Continue reading »]]> This question is our favorite analogy at EducatedQuest.

Sadly, it’s not a riddle as college tuition has increased faster than inflation while borrowing limits on publicly supported student loan programs have not increased significantly. Today, in fact, college may be the most expensive purchase many families make, especially if they raise more than one child.

Below are some reasons why choosing a college is like buying a house, which used to be the most expensive purchase that most families made.

+ There is a complex market of buyers and sellers. Much like home builders, college admissions offices are very aggressive marketers. They will try first to get you to come through the door, then actively contact you after you make your first visit, hoping that you will complete an application and return to consider them again.

+ People have emotional attachments to a place and neighborhood. Whenever you buy a house you look at the community you are going to be living in. You might consider costs, but more important, you may consider how first impressions, how neat and tidy a neighborhood might be, how safe it is, how friendly people are when you approach them. Serious buyers will usually find that there is one place that is nicer than all of the others, and will try to see if that place is affordable before considering another place.

+ There is a long-term financial commitment. Families borrow over long periods of time to pay for college or a home, and sometimes the terms to postpone or refinance that debt can be quite complicated. Needless to say, failure to pay can destroy your family’s credit worthiness for a long time. In addition, homes and college educations can be financed through Federally sponsored programs, though not all buyers qualify.

+ Educational prestige. Homes that are located in a community that has a top-performing school district typically carry a higher value than those that have no few or no public schools or those that have average-to-poor performing ones. Colleges that are reputed to graduate the greatest share of their students on time tend to be among the most selective and most expensive schools in the country. The value of their degree carries far into the future as graduates seek opportunities for economic advancement. There are few publicly funded colleges–the University of Virginia and UNC-Chapel Hill, being two examples–that perform at the same level as the top private schools, though they represent excellent educational values for the money.

+ Opportunities to meet new people. Some colleges, like some residential neighborhoods, are noted for their diversity while others have proven to be places where people want to live with others who share the same religious beliefs and social values. There are college students who want to be exposed to new people, ideas and cultures, and there are some who want to live within their comfort zone. Choices are abundant.

+ An expensive mistake to undo.  If you buy a house and things turn out badly you can sell it, but you have costs. If the house has lost value, you may owe more than it is worth. If the house needs repairs or upgrades to be sold, you may need to reduce your asking price or cover the costs of the work at your expense. In addition, you have to pay commission to the real estate agent(s) who represent you as well as the seller, and you  have closing costs and moving expenses to cover on the next house. If you choose the wrong college you have to go through the costs of the search again and you might not get credit for the courses you took before you transferred out. This means that it will take longer to graduate, which means more tuition as well as lost income.

We know there are more answers to this question. Feel free to chime in.

Continue reading »]]> This week’s Education Week covered the issuance of a report by the College Board which discusses participation in advanced placement courses across the nation. Citing the report, the story mentions that around 904,000 high school students in the Class of 2011 had taken at least one advanced placement course. This represents about 30 percent of all high school graduates. Over 616,000 of these students report their scores to colleges and universities.

However, the College Board also reported that more than 40 percent of the students who took those exams did not pass them.  This is a concern as students take advanced courses because:

• They are interested enough in the subject matter to devote more time to it in school.
• They are led to believe that successful completion of the course will lead to a passing score on the national exam.
• They are led to believe that successful completion of the course will lead to college credit, one less course to take at a much higher cost in college.
• Admissions officers have done an excellent job of telling them that the rigor of a high school transcript is at least as important as the grades they earn in their classes.

Ideally, admissions officers want to see A’s in every class, including the most advanced classes a high school has to offer. However, they prefer to see a student try and come close to excellence rather than avoid it; a B+ in an advanced placement class carries more value than an A in a mainstream class in the same subject. But oddly enough, Educated Quest school visits revealed that admissions officers, at least at the 12 schools visited to date, cared less about the score on the national test than the grade in the high school advanced placement course.

The story also discussed increases in participation rates for advanced placement exams in a small number of subjects. For example, there has been a nearly 300 percent increase in test-taking for exams in Chinese Language and Culture since 2007. While the numbers of test takers were small–the jump was from less than 1,100 to more than 4,100 students–it shows that more students were prepared to take this test and likely more colleges were willing to grant credit for a passing score or better. It may also reflect growing numbers of Chinese students in leading U.S high schools.

In addition:

+Participation in English Language and Composition exams rose by 68 percent from 2006 through 2011, from less than 194,000 test takers to just over 326,000. This is significant for every incoming college freshman who does not achieve advanced standing must usually take at least one English composition or expository writing course.

