<p>@CayugaRed2005</p>
<p>Would the DC kids be lumped in with the in-state or out-of-state applicants?</p>
<p>I'd assume OOS, because they aren't the responsibility of the individual state that the school they are applying to is in, the responsibility is diffused across all the states.</p>
<p>Thats a horrible idea, where do the poor people go, if they cannot go to their cheaper state school, and instead have to take out even more loans to go to a median priced state schools</p>
<p>@MeasureYourself</p>
<p>Did you ever stop to think all of the different colleges and universities that COULD have been created had public colleges and universities not received massive subsidies? Furthermore, these colleges would have to cater to low-income students since there is no state university for them to go to. And aren't there already cheap for-profit schools already available?</p>
<p>Academia is very resistant to change. Just look at the regular American education path: 12 years of grade school (14 if you count pre-K and kindergarten). 4 years of undergraduate college (with tons of elective requirements unnecessary for your field). The only time it gets better really is graduate school since that gets very specific and concise.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl,
I haven't seen a good comprehensive list of all tuition reciprocity agreements. It's a bit complicated because many states have very narrow agreements. Kentucky, for example, says that it has tuition reciprocity agreements with all neighboring states allowing students from border counties only to attend specified schools in the neighboring state at in-state rates. Indiana and Ohio also have a border-county reciprocity agreement. New Mexico and Colorado have an agreement that is confined to specified community and technical colleges. </p>
<p>Minnesota has very broad reciprocity agreements with Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota, and the Canadian province of Manitoba that basically apply to all public colleges and universities. Separately, Minnesota is part of the Midwest Student Exchange Program (MSEP) along with Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Wisconsin, an agreement in which participating public institutions agree to charge no more than 150% of in-state tuition to students from participating states for specified programs of study, and participating private schools provide a 10% tuition discount. There's a similar program in a 15-state western region, the Western Student Exchange (WSE), also confined to particular schools and programs. And there's a (mostly) southern 16-state agreement, the Academic Common Market, but it allows reduced tuition only for programs that are not available in your home state.</p>
<p>Tuition reciprocity is popular with college applicants and especially with their parents, therefore also with many legislators, but often less so with college and university administrators because there's a lot of tuition revenue at stake. It's also probably going to work best where the state university systems are fairly evenly matched in size and quality, like Minnesota's and Wisconsin's. If there's a big disparity in quality, the state with the weaker schools may fear losing too many of its young residents to a neighboring (and competitor) state, while the state with the stronger schools will fear a flood of out-of-state students squeezing out in-state applicants. But Minnesota doesn't need to worry about that too much with North and South Dakota because hardly anyone lives there anyway.</p>
<p>
[quote]
No self-respecting PhD student pays tuition. If they are not good enough to get at least a TA-ship they should really rethink grad school.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Barrons, I don't think you understand the argument. All Phd students "pay" tuition. Yes, that's right. All. What happens is that they also get some sort of funding that covers their tuition, and provides a stipend. But that funding has to come from the department, and that means that Phd students who are state "residents" of a state school like Berkeley effectively will receive less total funding than PhD students of a private school like Stanford, because the former are "charged" instate tuition. It's just an accounting game, but the net effect is that the departments at state schools get to save money on their PhD student support relative to the departments at private schools.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I do see what you're saying about how researchers at public universities get a break on the amount of their research funds which has to be put towards tuition, and how it is a bit of an unfair advantage. If anything, though, this should be seen as an unfair advantage for the California taxpayer at publics, since they're able to get the same caliber work for what amounts to almost no cost to the taxpayers.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>But that's precisely what I'm saying about unfair advantages and taxpayer subsidies. Like I said before, why should the Berkeley departments get a taxpayer-supported financial advantage relative to Stanford departments when it comes to research funding? Or any state school vs. a private school? Are the state schools inherently better at performing research, relative to private schools? If not, then why should they get any subsidy advantage? </p>
