To answer @Gator88NE comments post 70 and 74:
UA will not have its own medical school. In AL, cannot have state supported duplication of programs when not needed, even if a University wanted to gear resources that way - medical schools are hugely expensive. AL has two medical schools already. At one time UAH actually had family practice training under UAH - but some years ago they ‘sold’ that to UAB, so the program is continuing successfully under UAB. UAB in the 1990’s set up more regional family practice training in the state. IDK how much they coordinate with USA’s medical school mission on meeting the needs of docs in various parts of the state. Huntsville Hospital has acquired a lot of hospitals under their umbrella - second to UAB. UAB hospital and UAB University are both under the President, so the President is a MD.
UA may be working to enlarge their nursing program a bit, but that takes resources too and there may not be enough medical facilities in the area for increasing it much either.
UAB and UAH have a lot of master’s and graduate degrees earned - UA is not ‘competing’ against AU in some academic ways. AU has a lot of medical research too. I know a medical oncologist whose older two kids have attended or graduated from AU - the older one is going to her parents’ medical school alma mater in Florida.
As far as engineering, with UA’s STEM UG work in the past recent years, in-state employers and residents are recognizing the UG engineering students from UA. My UA daughter’s intern position historically has a lot of career engineers from AU - but the company recognizes the students coming from UA have a solid education. A friend of mine works for the company, and I asked him “with so many AU engineers, what is thought about UA engineers?” and he joked back that they let a few in from UA. DD now also has the course offerings with the expanded Civil Eng degree offerings with architectural engineering under civil eng. However after going to AU engineering day while she was in HS, she said even if UA didn’t have exactly what she wanted to study, she was going to UA and no way was going to AU.
Many students go to AU even if they were eligible for the extra engineering scholarship at UA for their stats - my neighbor’s kid is an example. His parents (both Vanderbilt engineers) preferred UA over AU, but it was his choice.
CyclonesGrad, I am not saying UA is not getting a lot of the top in state students, just that it is getting significantly fewer in state students relative to what it got in 2008. I have no idea if UA Is getting fewer top in state students since then.
I just talked to an Auburn engineering grad here at my work. She said that when she went to school, late 80s/early 90s, AU was known as the engineering/Ag school and UA was known as the business school.
She still thinks AU is the better engineering school but said she bases that on her past experience. She also commented that many times when she interviews someone the school really does not matter as long as it is accredited.
She also commented that there is FIERCE competition between AU and UA that goes beyond the gridiron. That answer was to my question of why UA and AU are battling so hard for engineering students.
The other comment I found interesting is that AU has a reciprocity agreement with Georgia. Is that true? She also said that the AU engineering school has a tight connection with Georgia Tech.
@SOSConcern Is AU a separate entity from the AL college system? You discussed that the state does not support duplication of colleges, yet, it seems like AU and UA are in direct competition with each other regarding engineering. Why is that allowed?
@Atlanta68 The AU grad I Mention above told me that the town of Auburn is basically just the university. Maybe know that UA has become much larger and the surrounding town is much larger than AU, AL kids prefer the smaller town feel. Are most kids in AL from smaller communities? OOS students, I think, tend to come from bigger metro areas, i.e. Dallas, Chicago, Philly, etc.
Most Alabamians, despite common perceptions, are urban.
A bit old, but interesting: http://uanews.ua.edu/2012/04/alabama-rural-or-urban-it-depends-according-to-ua-analyst/
@Atlanta68 and @aeromom I did not say rural. I will say the density of Chicago metro is significantly more than Birmingham or Huntsville. Same goes for Dallas/Ft. Worth, Philly, NY metro.
At least in my area, students come from big public HS of 2500 - 3500 students. Going to a big university is not so daunting. When you come from a smaller school/community, wouldn’t you be more inclined to go to a closer knit university? AU fits better for that type of student. The university is the town and the town is the university.
Many of the flagship schools here in the Midwest are 30K+ students (50% bigger than AU) so people are used to that, actually expected.
UA growth has potentially turned off some of the kids that may have gone there and by converse made it more appealing to OOS students who want the big university experience.
That may be true, but Auburn is not that far behind in enrollment. The greater small town feeling that surrounds the Auburn campus might be more appealing to some Alabamians for sure. But heck, UA has a large and serene river and has ample recreation space across campus, and still has a lot of green everywhere. I just want to know why freshman in state enrollment has decreased since 2008, though I guess UA has grown a lot since then, and that may have put off some potential in state students.
Some graduate degrees/programs are more regulated than others. For years UAH couldn’t designate their graduate business degree as MBA and instead was MSM (management) due to AL A & M Univ having a MBA program. That finally got changed. There are executive MBA programs, like UA’s also operating in N AL.
The big schools UA, and AU are allowed to have a full complement of degree plans. And it is true that in the past generally going to UA for business and AU for engineering was what was done with academic excellence and resources.
AU has its own board of governors, and AU-M was a satellite campus that has grown to be more. Other schools are also ‘independent’ with board of governors.USA. UNA, Historical black schools - AL A & M is a larger one. UA and AU systems are the largest in the state. AL A & M is also land grant/agriculture, and won money from the state years ago due to not having equal funding like AU.
As far as ‘battling hard’ for engineering students, I think UA’s sweeter deal with the engineering scholarship $$ (starting at $1500/year and going to max $2500/year for the higher stat students) may lure some to come to UA. Engineering students also go to UAH, UAB, USA, etc. For the size of school, UAH has a bigger complement of engineering/STEM with the local tech demand for the graduate degrees and also offering PhDs in engineering disciplines - UAH started offering grad degrees before UG, and was a satellite campus to UA before being est as a full college/university.