+Participation in World History exams rose by 193 percent during this same period, from around 45,000 test takers to over 132,000. Conservative scholars are often advocates for colleges to offer a more global view of history, either through a world history course or through classes on all civilizations, as opposed to allowing students to take courses in only some of them.

+ Participation in examinations in Microeconomics and Macroeconomics and Psychology has risen by 62, 69 and 96 percent respectively. This may show that high school offerings in these subjects are coming closer in quality to college level coursework, that the high school class may not be a “watered down” version of a college course.  Economics and psychology are also among the more popular majors in colleges of all types, especially smaller liberal arts schools. The same may be true for participation in the U.S. Government and Politics exam; the number of test takers has risen by 61 percent in another subject that becomes a popular college major.

+ Participation in the advanced Statistics exam has risen by 63 percent from less than 74,000 students to just over 120,000. While few college students major in Statistics, the subject is a required course in several majors in the social, mathematical, natural and physical sciences; it is probably more important and more relevant than mathematics beyond pre-calculus in several majors.

Should your student load up on Advanced Placement courses? It depends. If s/he is interested in the subject, and you believe the teacher to be conscientious–presumably the teacher will be someone you are familiar–then by all means yes. If s/he does not find the work difficult, though is less passionate about the subject, there is no reason not to take the advanced course. But if s/he would feel lost in a class where the material has never been a major interest, then skip the advanced class.

College admissions officers prefer to admit students who display a passionate interest in an academic subject. Consistency, meaning interest in the subject, academic excellence in the subject, and an intention to study the subject in college, helps tremendously in setting a student apart in a competitive selection process.  Admissions officers will also accept very good to excellent grades in the mainstream courses in the subjects that a student is less passionate  about, when they are combined with grades in the subjects where s/he has shown passion and excellence.

Click here to check out the College Board’s report.

Continue reading »]]> While every U.S. state has a flagship public university, other states such as New Jersey, Missouri and Virginia have smaller public schools that have developed excellent academic reputations.

For example, The College of New Jersey (TCNJ), which we have previously profiled, has a four-year graduation rate of 71 percent versus 53 percent for Rutgers University-New Brunswick, the state’s largest and leading research institution. Ramapo College of New Jersey, a 6,000 student liberal arts focused school which will soon be profiled here, has a four-year graduation rate of 64 percent.

Truman State University advertises itself as Missouri’s selective public liberal arts university. While calling itself a university, Truman State actually has 5600 undergraduates, fewer than Ramapo, which has no plans to call itself a university. Truman State has a four-year graduation rate of 43 percent, same as the flagship University of Missouri in Columbia. However, their students owe, on average, $7,000 less.

James Madison University, located about two hours from Washington DC, is another top performer. Around two-thirds of their freshmen graduate on time. So do slightly more than two thirds of the freshmen at University of Mary Washington, an hour north on I-81 from JMU. Virginia Tech, the state’s largest research university graduates 53 percent of its freshmen on time.

Are TCNJ, Ramapo, Truman State, James Madison and Mary Washington necessarily better schools than the flagship research universities in their states? If you consider these schools based on the quality of their entering freshmen, possibly yes. These students were bright enough to get into the flagship as well as top private schools.

If you consider these schools based on scholarship dollars and resources, it depends on the school. These schools have shorter histories than the flagship schools in their states. TCNJ, formerly known as Trenton State College, has been on its current trajectory since 1992. Ramapo, New Jersey’s youngest state college, turned 40 only this year. Truman State, formerly known as Northeast Missouri State University, did not become the state’s only public liberal arts university until 1985, and was not known under its current name for another 10 years.  James Madison and Mary Washington started as public women’s colleges.

Aside from performance, is there more good news about these schools?

Yes. They try to offer a more “hands-on” approach to education than students will find at a flagship state university. They have far fewer graduate students, so undergraduates enjoy more access to the faculty. They do not need to compete with graduate students to get a professors attention. These schools have fewer large lecture classes. In part this is because there are fewer students. It is also because there are few graduate students to be teaching assistants.

What are the downsides to these schools?

With the exception of TCNJ, all of these schools charge less than the flagship in their state. TCNJ works on a “high tuition” model where the neediest students, as well as the best out-of-state students, receive the most financial aid. The other schools charge everyone a lower price–James Madison, for example, charges out-of-state students $16,000 less than the University of Virginia or the College of William and Mary—yet offer few scholarships. A student who has grades and test scores in the upper quarter for either the regional school or the flagship has a better chance of getting aid from the flagship. The flagship has more money to give.