<p>Basic financial theory would dictate that you should spend dollars on whichever investment has the highest marginal productivity. If taxpayer dollars are supposed to spur research, then they should be preferentially spent on whichever research institution has the greatest productivity. It might be a public school. It might be a private school. But there should be no rule that dictates that the subsidy should always go the public school. That is, of course, if the goal is to actually be financially efficient. Of course, if that's not the real goal, well...</p>
<p>
[quote]
I agree EAD, but that's one of my main issues when comparing publics to Ivies. Ivies are just 8 universities, all elite. Publics go from really horrible to Cal, which is a legitimate top 10 university. One should bot use a broad brush when discussing public universities. Besdies, UCDAlum was referring to Cal.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Alexandre, what you are saying actually supports one of the main theses in this thread. The truth is, many (probably most) Americans just don't live in a state that has a top-notch state university. The entire Northeast, for example, has this problem. What are these people supposed to do if they're not good enough to get into an elite private school or survive the tough OOS admissions of places like Berkeley or Michigan? I guess that means that they have to put up with their not-so-good state school (or a low-ranked private school).</p>
<p>Sakky,
I think you've got a bit of a double standard going here. You don't seem to have a problem with NAS or NIH or other federal tax-supported agencies spending billions of taxpayer dollars to subsidize research, yet you seem to think it's horribly unfair for California taxpayers to kick in a share and stretch those research dollars a bit further by subsidizing tuition for in-state grad students. Also note that Stanford's multi-billion dollar endowment is basically the product of a huge state and federal tax subsidy: alumni and other donors give in part because they get to take a charitable deduction for contributing which for those in the highest tax brackets may mean a federal and state tax benefit match of nearly 1-for-1 (35% top federal bracket plus 9.3% top California bracket). Stanford reaps additional billions in tax-free returns on its investments, using a small fraction of those tax-subsidized earnings to provide graduate fellowships to help support Stanford faculty in their research. Bottom line, it's heavily taxpayer-subsidized all around. The taxpayer subsidy of state colleges and universities is a little more direct, but essentially it operates as the functional equivalent of a private institution's tax-subsidized earnings on its tax-subsidized endowment.</p>
<p>Is this system market-distorting? Sure, that's the whole point. Pure research is a public good, providing broad externalized benefits to the public generally, most of which can't be captured in markets. That's precisely why we create all these layers of public subsidies to prop up the entire enterprise. But don't kid yourself. The taxpayer subsidies going to support "private" colleges and universities are enormous. And I say that's a good thing, as are the taxpayer subsidies going to support public colleges and universities.</p>
<p>Sakky,
one other thing: Michigan claims it doesn't discriminate against OOS applicants, treating in-state and OOS applicants as a single pool. The numbers seem to back up that claim: 35% of the Michigan undergrad student body is OOS, extraordinarily high for a state school. Berkeley is 8% OOS.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I think you've got a bit of a double standard going here. You don't seem to have a problem with NAS or NIH or other federal tax-supported agencies spending billions of taxpayer dollars to subsidize research, yet you seem to think it's horribly unfair for California taxpayers to kick in a share and stretch those research dollars a bit further by subsidizing tuition for in-state grad students.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I don't think that I have any double standard at all. I am simply asking for a fair playing field. The NIH and NSF grants are available to all universities, public or private. And in fact, private universities win many of those grants. </p>
<p>But the state tuition subsidy (which is backfilled into research funding as discussed previously) is available only to the public schools. Why? Is research performed at public schools inherently "better" than research performed at private schools? I know of no evidence that would show such a thing. </p>
<p>
[quote]
Also note that Stanford's multi-billion dollar endowment is basically the product of a huge state and federal tax subsidy: alumni and other donors give in part because they get to take a charitable deduction for contributing which for those in the highest tax brackets may mean a federal and state tax benefit match of nearly 1-for-1 (35% top federal bracket plus 9.3% top California bracket). Stanford reaps additional billions in tax-free returns on its investments, using a small fraction of those tax-subsidized earnings to provide graduate fellowships to help support Stanford faculty in their research. Bottom line, it's heavily taxpayer-subsidized all around.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Uh, no, this does not change the equation one bit, because the public schools are also tax exempt. For example, if I donate a bunch of money to Berkeley, I get a tax deduction, just like if I had donated that money to Stanford. Similarly, the Berkeley endowment also gets to grow completely tax-free, just like Stanford's does. Hence, the issues that you have raised are a wash.</p>
