<p>As an engineer in a family full of STEM people, even I find his article unbelievably dumb. Not every canvas should be turned into a Rauschenberg.</p>
<p>@LAMuniv: You need to be careful about that, though. Without a thoughtful career plan to put your humanities training to use, you could end up writing for Forbes. </p>
<p>…And if my mother had wheels she’d be a wagon.
What so many of the talking heads don’t seem to get is that colleges aren’t stocks, and education, like so many other things, is not purely an industry. Though I suppose if all one cares about is money, all one sees is dollar signs.</p>
<p>With some predicting a major reduction in private colleges due to finances money is always important.</p>
<p>My Republican side is cheering on the guy, and he has good points, but he falls a bit flat on certain aspects. I do think that those expensive, Northeastern liberal arts schools are not practical choices, but people will still go there and do well, as the upper-crust Northeasterners will always have connections. </p>
<p>The ranking of those schools dropping wouldn’t be due to protests, but more due to the devaluing of liberal arts in general.</p>
<p>The Forbes article inlclude Princeton as one of those great universities with engineering, medicine and business schools. It has none of these. Indeed, it doesn’t even have a law school It is for this reason that Princeton is really only a large-scale LAC, a mere multiple of Amherst. It really should not have ANY place amont the top ten universities. Did someone at Forbes go to Princeton?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Unlikely at the “top [whatever]” schools that are the most desired ones that will always have enough applicants.</p>
<p>But it may be that the less selective and desired private schools with small endowments are the ones most at risk. These are probably schools that most people outside the local area have not heard of. There have been past articles and threads about schools cutting tuition or offering more scholarships in order to attract students. For example: <a href=“5 colleges slashing tuition - Seton Hall University (1) - CNNMoney”>http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2011/pf/1111/gallery.colleges_lower_tuition/index.html</a></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Princeton does have engineering, although it does not have medicine or business.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Princeton offers PhD study, and PhD students function as TAs for discussions associated with large lectures; these characteristics are not LAC-like.</p>
<p>This article is dreadful in so many ways. What will doom many LACs is the lack of economies of scale, not ideology. At a top LAC, the average cost per student is over $80,000. Even full-payers are being subsidized to the tune of $25,000 per year. This is fine if your endowment is $1 million per student.
Multiple members of the Forbes family attended Princeton, and one of the dorms is named Forbes College after Malcolm S. Forbes Jr. (Steve). </p>
<p>Lee Iacocca would be surprised to hear about Princeton’s lack of an engineering program. Published reports have him holding a masters degree in engineering from there. :)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Well, I rephrase the question to be “what makes you believe that:” as opposed to the question above, so that I can answer the question, since the question implies something that I didn’t say. But I do believe there is evidence of it. I know a number of northeastern HS students who have attended UNC, Clemson, Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia Tech, and a recent one who’s headed to Texas Tech, who might in decades gone by have gone to one of the private northeastern schools. Times are changing and the competition for students is national. Its especially true for full-pay students (although that’s of the schools’ own making because they charge people different prices). </p>
<p>I’m not speaking about the top NESCAC schools, or even the best Liberty or Centennial conference schools, but there are a lot of other schools in those groups where one should look long and hard about what you get from them compared to the alternatives. And I’ll grant you the observation that some of the decision may be culturally based rather than purely academic, as campuses are a bit more conservative-friendly in the south.</p>
<p>In any case, the fundamental premise that choosing a school is an investment decision is accurate. You spend four years of your life there, and, for some, $200k of your family’s money (or your own future earnings. If you’re receiving aid, your out-of-pocket costs are lower, so you may not have to be as careful. If you’re FAI (financial aid ineligible), it makes sense to weigh for instance, Union at $60K per year vs Clemson at $40k. I think people have been doing that. </p>
<p>@Vlklngboy11 Definitely not true, private institutions don’t just give the in-state students cheaper tuition. Both in-state and out of state students pay the same tuition, it’s part of the many differences that define a private institution. </p>
<p>I said they aren’t obligated… sorry if that was confusing.</p>
<p>While we can all agree this article is terrible, I think turning this into a Buy/Sell on colleges would be a very interesting thread. Basically take the concept and forget about that article as there’s little to learn/gain there.</p>
<p>Buy: Northeastern, BU, WPI, URochester, Emory
Sell: Cornell, BC, NYU</p>
<p>@dadx
I’m not surprised if growing numbers of students from the northeast have been choosing southern schools. That does not mean any of the NESCAC schools are seriously hurting for applicants. Their admit rates range from 14% (Amherst) to 35% (Connecticut College). The admit rate at Union College (a former NESCAC member) is only slightly higher (38%). There is more demand for college education now than there was decades ago, yet the supply of northeastern private schools hasn’t grown. Therefore, more prospective college students may be looking farther afield for schools they can get into and afford. </p>