Another consideration is: “Is this school well known to employers?” James Madison has a well-developed career development center and the school is close to Washington D.C. as well as Baltimore and Central Pennsylvania. The school also has more than 100,000 living alumni, many of whom have recently risen into responsible positions within their organizations or become successful entrepreneurs. However, Ramapo, which has a shorter history and has a third as many students, has less than 35,000 alumni, most of whom live in Northern New Jersey. The smaller school attracts fewer visiting employers because there are fewer students to recruit.

If you’re drawn to both types of schools in the same state, visit both. Tour the campus and get a handle on the academic and residential experience. Meet with career services and alumni relations to get a sense of the network that has been developed by the school. Whether a school is a flagship or a top regional institution, it should be focused on student success and a nurturing network to help after graduation.

Continue reading »]]> Here at Educated Quest, we’ve learned that the large public universities typically have lower four-year graduation rates than leading private universities and liberal arts colleges. Generally, the less closed-knit a college community is, the lower the graduation rate. Closed knit does not mean only the events that bind a student body together or blend students with proud alumni. It also means the interactions between students and faculty and professionals that lead to the successful completion of a degree.

Concerned about the low–50 percent–four-year graduation rate of its students, the leadership at the University of Texas-Austin commissioned a task force, including students, faculty and administrators, to identify the reasons why students stick around too long, and come up with achievable solutions to the problems. The task force did not try to reinvent the wheel when it did not have to. They came up with 60 ideas. Some, like a mandatory requirement to attend freshman orientation, will cost practically nothing. Others, such as online degree progress monitoring and strengthened academic advising, have costs attached. But this is one school that can invent the technology or raise the money if it has to.

The University of Texas flagship campus is not the only national research university that is attempting to increase the number of students who graduate on time. The University of Maryland-College Park, which we visited, has put some interesting ideas in place, some of which the Texas task force mentioned in their report. These include:

• Four-year degree plans, prepared by students, to demonstrate that they can complete their major program, as well as any possible second major or minor(s) within four years. At Texas, the plan would also be targeted to achieving a 2.75 GPA.
• An “early warning” system to bring students in academic difficulty into contact with advisors as soon as possible.
• A policy that students may repeat a course only once, should they fail it the first time.
• A policy where students who cannot complete a degree program within a specific timeframe, 10 semesters being one example, must choose another major.
• Refinement of the developmental mathematics course, so that students could transition into a credit-based mathematics course within five weeks.

The Texas task force went some steps further, including:

• Enforcement of a “slacker” law, already on the state books, that that allows the university to charge out-of-state tuition to Texas residents who have 30 or more credits beyond what is needed for a degree yet don’t apply for graduation. The “slacker law” would have affected 24 percent of students in the class of 2004, the year the task force used for its study.
• Require all freshmen, excluding commuting students, we presume, to live in university-operated housing.
• Redesign the freshman orientation program.
• Charge flat-rate tuition for summer sessions to encourage students to sign up for more courses.

The University of Texas is a very big school, with over 37,000 undergraduates, about the same as Penn State, though larger than Maryland. Implementation of all or most of the task force recommendations, especially those involving new staff and technology, will take time. But they may have a fan within the governor’s office and conservative elements in the Texas legislature. These policies are the most cost-effective way to help ensure affordability and accessibility of the university to future students. Students who concentrate harder on their degree programs are more likely to not only graduate on time, but also to accumulate less debt. They are also less likely to take scholarship funds from future students as well as subsidized loan funds.

No parent wants to believe that their student has a remote chance of failing to graduate. However, any family considering one or more colleges should ask admissions and student affairs officers about the programs in place to lead their student towards a degree on time. If a school is thoughtful and comprehensive about describing its orientation and advising processes–the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill was one such school–place a check mark in your notes. Especially if they have the numbers to back up their success.

Continue reading »]]> This past fall, Seton Hall University, located in West Orange in our home state of New Jersey, announced that it would match the Rutgers-New Brunswick in-state tuition for “high-achieving” students. In Seton Hall’s case, these students would need to rank in the top ten percent of their class and score a 1200 combined on the SAT Math and Critical Reading sections with neither score below 550. If the student took the ACT, the minimum cut-off score was a 27.

