supplement” the private institutions and not compete with them. State legislators established an unfriendly board of regents and imposed the nation’s strictest regulations on what the university could do. An informal prohibition on raising private funds meant that New York’s state universities for decades grew without the endowments that supported campuses elsewhere. No wonder that a study in 1960 called SUNY a “limping and apologetic enterprise.”
and
“Since 2000, SUNY has had five interim, acting or full chancellors. It faces a budget meltdown with no bottom in sight, having lost $634 million in state support over the past three years. Those cuts come amid steadily growing demand for its services. Enrollment has increased by 25,000 over the past year, and even the downstate suburbanites who are most receptive to the appeal of private universities are taking long looks at the state’s public ones as well.”
and
"To address the former, Dr. Zimpher’s plan, to the chagrin of many of SUNY’s professors, is more about building the state’s economy than it is about the traditional educational missions of higher education. "
I think the smaller SUNY schools are quite nice. There has been a lot of construction at the smaller SUNYs over the past few years, and many of them have new dorms, academic buildings, libraries, ice rinks, and beautiful new gyms. I know kids who have gotten internships with major sports teams. One girl I know just got an internship in the garment center and although I never heard of the company, my friend in that industry knows it very well and said that the internship is very impressive. While some of these schools are located in the middle of nowhere, others such as Geneseo have a college town. There are some top private schools in NY that are also located in the middle of nowhere.
The 4 universities have not gotten the updates and attention that the colleges have received. When you visit the smaller colleges you see a lot of construction going on- so much that it is hard to walk the campus. You do not see that at the universities ( the ones I have seen). Stony Brook has an excellent reputation but it is a suitcase school. I have not seen Albany but it does not seem to have the reputation that it did 30-40 years ago. Buffalo is probably the closest to a flagship ( my opinion). It is a large research university with many graduate programs, a law school, dental school, and medical school. One campus is in a suburb with malls and restaurants, and the other campus is near downtown Buffalo. Parts of downtown Buffalo are very very nice. There have been some updates to the campus, but not enough. Some of the dorms are very old. In my opinion UB has a lot of energy on its campuses.
Binghamton confuses me. It is a very good school and it is hard to get into. If you do not have a 4.0 or close to it, you are not getting in during the EA round. The dorms are magnificent but the academic buildings need a lot of updates. i also do not think that undergrads have cutting edge research opportunities at their fingertips the way some other schools do. Bing does not feel like a power house university with a vibrant and active campus, yet there are some power house kids attending. The students who attend Bing love their school, and every kid I know who graduated is either working or in grad school. These graduates came out of Bing ( and UB) earning enough money to live in Manhattan- I think that’s impressive. The top top kids who live in NYS generally do not attend SUNY. The exception to this may be those who are interested in Bing’s early assurance medical school program which is affiliated with Buffalo and SUNY Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse. Many kids who live here do not attend the schools if their parents are willing to spend the money to go elsewhere, but the same could be said for other states as well.
Re: #189
Most of that is from before many people (including parents and parent-age people) on these forums were born.
Also, the 64 campuses include community colleges, so that number is not excessively large. In contrast, California has over 100 community colleges to go along with 32 four year campuses and a few professional-only campuses.
Re: #190, #191
State budget problems in recent years affected many states. Cuts to state university funding were widespead, so this is not a New York or SUNY specific problem.
re: 193: I don’t know how many colleges California has. But there is nobody on the planet that would rate the NY system and the California system as being comparable. If, usbalumnus, you are pointing out that the number of schools can’t be responsible for SUNY’s problems because California has a good system and more schools, then I will suggest California is an exception. As you can see from many articles, I am not the only one proposing the redundancy is problematic for NY. If you were to offer the top 10% of all NY and California students (willing to go to school anywhere) a choice of any California school or any NY school, I can’t predict which of the California schools would garner them most students but I can predict that most would not be worrying too much about being snowed in February. If you are suggesting that SUNY and California’s system are comparable, I’d say you are in the minority holding that opinion. Most people knowledgable about education view the 64 campuses of SUNY as an excessive number, particularly given how they are administered.
“State budget problems in recent years affected many states. Cuts to state university funding were widespead, so this is not a New York or SUNY specific problem.”
I’m not saying that state budget problems didn’t affect many states. But I will say that continued strangling of the SUNY system has contributed to creating a system that is not top shelf or even middle shelf. This is not my idea nor did I cause it. But nearly anyone who is knowledgeable about education and who knows New York history would agree. If you were to compare out of state applications at the top California schools and at the top NY schools you’d see that top NY students are interested in the California schools but top California students are not interested in NY schools. And in fact, you’d find that if finances and distance were not factors (and when they are not factors) the top NY students are not interested in the SUNY system either. Many view Michigan as too expensive and too far. But nobody thinks there is a SUNY School that matches Ann Arbor.