<p>But again, as explained above vis-a-vis my discussion with Racinreaver, the difference is that Berkeley effectively gets a research subsidy from the state of California, but Stanford does not. Why? If the real goal is to produce the best possible research, then shouldn't that subsidy go to whichever university happens to be the most productive (whoever that may be)? The NSF and NIH don't care whether a school is public or private; they are going to allocate a grant based on whoever they think is going to run the best project. </p>
<p>
[quote]
Is this system market-distorting? Sure, that's the whole point. Pure research is a public good, providing broad externalized benefits to the public generally, most of which can't be captured in markets. That's precisely why we create all these layers of public subsidies to prop up the entire enterprise. But don't kid yourself. The taxpayer subsidies going to support "private" colleges and universities are enormous. And I say that's a good thing, as are the taxpayer subsidies going to support public colleges and universities.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>But you haven't answered the fundamental question - which is why do public schools get an additional taxpayer benefit that private schools do not? Sure, I agree with you that university research is a public good that provides broad externalized benefits and that hence should be supported by the taxpayers. But that's true of research from all universities, not just research from public universities specifically. For example, I think nobody would dispute that the research performed at Stanford has provided immense benefits to the public. </p>
<p>So I ask again, if research is the goal, then why should the research departments at the public schools get a state taxpayer subsidy, but not research departments at the private schools? After all, research is research, right? Who cares whether the school producing that research is public or private?</p>
<p>In fact, this all gets back to the general notion of whether we even really need public schools at all, or whether we could have simply used a voucher system. People talk about how universities spur the development of human capital and local economies. Yet that's true of all universities, not just public universities specifically. So why should only the public universities receive state subsidies? Or, put another way, if you're a California state resident who has been paying California state taxes all your life (or, more accurately, your parents have been paying those taxes all their lives), why shouldn't you get a tuition subsidy just because you want to go to Stanford? Or Caltech? Why should you get that subsidy only if you go to a state school?</p>
<p>Some people don't drive yet their taxes pay for the roads. Some have no children yet they pay taxes for schools. Society has decided they like public colleges in most states. It gives the state some say over what is taught, who gets in and where the school is located. A few barely have any--New Hampshire for one. U Delaware is semi-private. End of discussion.</p>
<p>Yes the grad students are usually paid and the pay can come from many sources. State taxes, the profit on OOS tuition, research grants, endowment funds, etc. What is your point? Most private schools use the same sources except state taxes. The state enjoys the benefits of the large money a big research programs generates so it's a good investment that is repaid many fold. They could get the same benefit from a private school too but not many privates were rushing to locate in Ann Arbor or Madison. Instate PHD students at UW also cost less than OOS but they have over 50% from OOS anyway. Why--they want the best they can afford to help with research and teach as TA's. There is no significant private grad school in the state. Would Stanford rush in to fill the void, I don't think so. And the state would be out many billions in development they UW has brought to the state. And when your Mom or Dad has that heart attack he can than UW scientists for the drug that may let him live many more years. Could Stanford have invented it--maybe someday, but they didn't. And millions of lives have been saved and extended.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Some people don't drive yet their taxes pay for the roads. Some have no children yet they pay taxes for schools. Society has decided they like public colleges in most states. It gives the state some say over what is taught, who gets in and where the school is located. A few barely have any--New Hampshire for one. U Delaware is semi-private. End of discussion.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Nope, that's the beginning of the discussion, because it shows that there are many ways to skin this cat, and that there is no one definitively correct answer. It all gets back to what we think the proper role of government vs. the private sector really is. </p>
<p>More importantly, these ideas evolve over time. In the past, there were barely any public universities in the country at all. Now there are many. In the future, who knows? In other words, society changes its own decisions as society itself evolves. That is what makes this subject interesting. </p>
<p>
[quote]