The discount is substantial, around $21,000 for those who applied by December 1. Although Seton Hall has not released 2012-13 rates, the discount will be renewable in some form–a three-to-five percent annual tuition increase is still possible–provided the student maintains a GPA of 3.0 or better. While Rutgers is the only school mentioned on Seton Hall’s site, the discount is also available to high-achieving out-of-state students. Today, the 25-75 SAT range for Seton Hall students is 980 to 1170, with a median of 1070. The range for Rutgers-New Brunswick is 1080 to 1310, with a median around 1200. Seton Hall is trying to match the price for the “average” Rutgers student who might not qualify for need-based or merit-based aid from Rutgers.

At first glance this sounds like a very good deal, especially for a student who wants a Catholic college education. But is Seton Hall as good a school as Rutgers-New Brunswick? If a school wants to match a flagship state school on price, can it match on performance too?

Unfortunately, Seton Hall, does not post a current Common Data Set on its school Web site, although Rutgers does. However, both schools reported the following to U.S. News:

+ Six-year graduation rate (Predicted): Rutgers-New Brunswick 70%, Seton Hall 61%

+ Six-year graduation rate (Actual): Rutgers-New Brunswick 77%, Seton Hall 65%

Not only does Rutgers perform better on both measures, the difference between (seven points for Rutgers, four points for Seton Hall) is higher for the state university. That difference can be considered the school’s efficacy: How much do the faculty and the student services influence the chance that a student will graduate?

If Rutgers does more for students than Seton Hall, on this measure, then why would a student who is interested in both schools pass on Rutgers? If the student felt more comfortable on the Seton Hall campus, I could understand. There are far fewer students to share the campus; only 5,300 undergraduates at Seton Hall, compared to more than 30,000 at Rutgers. A student bound for Seton Hall might consider him/herself less of a “number.”  But Rutgers also has more student services than Seton Hall. It has to serve more students.

Then there is the issue of campus community. Unless those high achievers commute they have to live somewhere. On this score, Seton Hall does a decent job. The university houses more than 1,000 freshmen in two dorms, and 2,350 undergraduates overall, nearly half of the student body. Rutgers houses more than half of their students, including over 85 percent of the freshmen. However, Seton Hall, being closer to New York City, is located in the more expensive housing market. So, a Seton Hall student might pay the same tuition as a Rutgers student, but might pay more for housing after their freshman or sophomore year.

But suppose the prospective Seton Hall student is not interested in Rutgers, but s/he wants a Catholic college education. Following their fall tuition decision, Seton Hall dramatically undercut their price as compared to several leading Catholic universities including Boston College (MA), Catholic (DC), Georgetown (DC), Holy Cross (MA), La Salle (PA), St. John’s (NY), St. Joseph’s (PA) and Villanova (PA). In fact, Seton Hall had undercut all of these schools, albeit by less, before the university announced its high-achievers discount, though the high achievers went elsewhere. This shows that price–Seton Hall undercut these schools by as much as $10,000–was less of a factor for students that might have cross-shopped the university against other Catholic schools, or the other school offered enough aid to sway the enrollment decision. Now, Seton Hall’s reaction is to compete harder against these schools based on price.

In short, Seton Hall made a bold and interesting decision. However, the market size for students who might want a Catholic education, but feel forced to settle for a state university will not be known until Seton Hall completes its admissions cycle. If it is very large, let’s say 100 to 150 students, both Rutgers and Seton Hall have much to worry about. Rutgers, for obvious reasons; the university will not be getting the students. But Seton Hall will also be getting new students who will be paying two-thirds less, based on past performance. In addition, those who are already enrolled at Seton Hall who might have qualified for the same discount but were born too early may come to resent those whose timing was right.

It’s a lot for a university to ask incoming freshman to be the target of such resentment, even if they’re being given a substantial discount. It’s also an odd request to make of the students they wanted the most.

Continue reading »]]> At Educated Quest we have tried to provide profiles of some of the best-performing public colleges and universities in the country. Our definition of a best performer is mainly based on freshman retention rates and four-year and six-year graduation rates. In some cases we look at the difference between the Predicted Six-Year Graduation Rate as well as the Actual Six-Year Graduation Rate. The difference, when positive, shows that the academic programs as well as the student services–counseling, residence life and dining services are there for the students–have some effect on a student’s chances for success. Caring on the school’s part goes a long way towards helping a student earn a degree.

But while there several fine public institutions in this country, as well as several fine private ones that are excellent values worth considering, there are many public colleges and universities with extremely low graduation rates. This will become a greater concern to politicians in the future, and they are likely to ask: Why fund a failure forever? This is a more immediate concern to parents of high school students who will soon be college bound.

