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Prestige is often nothing more than the the horse and rider logo on the polo shirt that comes at a steep price.
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<p>True, but in the context of college reputations, I think it is also used as a short and polite way to say one group of colleges is "better" overall than others. Like "top tier."</p>
<p>Standrews, you are not going to get me to defend USNRW. ;)</p>
<p>Good luck to you and your son. I have no doubt your son will do fine wherever he goes.</p>
<p>As a pronosticator my guess is Gordon Winston of Williams College is wrong on almost every count.</p>
<p>What is going to happen is that competition among colleges and universities for the most capable students is going to increase and the large state flagships will be the ones with the financial resources to attract the best students into their honors programs. The Harvard's and Yale's will probably have the resources to compete but the LAC's will be especially hardpressed because their business models are the least diversified.</p>
<p>Even the wealthiest LAC's are not rich enough to buy all their students. They need those full pay top 3% as mini refers to them. As the very large private universities and state flagships decide to increase their prestige nameplate by bringing in top students they will suck up all the best students out there and the LAC's with be left with the remains. It is Walmart versus main street and we already know who wins that battle.</p>
<p>"If the main product is "prestige", you bet it does, and in a major way."</p>
<p>Well we are getting closer to agreement mini. Williams is not in the education business at all, they leave that to the University of Phoenix. Williams is in the prestige business and extravagant expenditure increases the presetige. The business model relies on two principle revenue streams. Full pay tuition of the wealthy who will pay to have the college vet a few, how does Senator Biden put it? well spoken clean lower class kids to broaden their childrens' education and provide classy old buildings, good rooms, and food etc. The second stream is from benefactors and alumni who want the prestige of bring gold, frankincense and myrrh to a place they are least needed.</p>
<p>"Even the wealthiest LAC's are not rich enough to buy all their students. They need those full pay top 3% as mini refers to them."</p>
<p>While in the main I agree, I think it should be noted that what they provide (and its costs) make a difference, even if you don't buy the subsidy argument (and I think Interesteddad has made that argument very well.) Berea College, for example, DOES buy all of its students. Full scholarships for every student attending. (It is also quite a bit more selective in reality than Swat, Williams, or Amherst, since they only accept about 25% of applicants, and only the bottom 40% in family income in the population are even eligible to apply.) But costs per student are lower, at least partially because they use students to maintain most of the campus buildings, the grounds, and the "arboretum".</p>
<p>I love interesteddad. If Swat bought the Philadelphia Inquirer and gave free subscriptions to their students thus improving the educational experience imagine what it would do to their per student spending and per student subsidy. It would also give them the crummiest school newspaper in the country :-)</p>
<p>These arguments about prestige are really silly. The top LAC's are great becuase they teach their students well. It is not accidental that Amherst has turned out four Nobel's in recent years, one in Medicine, two in Economics and one in Physics.</p>
<p>I'd be curious to know if those Nobel's were 3% or need aid kids or are they faculty? Either way the question should be what did Amherst add and what did the laureate bring to the table in the first place.</p>
<p>BTW for the record I have my degree from what is currently the most expensive university in the country and they obviously. did not require me to learn to spell, type, or punctuate. I do know enough to edit but refuse to on principle.</p>
<p>They were students at Amherst. I don't know whether they are fullfreight students or not. Nor do I care. It is just a great place to learn.</p>
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Even the wealthiest LAC's are not rich enough to buy all their students.
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<p>Swarthmore could eliminate all student charges this year and still spend $45,000 per student -- without increasing their very conservative 4% of endowment spending. Williams, Amherst, Pomona, and Grinnell could do the same. Heck, Grinnell is only spending $45k per student now.</p>
<p>I seriously doubt that there is a state university in the country that spends $45,000 per undergrad, but feel free to dig into the financials and prove me wrong.</p>
<p>Grinnell, Pomona, Swarthmore, Amherst, and Williams are all in (or right at the cut-line) of the top-10 per student endowment colleges and unversities in the country.</p>
<p>The worst nightmare for all the merit-discount schools is that the handful of remaining need-only schools throw in the towel and start aggressively playing the merit discount game. These schools have the financial underpinnings to outbid the others. Remove the "price umbrella" (as Winston calls it) that the presitige schools provide and all hell breaks loose.</p>
<p>Where I think Winston is probably wrong is underestimating the long-term abilility of the big endowment schools to charge at least a few ultra rich customers a hefty sticker price. "Progressive tuition for the super-rich" is one idea that Swarthmore's Board of Managers had specifically contemplated for the future, as discussed by a current Board member at an Alumni Council meeting. Basically, Mini's idea of charging incredibly high prices ($75,000 or more in today's dollars) to some customers. [The other long-term cost-related change discussed by the Swarthmore board is eliminating tenure.]</p>
<p>"But costs per student are lower, at least partially because they use students to maintain most of the campus buildings, the grounds, and the "arboretum".</p>
<p>Maybe Swat should do the same thing. It would lower Swats expenses. Oh wait. If Swats expenses decrease, the subsidy decreases. We wouldn't want that. :)</p>
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I love interesteddad. If Swat bought the Philadelphia Inquirer and gave free subscriptions to their students thus improving the educational experience imagine what it would do to their per student spending and per student subsidy.