Yes the grad students are usually paid and the pay can come from many sources. State taxes, the profit on OOS tuition, research grants, endowment funds, etc. What is your point?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Uh, I think the point was quite clear. Please read the posts again if you don't get it. The point is, public universities have an extra advantage that private universities do not get. Exactly why should they get this advantage? Like I said before - and what nobody has answered - can anybody name a reason why research at public * universities is inherently any better than research at *private universities? If not, then exactly why should public universities enjoy any research funding advantage over private universities? </p>
<p>
[quote]
They could get the same benefit from a private school too but not many privates were rushing to locate in Ann Arbor or Madison.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Oh really? The University of Michigan (or, more specifically, what became UM) was founded in 1817 as the state's oldest university - heck, 20 years before Michigan was even a state. The University of Wisconsin was founded in 1848, the same year that it became a state. I think it's rather unfair to expect private universities to be 'rushing' in that early in the game. I would argue that public universities like UM and Wisconsin then crowded out the space for private universities to grow. In other words, you never even gave the private schools a chance. {Again, to be fair, it's similar to how the overarching presence of Harvard has stifled the development of UMass.} </p>
<p>
[quote]
Would Stanford rush in to fill the void, I don't think so.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Like I said, we'll never know the answer to that. We'll never know what would have happened if the University of Wisconsin had never been founded, but the state of Wisconsin had instead implemented a voucher system. The state never even gave that system a chance. </p>
<p>
[quote]
And when your Mom or Dad has that heart attack he can than UW scientists for the drug that may let him live many more years. Could Stanford have invented it--maybe someday, but they didn't. And millions of lives have been saved and extended.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>And I'm sure you'll be very willing to thank Stanford researchers like Nobel Prize winners Paul Berg, Roger Kornberg, and Joshua Lederberg and for their pioneering work on genetic technology which has also aided millions. </p>
<p>So, again, the question is, what exactly is the advantage the public universities enjoy vis-a-vis research over private universities? If you know the answer, then perhaps you ought to tell the NIH and NSF that they are running their grant procedures incorrectly. Seems to me that they assign their grants to whoever they think is going to run the best project, regardless of whether a public or private university is involved. If they are wrong about doing that, and they should actually prefer public universities just because they're public, then clearly somebody needs to tell them that they have been stupid all along and they need to change their policies post haste.</p>
<p>Sakky,
First off, research isn't the only function of a university. There's also this little thing called education, which is why state universities give a tuition discount to in-state students even at the graduate level; that's what the legislature is subsidizing. </p>
<p>But as I think about this, I don't really buy the premise that lower in-state tuition gives public universities any kind of unfair competitive advantage in research. Look, it's going to cost a university more or less the same amount to support a grad student whatever the notional tuition is; the grad student pays nothing, the university has the same fixed and variable costs, and it has to pay those costs from somewhere. So the "tuition" for a grad student is basically just an internal accounting mechanism. And universities are free to structure their finances almost any way they want. Perhaps some do charge the individual departments for the foregone tuition, though it certainly doesn't have to be that way. I'm no expert in university finance, but as I understand the system at my current school the basic funding decisions are made at the "school" or "college" level, not at the departmental level---it's the deans of the colleges, not the department chairs, who are responsible for setting their budgets, raising the revenue, and making the spending decisions, including how many graduate students they can support, in what departments. Where do they get their money? Some from the legislature, some from an allocation from the university's endowment revenue, some from tuition, some from "indirect cost recovery," basically an administrative tax on any outside research grant money coming to university researchers. So the notion that graduate students are supported directly out of research dollars is simply mistaken. A fraction of those research dollars go into a central pot, and a portion comes back in the form of grad students. Lower in-state graduate tuition means two things: it reduces the school's imputed costs of supporting grad students, but it also means that the school shows that much less imputed income in the form of tuition revenue. So it's purely a wash. The actual net cost is exactly the same as if a higher OOS tuition were "charged" and posted as "income" in one entry and "expense" in another. And as far as I know, it makes not one whit of difference to university faculty doing research whether they're working with in-state or OOS students, since they don't support the grad students directly out of their research budgets, they only pay a tax to the school that goes into the school's general budget, and that tax is at a fixed rate whether they're working with in-state, OOS, or no grad students at all.</p>