Our suggestion to parents and full-time students is to find schools that graduate at least 60 percent of their students within six years. At first glance, that’s a low hurdle. However, little more than half of our public four-year colleges hit the mark. At Educated Quest, a school with a 60 percent graduation six-year graduation rate would be considered “adequate,” presuming that the vast majority (at least 80 percent) of the students were full time.

But other schools, especially those located in downtown business districts, are better suited to students who work full time and attend classes around their work schedule. Such schools include  the University of Colorado-Denver , the Indiana University-Purdue University campuses in Indianapolis and Fort Wayne, the University of Missouri campuses in Kansas City and St. Louis, the University of Texas campuses in Arlington and Dallas, Rutgers University in Newark as well as the campus centers of the City University of New York. These schools provide access to a college degree at a lower cost than for-profit alternatives, as well as alumni affiliation with a larger university system.  Other states participate in state-wide or multi-state online universities targeted to adult students. Maryland and Penn State have exceptionally large adult education units. New Jersey (Thomas Edison College) and New York (Empire State College) operate their own schools. Other states participate in Western Governor’s University.

Here there is nothing but praise for these public educational options. They fit a mission of accessibility and affordability and the schools play important roles in their city’s economic development community. Public investments in these schools should continue, largely because they are working. Investments in Historically Black Colleges and Universities and those with large Hispanic populations are likely to continue, not only because they follow through on accessibility and affordability, but also because it would be political suicide to close them down.

Who else falls short? Some schools, like  Oklahoma State University, the University of Kentucky, the University of Utah, Arizona  State, the University of Arkansas, University of Mississippi, University of Maine, University of North Dakota, the University of South Dakota and West Virginia University are flagship or land grant institutions. These schools are too important to their state’s economy to shut down, though it is in the best interest of their state government as well as their administrations to place more emphasis on student achievement. The same is true for the schools that have their major presence in their state’s larger employment centers.

This leaves many regional campuses that serve much smaller areas. Some like Bakersfield, California or South Bend, Indiana have fallen into continued economic decline and population loss. Their base to attract new students is shrinking. No doubt governors have been advised to close these schools; their performance is not likely to get better, they hear.  Three states have chosen alternatives. In New York, two upstate public colleges share a single administration. The Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia have proposed the merger of eight schools.  In New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has proposed that the Camden campus of Rutgers University be merged into Rowan University, an institution consider more central to the southern part of the Garden State.

But no one has suggested closing a school, so educators and politicians have left the public with a perception that public institutions that lack a mission or fail to graduate most of their students have become too big to fail.

Continue reading »]]> This week the Princeton Review released its 166 Best Value public and private schools. The Review profiles these schools in a book that you can buy. We suggest that you wait until it arrives at your public library. While the Review relies on several legitimate factors to develop a value ranking, it goes overboard to find too many, including the overuse of student surveys. And it stops being a ranking beyond the top ten in either category.

The Review’s ten best buys in private schools are predictable. They are extremely selective schools that are capable of offering the most generous financial aid packages–presuming your college-bound student can get in. That makes the rankings meaningless for all but those students who can get in. However, that market is not large enough for the Review to sell many books.

Among the private schools that the Review places high regard , we also found six to be good values as well as top performers through out whitepapers on the Colleges that Change Lives: Centre College (KY), Cornell College (IA), Evergreen State College (WA), Reed College (OR), Wheaton College (IL) and Whitman College (WA). In our case a private school was a good value if a student left with a debt that was about the same, or less than s/he would incur if they went to a state school.

The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill was selected as the Best Value among public universities. Having visited and profiled the university, we have no quarrel with that ranking. Nor would we quarrel about the school ranked fourth, Binghamton University. We’ve spent some time there, too. We believe that school is a best buy for all students, in state and out of state, aid or no aid.

We have also profiled these schools that rank among the Review’s 165 Best Values: the University of Delaware, University of Maryland, St. Mary’s College of Maryland, The College of New Jersey, SUNY-Geneseo, James Madison University and Virginia Tech. While neither Delaware nor St. Mary’s is cheap for an out-of-state student, they are good values for in-state residents. St. Mary’s gets additional kudos for having the best four-year graduation rate among public colleges and universities in Maryland.  All of these schools retain more than 90 percent of their freshman class, graduate at least half of them within four years and at least 75 percent within six.

What was interesting about the Top Ten among the Review’s public schools was that six: New College of Florida, U.Va, William and Mary, the University of Washington and the University of Texas-Austin charge in excess of $30,000 for out-of-state tuition and fees. This is important to note, since out-of-state students are less likely to receive scholarships from the schools unless they’re in the upper quarter of the applicant pool–and those students can often gain admission to an Ivy League school!It’s hard to consider these schools among the best values when an Ivy League school or other equally reputable institution can end up being a better buy.

