My niece is at UVA because she couldn’t get into Cal or UCLA, even as a top hs student.
Hope your niece enjoys UVa. My son did. There are definitely some instate Virginia kids that would love to get into UVa and don’t so they end up elsewhere … . Admissions is tough these days.
“Yeah, I figured it was a result of no access to the big California schools. Just surprised to find kids coming from so far away. Going to Colorado sounds more common and probably is!”
UW, Colorado and especially Oregon all have big OOS enrollments and get lots of kids from CA. ASU too.
Well, a few top publics are still in the same ballpark. According to the AAUP, the average full professor at HYPSM makes $185K (Princeton) to $210K (Stanford); Penn, Columbia, and NYU are also in that vicinity. The top public is UCLA at $170K, which is similar to Duke ($176K), Wash U ($173K), Rice ($171K), and Vanderbilt ($171K). UC Berkeley is $163K which is similar to Dartmouth ($168K), Brown ($161K), and Cornell ($160K). Michigan’s just a smidge back at $155K, similar to Johns Hopkins ($158K), though $155K in Ann Arbor will buy you a much higher standard of living than $200K in New York or the Bay Area and is roughly comparable to $200K in Boston or LA.
In general, though, faculty salaries at publics have lagged. At the University of Wisconsin - Madison, for example, the average full professor makes $113K. At Illinois it’s $141K, at Virginia $145K, at UNC-Chapel Hill $144K, at the University of Texas $138K, and at the University of Washington $121K
Keep in mind, though, that straight-up comparisons of average salaries can be a bit misleading because faculty salaries also vary by discipline. One big reason Princeton’s a bit lower than HYS is that Princeton doesn’t have law, business, or medical schools, and faculty salaries in those fields tend to be quite a bit higher.
“UW, Colorado and especially Oregon” That would make sense for kids from California since those colleges are still in the West. Is there still any kind of reciprocity agreement with Washington or Oregon? I think you said Colorado does not have an agreement with California? I’ve known of kids in Virginia that either did not get into UVa (or did not bother to apply as they knew they were not competitive for admissions) gravitate to schools like University of Georgia or University of South Carolina, University of Maryland. They were good students but in general not the very top of the class type students. That is anecdotal, of course. But those type of kids that I’ve known of did tend to stay in the east and end up at other east coast flagships.
^ @sevmom In the west, many flagship universities typically don’t participate in reciprocity agreements. The only UC in the WUE consortium, for example, is UC-Merced. UW, U of Oregon, UC Boulder, U WY are not part of WUE. U of A, UNM, U of Utah, and U of Montana are. Many other second and third tier western universities participate. See http://wiche.edu/wue
Thanks for the info!
Slight correction, the University of Wyoming does participate in WUE.
The schools which have been most impacted by the declining state support are not the multifaceted research universities which can rely on OOS students, federal grants, and donors to subsidize them, but rather the regional, often commuter schools. Southwestern Oklahoma State is in a much much different position than the University of Oklahoma.
Faculty housing also varies. Some of the California Unis find/provide heavily discounted faculty housing. Once that cost is covered, the COL drops precipitously. I assume that the Boston/NY unis do the same?
In general professors at the UCs don’t get DISCOUNTED housing – but they do get help with special loans. (Some campuses have temporary faculty housing, usually apartments, that may be a bit cheaper.) So the COL doesn’t drop much: they still have to pay the astronomical housing around Berkeley/UCLA, but maybe on slightly easier terms.
U of Wyoming is in WUE, but limits the number of students it accepts under that program. However, as of this year the Rocky Mtn Scholars program, merit for out of state students, had as its highest award the same amount of 150% of instate tuition for the highest award, so top students are getting the same deal no matter what state they live in.
U of Colorado doesn’t participate in WUE, but other state school in Colorado do and Colorado residents can apply to WUE schools. California residents can apply to Colorado schools that participate (U of Northern Colorado, Adams State, Ft. Lewis).
@whenhen and @twoinanddone Thanks for correcting my error. I was going back and forth from the WUE page to here and misplaced U of WY.