<p>You point out the fallacy of your own argument when you bring up NIH and NSF grant procedures. The fact is, NIH and NSF don't care whether they're funding research at a public or a private university; they just want quality research, as they should. But the fact that so much NIH and NSF grant money goes to private universities is itself evidence that public universities aren't operating at some kind of unfair competitive advantage by virtue of state subsidies. It just ain't so. Universities expect NIH and NSF-funded research to pay for itself. Those grants go to pay for a portion of faculty salaries, perhaps some non-faculty researchers and post-docs, labs, equipment, computers, travel, conferences and meetings, etc. Universities also generally charge some kind of administrative tax to support the university's (or school's) general overhead costs. Those charges may vary a little from institution to institution, but whether the university is public or private is not the determining factor. Now it could be that at some schools there's a different kind of relationship between research and grad students than the one I describe here, but if so I'm not familiar with it. Bottom line, I think you're just off-base in the underlying premises of your argument.</p>
<p>"The truth is, many (probably most) Americans just don't live in a state that has a top-notch state university. The entire Northeast, for example, has this problem. What are these people supposed to do if they're not good enough to get into an elite private school or survive the tough OOS admissions of places like Berkeley or Michigan? I guess that means that they have to put up with their not-so-good state school (or a low-ranked private school)."</p>
<p>But is that a problem? The entire Northeast isn't full of people looking to go to top quality schools. Decent but not outstanding state universities are going to be more than fine for the majority of them. Not everyone can be above average.</p>
<p>Bah. You can get a very good education at UConn, UVM, Penn State, Rutgers, SUNY-Geneso, SUNY-Bing, or the Cornell contract colleges.</p>
<p>Massachusetts's problem is that everybody in power went to Harvard or another private so when you mention "public education" they stare at you blindly.</p>
<p>New Hampshire's problem is that they don't believe in government, let alone kindergarten.</p>
<p>Maine has a lot of problems. And Rhode Island could always be New Hampshire.</p>
<p>What are the average scores for the entering freshmen at the Northeast flagship state schools (those mentioned above) compared to the average scores for the entering freshmen at the big midwestern states with more emphasis on public flagships? (IL, MI, WI, IA, IN, OH, etc.). I'm deliberately excluding the Cal system from this.</p>
<p>
[quote]
First off, research isn't the only function of a university. There's also this little thing called education, which is why state universities give a tuition discount to in-state students even at the graduate level; that's what the legislature is subsidizing.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Yet the question that I raised before still stands - do public universities really hold any inherent research advantage over private universities? If the answer is 'no', then one can reasonably question why state universities ought to receive any state taxpayer subsidy for their research over private universities. </p>
<p>
[quote]
But as I think about this, I don't really buy the premise that lower in-state tuition gives public universities any kind of unfair competitive advantage in research. Look, it's going to cost a university more or less the same amount to support a grad student whatever the notional tuition is; the grad student pays nothing, the university has the same fixed and variable costs, and it has to pay those costs from somewhere. So the "tuition" for a grad student is basically just an internal accounting mechanism. And universities are free to structure their finances almost any way they want. Perhaps some do charge the individual departments for the foregone tuition, though it certainly doesn't have to be that way. I'm no expert in university finance, but as I understand the system at my current school the basic funding decisions are made at the "school" or "college" level, not at the departmental level---it's the deans of the colleges, not the department chairs, who are responsible for setting their budgets, raising the revenue, and making the spending decisions, including how many graduate students they can support, in what departments. Where do they get their money? Some from the legislature, some from an allocation from the university's endowment revenue, some from tuition, some from "indirect cost recovery," basically an administrative tax on any outside research grant money coming to university researchers. So the notion that graduate students are supported directly out of research dollars is simply mistaken. A fraction of those research dollars go into a central pot, and a portion comes back in the form of grad students. Lower in-state graduate tuition means two things: it reduces the school's imputed costs of supporting grad students, but it also means that the school shows that much less imputed income in the form of tuition revenue. So it's purely a wash. The actual net cost is exactly the same as if a higher OOS tuition were "charged" and posted as "income" in one entry and "expense" in another. And as far as I know, it makes not one whit of difference to university faculty doing research whether they're working with in-state or OOS students, since they don't support the grad students directly out of their research budgets, they only pay a tax to the school that goes into the school's general budget, and that tax is at a fixed rate whether they're working with in-state, OOS, or no grad students at all.