Two other listed schools: The University of Florida and the University of Georgia charge less, but they also have very low out-of-state enrollments as well as ties to large state-run merit scholarship programs. They are not terribly accessible places to out-of-state students.  While Chapel Hill and Binghamton respectively take 18 and 15 percent of their students from out-of-state, Florida and Georgia welcome less than ten percent.

Which takes us to our major point. In our view the most important determinants of value are base price (you have to work down from something), the most available discounts (aka scholarships and grants), low indebtedness and high graduation and retention rates. We’re left to wonder how much importance the Review places on these criteria.

Fortunately, there are many schools that work very hard to provide value and help their students succeed, and not all are elite schools that are impossible to get into. Too bad the Review missed so many in their value-based review.

Continue reading »]]> Imagine you are a college administrator who has learned that a dorm has asbestos or mold problems, and therefore not up to code. Or, on a better note, has learned that more freshmen are coming to campus than expected. How do schools react when they are in either situation? Two of the schools profiled on Educated Quest, St. Mary’s College of Maryland and The College of New Jersey have faced such issues.

At St. Mary’s an outbreak of mold forced the college to temporarily close two freshman and sophomore dormitories that housed 240 students. The mold flourished because of excessive moisture that built up around ventilation pipes in the wake of the storm. The college administration took a very creative approach. Being on a riverfront, the St. Mary’s campus had enough room to dock the Sea Voyager, an out-of-service cruise ship. The ship, formerly known as the Cape May Light, originally launched in 2001. The Cape May Light played host to tours along U.S. East Coast waters; passenger fees started at around $2,500 a trip.

While the accommodations were not extravagant, the ship’s crew crew replaced linens and towels twice a week and provided laundry service. Students shared bathrooms with their roommates instead of an entire floor of co-eds. It cost $2.5 million for the college to rent the ship as well as clean up the mold. But the money was well spent.

The alternative? Send students to live in hotels that were as much as 45 minutes from campus. While fairly isolated, St. Mary’s is near a state highway that serves a military base as well as military contractors. The competition from this market would have likely forced students to live further from campus. Instead, the displaced were able to live close by and participate in college’s residence life programs.  In addition, they got a novelty and a memory from their school.

The College of New Jersey (TCNJ) has had more time to solve their problem. Next year, the college will close Cromwell Hall, a dorm that has housed freshmen honor’s students, so that repairs can be to the  plumbing system, the roof, some mechanical systems, and furniture. New bathroom fixtures will also be installed and the building will be painted. While St. Mary’s moved freshmen and sophomores onto the cruise ship, TCNJ will relocated the underclassmen to other dorms and move upperclassmen off campus. The college expects to offer new upper-class housing as part of Campus Town, a mixed used development project that is expected to open next year.

In the meantime, TCNJ is taking bids from hotel operators who have properties within a 20 minute commute from campus. Students who choose to live in the hotels will receive maid service once a week as well as shuttle bus services to and from campus. One might expect the hotel arrangement to be more attractive to students who have cars, and can drive to the campus, or elsewhere during evenings and weekends. TCNJ allows freshmen to have cars for only two weeks during the fall and spring semesters. It is also reasonable to expect to see more interest in fraternities and sororities. Although they do not own houses at TCNJ, their members team up to share homes and apartments off-campus. A home near campus with a kitchen offers cheaper accommodations than a hotel.

It is not unusual for colleges to use hotels as a temporary measure to house students. But one lesson from the experience is that freshmen deserve priority when it comes to living on or close to campus. They are least likely to know the campus community. The best way for them to learn is to live close to where they attend class, study and eat. After they are academically underway they can live anywhere they choose.

Continue reading »]]> Today, the day after incoming Rutgers football coach Kyle Flood announced the commitments of the most successful class in his team’s history, there is a story on NJ.com and affiliates that Rutgers faculty have asked that cuts be made in the athletic budget. Faculty spokespersons in the university’s College of Arts and Sciences have asked that students be allowed to vote on how the portion of their fees dedicated to athletics are spent. Rutgers was the first school profiled on EducatedQuest, so the story was worth some follow-through that was not done by the reporters.

The gist of the story, from the faculty members’ perspective, is that the university has walked away from its obligations under a faculty union contract while the football program and the coaching staff got more money from the university and from the students. That part is understandable. The union and the university administration negotiated a contract, which provided for raises, supposedly in good faith, and the university has not made good. They deserve a raise. Fair enough.