<p>True, USC (S. Carolina) would be cheaper for a full pay student than, say, Trinity (Hartford). However, Trinity awards an average of over $22K even for need-based aid recipients from families earning $150K and up. ~41% of Trinity students receive need-based aid. Unless your family is fairly prosperous, any NESCAC school may be cost-competitive with a southern state university like USC (where the full OOS COA is greater than $38K) if you aren’t a resident of the public school’s state. Here are the costs for OOS students to attend some of the southern schools mentioned above, after average need based aid (assuming they even get it):</p>
<p>$35,486 Clemson (58% accepted)
$33,569 USC (61% accepted)
$30,201 University of Georgia (56% accepted)
$29,367 Virginia Tech (70% accepted)
$28,236 UNC (28% accepted)
$21,607 Texas Tech (64% accepted)
Source: Kiplinger’s (for costs), USNWR (for admission rates)</p>
<p>$17,949 Trinity (mean tuition + r&b + fees for n-b aid recipients)
Source: <a href=“http://www.trincoll.edu/AboutTrinity/offices/InstitutionalResearchPlanning/Documents/financialAid.pdf”>http://www.trincoll.edu/AboutTrinity/offices/InstitutionalResearchPlanning/Documents/financialAid.pdf</a></p>
<p>So for most New England HS students (who would not pay a full ~$60K if they could get into a selective LAC), cost isn’t necessarily what would make southern state universities more appealing. That could come from their much higher admit rates, or else “fit” factors (such as the availability of majors that LACs do not offer). </p>
<p>However, I do agree that Clemson at $40K may make a lot more sense than Union at $60K … if those are your choices. UConn (~$25K for a Connecticut resident) or a SUNY (~$20K for a NY resident) may make even more sense.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t underestimate the weather factor in a lot of kids’ decisions. The last few winters have been brutal in the northeast and midwest. And a lot of the northern schools are in pretty grim locations. </p>
<p>I would agree with PengsPhils about selling NYU.</p>
<p>My own eyes confirm what @Dadx has said. Schools like nearby Haverford do seem to be a sell among the EFC full pays, but not FA seekers - I know at least two kids who need FA who are considering it, but no full pays. However, when I look at Haverford’s Common Data Set, it seems our impressions are wrong. More than half the freshman at Haverford are full pay. Less than 10 percent are from abroad. From my own perspective, I’m just not seeing any attraction toward schools like Haverford among the full pays. I see full pays seeking out state schools (both in and oos). I see full pay kids who are pursuing a liberal arts major seeking out schools like Loyola Maryland or Fordham where they’ll get at least some discount. Furthermore, the full pay families I know who are willing to pay 60k+ are looking at schools like Stanford and Duke. And if they aren’t accepted to their first choice, they’re looking at UVa, Michigan, and U of Vermont to name a few. </p>
<p>Whether the attitude I’m seeing will spread or it’s just peculiar to the full pay demographic with which I’m familiar, I can’t say. But the difference in what I’m seeing in real life compared to what’s shown on the Haverford CDS is striking.</p>
<p>@halfemptypockets
Unless you’re in the business of college admissions, what you’re seeing in real life is a small sample set. Stanford, Duke, Michigan and UVermont are much larger schools than Haverford. Vermont gets over 20K applications; Haverford gets less than 4K. So of course you are likely to personally observe more applicants to big research universities than to small LACs. </p>
<p>But have a look at college matriculation lists at a few high-end boarding schools, like Andover (many of whose alumni presumably become full-pay college students):
<a href=“http://www.andover.edu/ACADEMICS/COLLEGECOUNSELING/Pages/SchoolProfileCollegeMatriculations.aspx”>http://www.andover.edu/ACADEMICS/COLLEGECOUNSELING/Pages/SchoolProfileCollegeMatriculations.aspx</a>
In the last 3 years, by my own count, 54 colleges enrolled 5 or more Andover alumni. 16 of them were LACs (enrolling 136 Andover alumni, again by my count); only 8 of them were state universities (enrolling 64 Andover alumni). The rest were private US research universities (and a couple of foreign schools).</p>
<p>Some of this discussion reminds me of that old Yogi Berra saying: “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.”</p>
<p>I haven’t thought it through very carefully, but it does seem possible that, over time, some private schools may need to rethink their “discounting” structure. Its possible that you could wind up with a situation where the only full pays that you enroll are marginal students. In that case, you need to think long and hard about whether you simply ought to just lower the sticker price and abandon the scholarship charade, or at least lower it. I think some schools have begun to do that, but its not easy, and each school has its own demographic, economic, geographic, and academic, that it draws from. </p>
<p>I think the Andover data is pretty interesting, but it also is clearly reflective of a preselected elite academic group. Neither Haverford or Union seems to be a favorite of the recent Andover graduates. </p>
<p>@PengsPhils
Out of curioristy, why “sell” BC and Cornell?</p>
<p>Well then:
Buy: MIT, Stanford, Washington Univ in St. Louis, U of Chicago, UMich, Texas A&M, UA, <em>community colleges</em>
Sell: HYP, UT Austin, for-profits</p>
<p>I am dismayed by the trend to view education solely in terms of its rate of financial return. When I went 25 years ago I don’t remember this being the theme song. My starry eyes were full of the knowledge I was going to gain and how much awe I would inspire as a fancy-britches intellectual, not how rich I was going to get. </p>
<p>If making the most money possible is your goal, then that will drive certain choices. If there are things you value more than money, you will be led in other directions. I suppose the breathtaking rise in tuition has driven this-- if I were full-pay, I’d be squinting pretty hard before I parted with a quarter million per child. McGill would start looking really good. The whole system of college pricing/funding is messed up, in my opinion-- reflecting the sharp peeling off of the wealthiest class which those much-maligned Haverford students were trying in their ungraceful way to address. I just hope this doesn’t turn into a system where in order to survive it has to be all about the money, all the time.</p>