<p>An article on the growth of honors colleges at public universities. The most interesting piece of information concerns the possibility that honors colleges, which cap enrolments in classes, may cause non-honors students to be in much larger classes as faculty is not expanded.</p>
<p>Yes, I saw that too. My son said he agreed with the content of the article. Rutgers for example, goes out of it's way to tell honors students that they will get individual attention and smaller classes and better dorms.</p>
<p>Honors Colleges and residential colleges within large research universities have long been overlooked in university-wide "rankings." There are some very fine colleges of both types that often offer the kind of intensive sense of community with other students and with faculty that one finds at much smaller colleges. At the same time, serious students who want to enjoy some of the advantages of a big-time university (huge variety of courses, opportunity to take graduate courses, big time competitive athletics, etc.) can take advantage of that as well.</p>
<p>I saw the article as well, and noticed that a huge jump in NMS winners at Arizona State was attributed to their Honors College. If this is the typical impact on the state universities, then Honors Colleges must really be threatening to the elite schools: direct competition for the top students at a significant price discount. This is all to the good, in my view.</p>
<p>You know I wonder, knowing how many students in my state would never leave the state, if these are all new NMS winners, or if many were there all along, now being "tracked" more exactly?</p>
<p>I like the idea of honors colleges since it means that state universities can attract more top students, often from in-state. But I am troubled by the suggestion that staffing honors colleges is done at the expense of non-honors students who already have to put up with larger class size and less support than at LACs.
Do the top students in the honors colleges help bring up the general level of the student body or do the honors colleges reinforce the gap between their students and the others by shifting limited resources away from the latter?
What troubles me about this trend is that it seems to come during a time of budgetary crunch at practically every state universities.</p>
<p>It is great...Good Quality education at Walmart prices !</p>
<p>During a tour at Ohio University, the guide said something about their Honors Tutorial College: “Those guys get all the big perks.” My son decided then and there that HTC was the place for him. Fantastic individualized attention (and all the perks), but a lot was expected in return - not just in grades, but in leadership in the school as a whole. The *raison d’</p>
<p>UMDCP has it too, but on 3 levels, so it really has amped up the stats for incoming class, which than makes the school even more attractive to others.</p>
<p>The downside I see with this is some of the big perks hurt the “avg” student. For example, if you don’t get into one of these 3 levels, you can basically forget getting any merit.</p>
<p>Secondly, these students are required to do internships, so the plum internships are really offered to them and not the avg student. </p>
<p>That makes it an issue later on as the academic student just because you are in honors doesn’t mean you will carry that 3.5 gpa, but you are in the system so you have more options even if your college gpa is lower.</p>
<p>FWIW, our DS is one of those 3 levels, and his gpa is over 3.5, thus, it is not a sour grapes issue.</p>
<p>S2 has two honor’s program acceptances from state flagships. At one school, it seems like they will treat you like a rock star - new dorm suites, dinner at professor’s homes, etc. At the U of Minn (which is his current #1 choice) the perks seem smaller, but fulfill his needs - honor’s housing, more personalized advising, honor’s courses in his major and the potential to graduate with Latin honors. </p>
<p>We are still awaiting the decision from 2 reachy, reach schools and one match. Knowing that because of an honor’s program he would be happy at our state flagship thrills me!</p>
<h1>4 and #5 - ASU markets VERY aggressively to OOS NMS finalists. Free ride, regional dinners around the country (free of course) to potential applicants and their families to tout ASU, IIRC free trip to ASU (from the east coast even) to see the place.</h1>
<p>Way more than just offering an honors college. If I were a citizen of Arizona, I would seriously question if this was the optimal use of state higher ed dollars.</p>
<p>Better that they spend bucks recruiting academic superstars than athletes, imo. OOS enrollment is capped by the legislature, so they might as well get the very best students they can. Barrett got some very large gifts, and I would guess ASU faculty gain too when more thigh talent students enroll.</p>
<p>Honors college is a fancy term for “merit aid discounting”. At a state university, this is money that – one way or another – is being moved out of the overall budget picture.</p>
<p>And it costs FAR more per student to teach engineering and sciences than most liberal arts majors. Nothing is perfectly “fair”. The goal of most honors programs is to attract and motivate better than average students at a given school thus improving the overal school academic profile. It appears to work.</p>
<p>It is a good strategy to improve your state’s performance. I can guarantee that at least some of the OOS students attending honors colleges in the given states will decide that that state is where they will make their home as adults. That is a good incentive for a state since it raises the educational level of residents in the state and helps attract new businesses.</p>