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I agree that it should be a wash. But the fact is, it is not a wash, at least, not at many schools. For example, by law, UC has to report to the state all of the students that it has, and then how many of those students are instate residents. It doesn't matter whether those students are PhD students or not. They all have to be reported. The state then doles out funding subsidies according to the number of instate students are reported. </p>
<p>Besides, I'll ask you the same question that I asked RacinReaver. If what you are saying is really true, and the accounting really is all a wash, then why does Berkeley (and I presume the other UC's) actually demand that its incoming PhD students establish state residency as soon as feasible? In fact, if you enter a Berkeley PhD program and you're not already a state resident, one of the first meetings you will have is with a staffer from your department who is going to arrange for the paperwork for you to declare state residency quickly. {The whole process can take awhile, as you have to get a California driver's license or state ID, start paying California state income taxes, register to vote in California, registering your car in the state, etc.)</p>
<p>Think of it this way - why exactly would the department care so much about all this, if the accounting is all a wash anyway? I think it's quite clear that that means that the accounting is not a wash, meaning that as long as you aren't a state resident, then the department has to continue to cover your nonresident fees, which the department would rather do other things with that money. </p>
<p>Now, like I said, I agree with you that perhaps the accounting should be a wash. But that's really neither here nor there. At least at UC, what matters is that, for whatever reason, the accounting is not a wash and ultimately it means that the departments are being subsidized for their students who are state "residents" (including those who had recently come from elsewhere and then declared California residency). Yet, like I said, Stanford and Caltech grad students are not similarly being subsidized. Which then begs the question of why? Again, I don't see any reason to believe that research at public universities is inherently superior to research at private universities. </p>
<p>
[quote]
You point out the fallacy of your own argument when you bring up NIH and NSF grant procedures. The fact is, NIH and NSF don't care whether they're funding research at a public or a private university; they just want quality research, as they should. But the fact that so much NIH and NSF grant money goes to private universities is itself evidence that public universities aren't operating at some kind of unfair competitive advantage by virtue of state subsidies. It just ain't so. Universities expect NIH and NSF-funded research to pay for itself. Those grants go to pay for a portion of faculty salaries, perhaps some non-faculty researchers and post-docs, labs, equipment, computers, travel, conferences and meetings, etc. Universities also generally charge some kind of administrative tax to support the university's (or school's) general overhead costs. Those charges may vary a little from institution to institution, but whether the university is public or private is not the determining factor. Now it could be that at some schools there's a different kind of relationship between research and grad students than the one I describe here, but if so I'm not familiar with it. Bottom line, I think you're just off-base in the underlying premises of your argument.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Uh, no, what you said does not really address the topic at hand. I agree with you that private universities are obviously able to successfully compete against public universities despite the disadvantage of the taxpayer subsidy (which may or may not be just an accounting quirk as discussed above). But even so, that still doesn't justify the existence of that subsidy in the first place. </p>
<p>It's like this. Let's say we're running a footrace. My finish line is actually closer than yours is, so I have an advantage. Yet you beat me anyway. Yet the fact that you nevertheless beat me despite my advantage doesn't mean that I should have had the advantage in the first place. If the footrace is supposed to be fair, then nobody should have had an advantage, and you would have probably beat me even worse. </p>
<p>Now, of course, if you want to say that the footrace is not actually supposed to be fair at all, well, then that's a different conversation altogether.</p>