There may be some students within a certain geographic area to AU (close GA and close FL) that in the past have perhaps gotten in-state tuition. I know a few counties in TN close to UAH do currently get in-state tuition for UAH. It also may be tied with employment in AL, but may not be in effect anymore at AU.
In addition to UAB getting football restored, UAH was going to lose hockey (yes a big history with hockey) until there was a real rally to reverse that decision. UAH is the hockey capital of the south…
I don’t know about any ‘tight’ connection between AU and GT.
If someone is from GA and wants to study eng, in most cases they would go to GT if able to get admitted. I do know a student paying full OOS tuition for GT - parents are willing to pay. I know some AL eng students have wanted to go to GT but ‘settled’ for AU.
There are some older people that are fiercy AU or UA loyal that have never attended, and some of their kids may never have attended. It is mostly all about football. HS and College Football are very big in AL.
It’s a great theory, but hard to know without seeing some of the data regarding who’s going where and why.
I suspect it’s a combination of that, along with heightened rivalry between the two universities as UA gains more national exposure. I can certainly imagine many of those fiercely loyal AU alums (many of whom are engineers) steering their in-state students to AU, while UA’s engineering school expands due to the influx of high-stats OOS students.
I haven’t seen any statistics for the breakdown by individual college within UA, but that would be interesting to see too.
@Atlanta68 UA’s in-state cost have grown (we lose track of that, with our focus on OOS merit scholarships). That’s likely leading to a decrease in in-state students. Also, UA has been becoming more selective, even for in-state students.
UA’s in-state Tuition and Fees:
2011-12: $8,600
2012-13: $9,200
2013-14: $9,450
2014-15: $9,826
2015-16: $10,170
(Tuition and Fees at AU are higher, but at AUB it’s $2k to $3K less a year).
Historically, engineering students in Georgia attempted to get into GT, if not, the next “best” programs, based on rep, location and cost, are Clemson and AU (or stay in-state at GSU). GT has gotten so competitive, that a student could be rejected from GT, but earn a top scholarship at AU or UA.
I don’t understand. You say tuition and fees at AU are higher but then you say at AU, it is 2 to 3 K less per year? I think the in state tuition rates are about the same at each school, so why have tuition increases hurt in state enrollment only at UA.
@Atlanta68 My bad, it’s a lot lower at UAB!! (Didn’t mean to write AUB). Some of those in-state students that may have gone to UA in the past are going to UAB, UAH, and other in-state schools.
There are many AU students that find ‘cheap’ housing - trailers included, and drive in a little. I would venture to say that in general, the quality and price of housing around UA is higher than around AU.
UA in the past had highest tuition, then at one time UAH did. AU is jacking up fees, esp to pay for the new recreation center - I don’t remember how much of a ‘fee’ got tacked on, but it pinched. What was good for us is that we had AL Prepaid College Tuition, so that program pays out to her up to 135 hours at UA (she has full tuition scholarship already). Last year PACT paid her $8500 (PACT was going to run out of money, so they got the State Supreme Court to sign off on a settlement where they pay fall 2010 tuition rates; that went into effect starting fall 2013). Fall 2010, UA and AU had identical tuition rates.
I think it is notable that a UAH research scientist Dr Tyson Littenberg (with CSPAR research - UAH Center for Space Plasma and Aeronomic Research) helped develop the computer algorithms that ultimately confirmed what scientist thought they had found with the LIGO findings announced Friday. Also a USA graduate (that is a 4th year grad student in PhD program at LSU) has been working with characterizing noise sources in the detector, with a focus on seismic noise, with the LIGO research. Maybe can find article on al.com .
When we were comparing costs at UA v AU in 2013 I don’t recall the fees being much different at either school - food and housing was much higher at UA than AU but the scholarship money at UA outweighed the difference by 2. However, that AU Rec Ctr is awesome if you haven’t seen it - and well used by the kids/profs. Housing on campus is limited at AU but they have quite a large number of very, actually very nice off campus apartments/townhomes. I have no doubt you can find trailers outside of Tuscaloosa as well but there is not a housing shortage at Auburn unless you want to stay on campus.
@threeofthree, I forget, was your student in-state or OOS? What other schools did s/he consider?
Do you have any insights why someone from AL might choose one school over the other? Is it mostly family connections? Financial incentives? Or is it just a “gut feel”?
I met a woman at Bama Bound from CA who had twins–one starting at UA and the other at AU. She wasn’t even aware of the rivalry between the schools–she was just happy her kids were going to school in the same state! 
We are OOS, just across the state line in Georgia. For my son it was just fit - my family loved the attention from Bama (the Special Honors tour etc) but there was just something special about Auburn that clicked - nothing negative about Bama. Son looked in state at GaTech and UGA (new Engineering) and regionally at NCSU, VT , UA and AU. We didn’t look OOS until we found out about merit $'s. We assumed son would be admitted to GATech at full tuition under the Zell Miller scholarship but he was not admitted. Got into UGA Honors program with a leadership scholarsbip tacked on but they didn’t even address their new engineering program when he toured.
BTW one of my nieces is a Senior at UA and is OOS. Was big into Sorority (Old Row) ended up not liking it which blows my mind since she seems exactly that type - but she dropped out of the sorority and has continued to thrive with friends and school - so no you don’t have to be in a sorority at UA to be successful… Just some more confirmation on what many have said.
That’s crazy he wasn’t admitted to Georgia Tech, @threeofthree, if you’re in state and he qualified for big merit awards OOS. Are you allowed to use your Hope Scholarship OOS? (I live in PA and we have NOTHING like that.)
Well he’s in good company with Georgia students in Engineering at Auburn. The school, campus, students, the entire atmosphere turned out to be a perfect fit for his personality.