But the students and their families would come out the losers no matter what.Rutgers would be trading cuts in one place for spending increases in another. The $211 per undergraduate and graduate student ($8.44 million divided by 40,000 students)  that went to athletics in 2010, and is presumably still going to athletics in 2012, could be put towards a tuition increase instead. Someone must come up with the money to pay the faculty. Who better than the students to foot the bill, especially those who are already there?

And there’s more.

Too much is being made of the comment that student fees and a university budget are subsidizing an athletic program.

The truth is that student fees and a university budget subsidize many things that are not used by every student. There are hundreds of student organizations at Rutgers and a student affairs office built around supporting them, among other services. Some student groups, that primarily run meetings and events, have low budgets. Others, such as the band or the glee club, require special skills and/or have travel and equipment expenses. The band and the glee club, among other organizations, also demand more of a faculty adviser.  Here’s the point: Not everyone can be in the band or the glee club, but the students who can’t support the students who can. This is no less true for sports.

One faculty member said in the story that: “Parents got to know that the value of a Rutgers degree is under threat.”

Where is the proof?

The faculty members who had tenure in 2010 are, for the most part, the same people who are there in 2012. Did they care less about their careers while more money went to sports? Did they decide not to do as much research or to become less accessible or less effective teachers? Quite likely, no.

While the faculty are members of a union, they do care, as individuals, where they stand in their discipline. And they do care about student opinions on their teaching style. Otherwise, they would be hypocrites for taking a position that puts a greater fiduciary responsibility on their students.

The faculty who are the least likely to care about the students will be the most secure, who are at the top of the pay scale and well connected to an outside world, whether it be for funding sources for their research or potential employers or investors.   One thing you never hear from a tenured faculty member: they can earn an income outside the university while they draw a salary from the university. As one example, Lawrence Summers, former Secretary of the Treasury, earned $135,000 for giving a single speech at Goldman Sachs, after he had been forced to resign as president of Harvard, and had returned to the faculty. Not every economist can get paid that much for so little time, but a bright one can earn good money after s/he has received tenure.

Rutgers has brilliant scientists, famous authors and business analysts, among others. Rutgers faculty at the full professor rank are paid exceptionally well. On average, they earn more than their peers at Georgia Tech, Carnegie Mellon, UVa., UT-Austin, Penn State, Illinois, Pitt, Ohio State, Rochester and Case Western, among others. They’re not home flipping the couch cushions to find spare change.

One issue where student-faculty relations are of concern is with the hiring of new faculty. No doubt popular departments have had to pull back positions that they used to fill when a professor left to the university. This reduces the number of courses and increases the size of classes. This hurts the students. But this is not being raised by the faculty in the media.  The average salary of an assistant professor at Rutgers-New Brunswick ranks 38th among the larger public and private national research universities; the average for the full professors ranks 28th. Those who have the least seniority, and are under the most pressure to publish and teach, are the ones who are more likely to leave. They’re less likely to get tenure, so they would have more freedom to go.

If the spokespersons had framed their argument around the status of the more junior faculty, it would be understandable. But they chose not to. Instead they framed the argument, which appeared in the print version of the story in the Trenton Times, that Rutgers has dropped in academic rankings made by several important publications and organizations.

Academic rankings are made by peer academics, who usually work at other universities. They are the best qualified to assess scholarship. But that goes back to an earlier point: Do the scholars follow their passion and profession, or their school’s politics? One can wonder about the scholars who spoke to the reporters, but it’s doubtful they are in the majority.

But, more important are the measures of how students fare, especially freshmen. The Rutgers freshman retention rate is 91 percent, better than most public or private research universities. Retention is dependent, in part, on the quality of the students, but also the academics and the support structure around them.

Entering freshmen have had mean SAT scores (Critical Reading and Math) of around 1,200 for more than a decade.  While there are questions about the value of the standardized test, the scores are regularly used as a measure of quality. Based on that measure, Rutgers-New Brunswick students have not gotten “dumber”. And bright students have not been scared away from going to Rutgers as the football team has gotten better. Nor are they less attractive to potential employers or the graduate and professional schools when they are ready to leave. There’s never been a statement by an employer that they would no longer recruit Rutgers students because the university has invested in a football team.

Rutgers’ six-year graduation rate is 77 percent. It could be higher, but the main campus has been organized like a traditional state university for only six years. Before, there were five distinct colleges, each with their own degree requirements, which caused delays and confusion. The four-year graduation rate is 53 percent. That could be higher, too. But only 20 state-supported research universities are doing better.And some of them have fielded better football or men’s basketball teams.