In terms of the history being…well, history. Yes, it occurred before you were born. But how SUNY is today reflects its history. I am not suggesting it is rock bottom or it is the worst system out there. The question is why I don’t feel it is a strong system. And, I’ve expressed why.
TwoGirls, I agree with 2/3 of what you wrote. I can’t discuss what I disagree with. But I will say that nothing I have written is new news. It is the sentiment expressed by most people knowledgable about higher education. It is not what students and parents hear about the SUNY system. I view that as a problem since most professionals associated with SUNY would agree with what I have written. Unfortunately the PR for the SUNY system promotes a perception of the system that is not supported by data or facts. Yes many graduates get great jobs. Naturally a large proportion of NY students attend SUNY and naturally they return to the NY met area for jobs. I’d argue that they would get those jobs regardless of which school they attended. Many strong students attend SUNY. They get jobs in their home state. Their home state (the cities with the largest population) is expensive and jobs pay reasonably well compared to less expensive states. But that says nothing about the quality of the SUNY system or the experiences for students over the 4 years they attend.
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lostaccount - the problem with your assertions is that everything you claim to be true about the SUNY experience is from external sources. How many students have you spoken to that have attended SUNY schools? How many alumni have you tracked? Even if it’s 100, that is a tiny percentage. I don’t quite understand what you want the SUNY schools to do either. You are correct that there is no one campus that competes with UCB or Michigan. But certainly someone getting an education at say, Stoneybrook, is learning from accomplished professors and will have opportunities that will certainly have an impact on their lives. And there are populations of students at the top SUNYs who provide an enriching environment. Even the smaller schools provide a fine education and I’m not sure why an efficient, cheap education is a problem for the vast majority of the population. The elite colleges are elite because by definition not everyone can be elite. But the fact that SUNY does not have a particular campus that can be considered truly elite is neither here nor there. Students seeking an elite school will go elsewhere, just as they would in most states in the United States. Only a handful of states have a state flagship that can truly be considered elite or even above average. Average students will go to one of the other thousands of colleges in this country. Michigan has one truly elite university but the vast majority of Michigan students are not attending that university - they are attending one of the many other directionals or Michigan State.
There seems to be little point in continuing to disparage SUNY. What would you have the system do at this point? Yes, it could designate Buffalo or Stoneybrook or Binghamton the “flagship,” but to what end really? And these three are respected universities - so should SUNY pick one over the other? I remember a few years ago Tom Golisano offered to give a substantial gift to SUNY if they would change the name of Buffalo to designate it as a flagship and to ostensibly give the football team a higher profile like the other state flagships. As an academic, I certainly don’t care to see the name recognition of the football team to become a primary mission of an educational institution.
The crux of lostaccount’s argument is that the SUNY system is mediocre by design. It isn’t just suffering from a temporary shortfall in state funding, as fallout from the great recession or due to transient demographic pressures. A similar argument probably could be made about many other public university systems. In few if any states are the legislators and taxpayers determined to match the level of investment that top private colleges make in undergraduate instruction.
“Mediocre” does not mean “bad”.
Some public universities are a lot better than mediocre, but even at the mediocre ones a determined student can get a very good education. The focal question for this thread is why anyone would want to attend an OOS public university, since usually that means paying a big price premium for quality that is not clearly better than what you could get in your own state (or at a private school).
That is, the biggest advantage of many state schools is that they are cheap; usually one loses that advantage by choosing an OOS public school. However, that isn’t always true. If you’re in the upper middle income donut hole, you won’t benefit so much from one of the big advantages of “elite” private schools (namely, their excellent need-based aid). A full-pay OOS student could save ~$20K/year by choosing a very good state school (like Wisconsin, UIUC, or Maryland) over a private school. Even bigger savings can result from merit scholarships (which are more plentiful at some state schools than at the top private schools). Another lure is the excellent engineering and business programs at some state schools. Then, too, we could get into a philosophical discussion about whether the higher spending levels at “elite” private schools really do result in objectively better undergraduate education. Some excellent students may not think so, would prefer the broader course selection (or other features) of a large state school, and are willing to pay a ~$15K premium over their own state school, but not a ~$30K or ~$40K premium for a private school (especially if it’s one that doesn’t have very strong engineering/business/architecture programs.)