<p>But it all comes down to the original question of this thread: what exactly is the nature of a state school and why do we really need them? People here have raised the issue of research, yet I completely fail to see how state schools hold any inherent research advantage over private schools, and if that is the case, then one can't use research as a reason to have state schools. Nor do I see gambits like human capital development or the generation of local economic activity as valid reasons because, again, private universities also develop plenty of human capital and also generate local economic activity. I don't see any reason why state schools would hold any inherent advantage in this regard. So it's still an open question as to what exactly a state school can do that a private school cannot, particularly when compared to a portable voucher system. Like I asked before, why exactly should a California state resident whose parents have been paying taxes for years get a tuition subsidy only if he goes to UC but not to Stanford? From a macro standpoint, what difference does it make to the state? Or, put another way, if the guy is going to Stanford and not UC, then should his parents really have been forced to pay taxes to UC all that time?</p>
<p>Sakky,
I assume Berkeley makes its grad students file to become California residents because it's under a mandate from the state legislature to ensure that 90% of its students are California residents. That way, it can take the strongest grad students in the applicant pool regardless of residency, and count them as OOS only in their first semester or whatever, and thereafter count them as California residents toward meeting the statutory mandate. Departments are probably under strict orders to do this, and may face financial or other sanctions from the central administration if they don't. At schools that don't have a statutory mandate regarding in-state v. OOS students, or for which such a mandate applies only to undergrads or in selected programs, it's just not an issue. I really don't think there's a research issue here at all.</p>
<p>PizzaGirl,
Apart from Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin, most of the Midwestern flagship state schools aren't notably more selective than public universities in the northeast. Here's a list of 25th and 75th percentile SAT scores compiled from US News. Since most of the Midwestern schools rely primarily on ACT scores and report only the ACT to USN, I've added their SAT figures (gleaned from Princeton Review) in parentheses. As you'll see, UConn, UMass-Amherst, SUNY Binghampton and SUNY Stony Brook are not all that different from Iowa, Purdue, and Indiana. U Maryland is actually pretty comparable to Wisconsin. The biggest reason the Midwest flagships rank higher in USNews is not selectivity, but significantly higher peer assessment (PA) scores.</p>
<p>25th & 75th percentile SAT scores (per US News, Princeton Review)</p>
<p>Cal-Berkeley 1200-1450
Virginia 1220-1430
UCLA 1180-1410
Michigan 27-31 (1220-1420)
UNC-Chapel Hill 1200-1390
William & Mary 1240-1440
Georgia Tech 1230-1400
Wisconsin 26-30 (1170-1380)
Illinois 25-30 (1170-1410)
U Washington 1070-1310
UC-Davis 1030-1280
Texas 1120-1370
UC-Santa Barbara 1090-1310
UC-Irvine 1080-1290
Penn State 1080-1280
Florida 1140-1360
U Maryland 1170-1390
Ohio State 24-28 (1090-1310)
Rutgers 1100-1320
Pitt 1130-1320
Georgia 1130-1320
Texas A&M 1080-1290
UConn 1090-1290
Purdue 1020-1250
Iowa 23-27 (1070-1320)
Minnesota 23-28 (1120-1380)
Virginia Tech 1100-1290
Delaware 1100-1300
Michigan State 22-27 (1000-1270)
Indiana 1000-1240
UC-Santa Cruz 1020-1270
Colorado 23-28
SUNY-Binghampton 1180-1340
NC State 1080-1280
Iowa State 22-27
Kansas 22-28
Alabama 21-27
Missouri 23-28
Nebraska 22-28
SUNY-Stony Brook 1080-1280
Tennessee 23-28
Vermont 1070-1270
Arizona 990-1230
UC-Riverside 910-1170
UMass-Amherst 1040-1260
UNH 1010-1220
Oklahoma 23-28
Oregon 988-1260</p>
<p>When they collect SAT statistics, do they superscore?</p>
<p>I had no idea UMD had scuch a high middle 50% SAT average. I'm going there next year.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I assume Berkeley makes its grad students file to become California residents because it's under a mandate from the state legislature to ensure that 90% of its students are California residents.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, actually, no. That can't be it. First off, that 90% mandate regards undergraduates as part of the UC Master Plan. The Master Plan carries no mandate for graduate students.</p>
<p>Secondly, even if it did, the Berkeley PhD programs are highly unlikely to be able to meet that mandate anyway. Like I said, many of Berkeley are foreign nationals, which means that they can't actually legally establish state residency. Hence, it is simply understood that the departments will have to foot their "nonresident" fees all the time. However, those students who are Americans, but just not from California, get very strong pressure from their departments to become California residents quickly. Yet the sheer number of foreigners almost certainly means that few Berkeley grad programs could ever meet the 90% mandate, if it was to actually exist. Yet that has never stopped these departments from continuing to admit plenty of foreigners. Heck, I suspect there are certain years where every single grad student who is admitted into a particular department - i.e. certain engineering or science departments - is a foreigner. To paraphrase Thomas Sowell, many of Berkeley's PhD programs are so strong that few Americans are good enough to get admitted to them. </p>
<p>But again, like I said, I agree with you that maybe it should just be an internal accounting issue and hence a wash. Yet the fact is, it is not and the upshot is that California taxpayers are indeed subsidizing research. Maybe that's not the way it should be, but that's the way it is. Hence, there is a research issue at hand, whether we like it or not.</p>