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<p>They already distribute the NY TIMES free on campus. They buy some kind of institutional package that delivers "x" number of copies free every day.</p>
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Maybe Swat should do the same thing.
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<p>They already do. The Scott Arboreteum has a bunch of work-study and intern positions.</p>
<p>What if these colleges with their uber endowments were to say - </p>
<p>"We realize that regardless of how we evaluate "need", there are well qualified students who are unable to attend our fine institution due to financial reasons. Thus, we are eliminating tuition for all students for four years of undergraduate study. </p>
<p>We are confident, that upon graduation, our students will realize the gift they were given and support our continued efforts to offer that same opportunity to future generations." </p>
<p>What would the selection criteria and student body resemble under that scenario?</p>
<p>"Maybe Swat should do the same thing. </p>
<p>They already do. The Scott Arboreteum has a bunch of work-study and intern positions."</p>
<p>I know. They expense those costs which adds to the subsidy. :)</p>
<p>Interesteddad, a full tuition payer is now paying what? And you believe the subsidy is?</p>
<p>For the sake of argument, let's say a full payer pays $45,000 a year and gets a subsidy of $30,000.</p>
<p>Now Swat adds one student, a full payer. They were going to have 1450 students, but at the last minute, the school decided they really wanted this student. The student is a full payer. Does Swat lose $30,000 (the subsidy) on this student?</p>
<p>Conversely, if a student doesn't show up at the last minute, does Swat make $30,000 (the subsidy).</p>
<p>Maybe, Swat should eliminate most of their students. They could go to Deep Springs size. </p>
<p>The subsidy would just be enormous.</p>
<p>Swat would kick Williams' and Amherst's rear end.</p>
<p>It all hangs together. Amherst, a great place to learn, also has the best response of any LAC for % of all alumni who give back to the school.
Recognizing they have a great product (learning atmosphere), they seek, along with Harvard, to motivate other top-tier colleges and universities to share that blessing with a broader cross-section of the nation.
This, to me, sounds conscience-driven and is commendable.</p>
<p>"The top LAC's are great becuase they teach their students well."</p>
<p>They get great students to begin with, so how do we know that they are teaching them well? To me, it's quite difficult to measure the quality of teaching with these bright students. It's like looking at before and after photos where someone looks great in the before shot, loses 2 pounds, and still looks great after. Why should the undergraduate institution get credit for the Nobel prize winners? Perhaps there was a high school teacher or elementary school teacher or grad school committee chair that really made the difference in the achievement of these laureates.</p>
<p>Standrews--
There's an ancient Chinese Proverb: Success has a thousand fathers; failure is an orphan.
I teach First Graders, and while it's always been my dream to wake up and hear one of my students receive the Nobel Prize, I'd more likely attribute their success to what happened to their thinking between ages 18 and 22.</p>
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Now Swat adds one student, a full payer. They were going to have 1450 students, but at the last minute, the school decided they really wanted this student. The student is a full payer. Does Swat lose $30,000 (the subsidy) on this student?
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<p>Yes. It's called "diluting the endowment".</p>
<p>Of the $73k per student Swarthmore spends, only $29k comes from the average student in tuition, room/board, fees. $44k comes from other sources ($36k from endowment returns and $8k from annual giving, grants, and miscellaneous revenue).</p>
<p>To the extent that you can add students without increasing costs (more professors, more dorms, more health care, etc.) each incremental student increases the bottom line. But, with Swarthmore's 8:1 student/faculty ratio, as soon as you add eight incremental students, you have to add a professor or allow the quality to decline (student/faculty ratio being a huge component of Swarthmore's "quality).</p>
<p>As a result of this math, many schools understand that, to improve their financial position, they need to decrease enrollment. For example, Oberlin currently believes that they are spending too much from the endowment. So, their strategic plan includes reducing enrollment by 100 students.</p>
<p>Likewise, Williams College found that its endowment had been eroded by the near doublind in size of the student body with the arrival of women between 1970 and 1980. This was noted in their strategic planning and they have corrected it (quite nicely, I might say) by not increasing enrollment by even 1 student over the last decade.</p>
<p>As you are probably expecting, there's an Economics paper on this very topic, which I would be glad to link for you when the Williams website when these higher education financing papers starts working.</p>
<p>Suffice to say, that's the reason that all of these big endowment colleges don't expand in the face of increased demand. "Per student endowment" is the whole enchilada in college finance.</p>
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They get great students to begin with, so how do we know that they are teaching them well? To me, it's quite difficult to measure the quality of teaching with these bright students.
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<p>I think the shear numbers of Nobel Prize winners tells us something. Swarthmore and Amherst have produced two Nobel Prize winners each in the last five years and, between them, nine since 1972. Considering that the combined enrollment of the two schools wouldn't even equal that of a single small university, I'd have to say that, at the very least, the two schools aren't screwing up good raw material.</p>
<p>You are quite correct that a stimulating undergrad education is a combination of interacting with good teachers and good students. The peer effects can be significant in the equation. There is no question that the hoity-toit schools are selling "peer effects" as a major component of their product feature list.</p>