Among state-supported universities, Rutgers has a huge upside. While it does not have the endowment of  Wisconsin or Texas, its performance is quite equal to those schools, which have achieved more recognition for academic and athletic achievement. Things can only get better as the university acquires more resources. But don’t blame the sports program for the “diminished quality” of the school unless you can back the statement up. It appears that scholarship and sports performance are improving at Rutgers, but both are not improving as fast as some people would like.  Such is life at any emerging public university, Rutgers included.

Continue reading »]]> Early today, we posted a story about a school that fudged their SAT scores. Now we’ll post one about a school that has no such need. They have decided not to require the test.

This year DePaul University in Chicago decided not to require the SAT as part of an application for admission. The nation’s largest Catholic university,with over 16,000 undergraduates is also going a step further: They will not use the SAT for any purpose, even placement into freshman English or mathematics course, or for scholarships. DePaul’s decision is significant for both the size of the school–it is one of the largest private universities in the country.

If you’re familiar with DePaul, you may already be from the Chicago area, or you might be a college basketball fan.

DePaul, which plays in the Big East, was one of the dominant college basketball programs in the country during the 1940′s. Led by George Mikan, the first true center in college and pro basketball history–he was six-ten, with a deadly hook shot–DePaul won the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) in 1945, at a time when the NIT was the more prestigious post-season event. Ray Meyer, who coached Mikan when he was only 28, remained at DePaul for 42 years while Mikan became as dominant a star in pro basketball as Babe Ruth was to Major League Baseball. He won more than 700 games, competing in 13 NCAA tournaments and 8 NITs, before he was succeeded by his son, Joe.  Detroit Piston fans will remember Mark Aguirre, who starred at DePaul under Joe, as one of the leaders of their championship teams.

With respect to academic demographics, DePaul is quite similar to Loyola, also in Chicago, according to College Results Online, a database managed by the Education Trust, a non-profit education advocacy organization based in Washington D.C.  DePaul and Loyola are not only located in the same city, they are also both religiously affiliated schools that grant doctoral degrees. While Loyola has approximately 4,000 fewer students,  both schools graduate more than sixty percent of their students within six years. Each student body is 23 percent Pell Grant-eligible.

That leads to a valid point behind DePaul’s decision to drop the test–applicants cross-shop the school against two Chicago schools that attract similar students, many who are first-generation college students. Of the incoming class of 2010, the latest figures available, 52 percent fall into one of four categories that make up what DePaul calls a “mission student” — a first generation college student, low income, an underrepresented student of color or a student from the City of Chicago. About four percent of the incoming 2010 freshman class fell into all four of these categories.

These students, while they may consider Loyola, are also likely to consider the Chicago Circle campus of the University of Illinois. In a situation where the choice is the urban campus of the state university, not the flagship, and the main campus of the religiously affiliated school–presuming both have the same majors–the religiously affiliated school will be quite competitive. It can fall back on its history within the city and Catholic community more easily than the public school. This also happens in New Jersey, home base for Educated Quest, when students choose between Rutgers-Newark and Seton Hall. Either school is accessible by public transportation while both reach out for diversity.

Removing the test, combined with waiving the application fee for low-moderate income students, will drive up applications from good local students from the Chicago area who might not otherwise consider DePaul, and thus maintain diversity.  The flip side is the work required of the admissions officers. DePaul’s officers are asking students to write four short essays of at least 100 words. They will need to read these essays to judge not only the quality of the writing  but also “non-cognitive” traits, such as leadership, commitment to service, and ability to meet long-term goals.

Also unknown is the ways in which students who do not submit SAT or ACT scores would be considered for merit-based financial aid.  Other schools grant academic merit awards to students who rank in the upper quarter or higher in their applicant pool; the SAT scores are part of that ranking. DePaul offers several types of merit-scholarships–the most generous, the Presidential Scholarship is for $15,500–all of which are renewable, based on academic performance, for up to 12 quarters of academic study. However, the scholarship page on the university’s Web site mentions nothing about the criteria used to choose the  recipients for the larger awards.  The financial aid office does make one important point: Apply early, the monies run out quickly.

However, DePaul should be lauded for making this decision. In the long run it will help them continue to maintain a diverse student body, important in a melting pot like Chicago, while the school eliminates a requirement that some educators consider to be an obstacle to diversity. Hopefully, the admissions officers are not reading those essays too quickly.