We are in VA just outside DC. My D16 is ONLY applying to OOS public schools unless she expands her list. (UMN, Colorado State, Michigan State, Oregon State, Washington State, Rutgers, Temple, Indiana and even some Cal State schools). Some of these are likely too expensive, some are doable for us. I wish we had something like WUE in this part of the country.
She isn’t interested in living in VA and doesn’t have the 4.0 needed to get into UVA, VA Tech or William & Mary from her HS. She is mostly applying to majors that are found at land grant schools, so it’s impossible to keep the search in state.
State financial support for public universities has been declining for years and many states find it necessary, as mentioned earlier, to recruit out-of-state and international students who pay higher tuition rates than in-state students.
In fact, education generally has not received decent support in years. For example, in public schools, textbooks are not infrequently associated with desks rather than students and some could qualify as antiquities if sold on ebay. I treasured my public school raise one year–a WIN button–and, because of my excellence, was awarded an amount equivalent to a large, one topping pizza by a state university.
University-level economies include locating majors at a state school so that you attend XU if you want to major in…That isn’t so bad maybe if you can afford room and board in a distant part of a your home state and are really, really sure that you don’t want to change majors or minor in something offered at another campus. It also presumes faculty associated with one major have no contributions to make to students who are not majors.
Other schools eliminate departments because of few students. For example, departments of statistics serve a small population of students who major in important mechanisms for tracking data and trends over time, formulating strategies for gathering and interpreting information, and so on–an interesting combination of logical thinking and math. As a society, we would find ourselves in a very bad place if we lacked a researched-based information. Elimination of small departments for financial reasons may not be in our best interest.
Some states associate tuition dollars with individual students so the monies go to where ever the student attends school one year. Budget planning is a nightmare if you don’t have adequate information to determine need for faculty, libraries, student services, whatever. What do you do if the student changes campuses mid-year or only registers for only one semester. Budgeting by surprise and cocked hats.
A fourth silly budgeting plan is offering majors in hot topics. This year. cooking; next year, zombies; hey, what about…Kardashianism with a minor in where did Paris Hilton go? If I hear any more about criminal justice, I will scream.
Yes, federal money does flow into universities for a variety of student services like programs for students who are the first members of their families to attend college, mandated services and program such as violence reduction efforts and paying for student assistants. The money, at least not the amount, may not be dependable from year to year. Offices find that they do not have student workers to file, duplicate tests, and do many time-consuming tasks. Everyone picks up the slack. Faculty and staff (as well as judges and others) are reminded that they know what they would earn when they signed their contracts==twenty years ago.
Governor Walker proposed that all faculty teach a full-load in undergraduate terms to prepare workers for the Wisconsin economy. If research faculty are busily teaching lots of classes, they will not have time to conduct the research that brings in grant money. Tenure-track and tenured faculty are replaced by adjuncts whose semester-long stipend covers a month of housing, some groceries and gasoline and more take-out pizza. Some full-time faculty are pressured into teaching overloads at an adjunct rate and do a very nice job of teaching lots a classes a term. Unfortunately, they lack the time needed to publish so produce a slim record when the tenure decision is made. The provost counts pages while ignoring teaching feedback and the time needed to prepare and teach an overload, and recommends tenure be denied. When it’s publish or perish, there are lots of ways legitimate contributions of junior faculty are not valued.
What to do? Decide what among our state-supported opportunities are important to us personally. I hope you choose education. Then we need to pay attention, lobby, protest, vote, attend hearings, and generally raise the roof until we are heard. That also means we are willing to pay more taxes, if necessary, to support our universities.
There are new buildings going up on college campuses. And they aren’t accidentally named. Campus buildings are named much the same way that bowl games and stadiums for professional sports teams are named–by sponsors and major donors. Generally, these are the “sexy” buildings rather than a new liberal arts facility.
The financial plight and budgetary efforts/antics of money-starved state schools passes all understanding.
Statistics, and a few other departments like physics, English, and math, may fall into the situation where the population of majors is so small that most of the department teaching load is that of teaching service courses for other majors (e.g. statistics for business majors, physics for biology majors and premeds, and English / math for graduation requirements and remedial education).
Sometimes, a subject with too few faculty, students, and courses to be a standalone department is a subarea of another department. Examples include statistics and computer science within math departments.
Of course, it becomes a self-perpetuating cycle where prospective majors in those subjects see the department as being too small to offer a complete program in the major, so those students choose other schools, so the department cannot justify growth in a budget-constrained environment.
sevmom, yes students from states all over the country will choose VT because it is a desirable school that is reasonably priced with top notch resources and is situated in a lovely spot.
I feel the Texas schools have done well for themselves. UT Austin’s selectivity increases yearly, A&M has greatly expanded and increased stats. Even UT Dallas is starting to pull in more and better students. In the mid-80’s the UT system pulled ~50% of funding from the state, as of 2013 is was ~13%. I’m sure OOS helps pad the coffers, but at UT Austin a fixed percentage (75%?) of the class must come from the top (~8%?) students from the state. The land grant leases generate $, but alumni and donors gave $529 million to UT Austin in 2014. While tution has increased over the years, it hasn’t been drastic, just 4% over the past 5 years. Just today, UT is asking to raise tuition 2%, so we’ll have to see what happens, but it is still a good deal to get a great education at an all-in COA of $26k a year. The much more affordable Texas State University isn’t too bad either.
@eh1234 , Yes, UVa, VT, and Wm & M are all tough for instate kids to get into these days without top grades. The closest thing Virginia seems to have in terms of tuition reciprocity with other states is the Academic Common Market. But it seems limited and I believe is geared to helping kids get tuition help if a major they desire is not available in their own state. Good luck to you and your daughter. http://www.sreb.org/
@lostaccount Blacksburg is indeed in a lovely spot. Now that my son has graduated, I really miss having a reason to visit.
“In the mid-80’s the UT system pulled ~50% of funding from the state, as of 2013 is was ~13%.”
But how much have the dollars provided by the state declined?
My guess is not much if at all. My guess is that the UT system is way way bigger in 2013 than it was in the 80s. I’m sure the budget is massively larger. The state still kicks in a lot of dough. But to pay for the dramatic increase, now there are more federal dollars, more research dollars, more endowment, more alumni dollars, and more student tuition dollars.
It is quite simplistic and apples/oranges to compare the state funding percentage of the mom/pop sized State U of 40 years ago to the huge institutions they are today.
As I said above, if you want to return to the halcyon days of yore, then just get rid of half the students and half the employees while keeping the state funding level. Things will be really nice for the half that survive.
Sure. Cut the number of students a public university serves in half, and what do you suppose the response of the legislature will be? I’d imagine their first impulse would be to cut appropriations to the university in half. Then the university is out half its tuition revenue plus half its legislative appropriation, while most of its fixed costs remain the same. That’s a recipe for disaster (if it was even intended as anything other than facetious).
I think your grasp of this situation is off by about an order of magnitude. The University of Michigan and the University of Virginia now each get about 5% of their total annual operating budgets from their respective states. This is at the extreme low end, but it’s the direction things seem to be headed in many other states. So I suppose you could say what’s the harm to them if state legislative appropriations were again cut in half–that’s only 2.5% of their budget. But the part that would destroy those universities is losing half their tuition revenue.
On the other hand, if they could totally privatize and stop offering deep tuition discounts to state residents, they probably could generate roughly an equal amount of tuition revenue (or perhaps even a bit more) with half as many students, while also becoming even more selective, improving student-faculty ratios, etc. Some people have advanced this as a serious, or at least semi-serious proposal. I don’t think either university wants to go there, and at least in Michigan’s case, I don’t think they legally can; the University of Michigan is a public institution of state constitutional stature, with a governing body, the Board of Regents, elected directly by the people of the state of Michigan as prescribed in the Michigan state constitution. The Regents are themselves public officials, state constitutional officers. As long as that’s the case, I think every Regent is going to believe it’s the university’s obligation to continue to serve Michigan residents, inter alia through discounted in-state tuition and generous need-based FA for Michigan residents—even though those policies cost the university far more than the state contributes annually in taxpayer-supported legislative appropriations. Once you net out all the costs, you have a situation where the University of Michigan is subsidizing those Michigan residents who are able to attend by a larger amount than state taxpayers are subsidizing the University of Michigan. That’s what it means to be a public university in the brave new world of American public education.