<p>I view it in the reverse: the dearth of outstanding public education options creates the void that allows the private schools to exist. </p>
<p>If people felt they were getting an equivalent product at $15,000/year. how many would still pay $45,000/ year for a private college?</p>
<p>I haven't been to New Paltz, but in theory I think it could work. Anyplace beyond easy commuting distance of NYC would be "upstate" enough, IMO.</p>
<p>People in western NY may not think albany is a central location, but it is the Capitol of the state after all. There is a decent network of other colleges in the area, including RPI, Union, Skidmore. An hour or so to Bennington or Williams.</p>
<p>gomestar: Sorry my explanation was not completely accurate. Still, I think info. about tuitions answered Hawkette's question. No offense intended to Cornell which I find awesomely beautiful and vibrant. (S spent summer at Ithaca College for Suzuki violin camp. Since he was only 8 I stayed too, and had numerous opportunities to visit Cornell.)</p>
<p>monydad: New Paltz is theoretically in commuting distance of New Paltz. My point was that since the privates preceded SUNY making SUNY too attractive would have rung a death knoll (sp?) for some of them. An analogy would be the packaging and taste of the generic cough medicine that often is actually made by the brand name company. SOMETHING has to keep people buying the brand name. But maybe I'm wrong and overly cynical.</p>
<p>The two brightest students of my son's year (Including valedictorian) are attending Stony Brook and already have research connections there. Parents are European born physicists at Brookhaven labs. I'm sure they think the rest of us are crazy, seduced by the "packaging" of the name brand.</p>
<p>Could NYS support two flagships like Berkeley/UCLA or Texas/Texas A&M?</p>
<p>About 14,000 NYS students attend flagships in other states About 3270 NYS freshman went to flagships in other states in 2006 alone. About 33,000 NYS students attend state schools in other states. NYS sent 8245 freshmen to state schools in other states last year alone.</p>
<p>source: IPEDS</p>
<p>school, 1=state control, NYS students in last year's freshman class
Auburn University Main Campus 1 10
University of California-Berkeley 1 12
University of California-Davis 1 5
University of California-Irvine 1 1
University of California-Los Angeles 1 16
University of California-San Diego 1 9
University of California-Santa Barbara 1 10
University of California-Santa Cruz 1 9
University of Colorado at Boulder 1 102
University of Connecticut 1 220
University of Delaware 1 456
University of Florida 1 54
Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus 1 34
University of Georgia 1 17
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 1 14
Indiana University-Bloomington 1 204
Iowa State University 1 2
University of Iowa 1 4
University of Maryland-College Park 1 288
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 1 269
Michigan State University 1 56
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities 1 6
University of Missouri-Columbia 1 7
Rutgers University-New Brunswick/Piscataway 1 130
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 1 44
Miami University-Oxford 1 54
Ohio State University-Main Campus 1 77
Pennsylvania State University-Penn State Main Campus 1 515
University of Pittsburgh-Main Campus 1 145
Clemson University 1 39
The University of Tennessee 1 11
Texas A & M University 1 9
The University of Texas at Austin 1 9
College of William and Mary 1 36
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University 1 74
University of Virginia-Main Campus 1 96
University of Washington-Seattle Campus 1 18
University of Wisconsin-Madison 1 167
Purdue University-Main Campus 1 41
Grand Total 3270</p>
<p>collegehelp: Interesting idea, but then we're obviously back to the problem of $. It seems that NY is crippled by upstate/downstate squabbling.</p>
<p>If your plan were to materialize, choosing two of current four universities would be most practical. Which would you choose?</p>
<p>With UCSD a rising star perhaps funneling money into all four unis. is the answer. BTW: only Binghamton has a strong Classics dept., one of the must haves for S's list.</p>
<p>mythmom-
SUNY Buffalo has the broadest curriculum in the state with engineering, medicine, law already in place. So, Buffalo would be a good choice. The other would be Stony Brook, so both corners of the state could be served. But, other would argue Albany because it is the state capitol and still other would say Binghamton because it is most selective.</p>
<p>If NYS could retain some of the 33,000 students who attend public unis in other states, that would mean more ncome. </p>
<p>But, I still favor one flagship built from scratch. A showpiece with fine architecture. UC Merced was built from scratch and opened in 2005. I also think SUNY has some faculty who are not up to par. A new location could hire from scratch and hire the best.</p>
<p>I just read in Long Island paper that Stony Brook has been selected as one of four universities to receive two grants to develop terrorist detecting technology. Thyat elicits a simultaneous yeah! and yuck! from me.</p>
<p>collegehelp: I agree it would be great if Suny were an attractive enough option tO keep students in-state. However, I'm not sure how this would generate more income when each student's education is so heavily subsidized. I'm probably missing something.</p>
<p>Oh, just as an aside, Nassau C C petitoned the Board of Regents to become a four year school. We have 22,000 students. Request was declined. Always wondered if Hofstra, Adelphi and Post had something to do with this, or if moeny was the issue, or something political football I am unaware of like regional bickering. It would have been nice to teach upper level courses.</p>
<p>maybe we should combine SUNY and CUNY and make city college the flagship U? I has a beautiful campus and everyone would want to be in NYC.. just need to develop some housing</p>
<p>you guys need to realize that creating some powerhouse university takes decades (not months or a few years). The reputation that these academic powherhouse schools have is derived from years of notable scholars, research, and academic scholarship. Building a nice campus with nice buildings doesn't necessarily produce a top academic school. All I need to do to demonstrate my point is direct you guys to those very expensive private schools across the country that are below top publics like Mich, UVA, and Cal.</p>
<p>You may be right, but in the case of state universities the level of funding can have significant impacts, possibly in less time than you're suggesting.</p>
<p>When I was applying to colleges around 1970, UC Santa Cruz was the most selective campus in the University of California system. It was only established in 1965. but it had been targeted as a new flagship campus, with a residential college approach like Oxford/ Cambridge. It was supposed to be the big new thing. I'm no California expert, but from what I understand priorities and relative funding levels changed dramatically thereafter, and as a consequence UCSC today is not perceived to be what it was perceived like back then.</p>
<p>Some of the SUNYs, particularly Albany and Buffalo, were also relatively more highly regarded back then, and I imagine this also relates to changes in relative funding levels. I don't really know how long it took them to drop, following funding drops. Or how long it would take for the reverse process to occur.</p>
<p>Hawkette- I am not going to hijack this thread Re: Land Grant status of Cornell- but there is alot of US History behind the designation. -but a real quick intro- is for you to read up on the Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862. Each state was given land (30,000 acres) so they could develop a program to teach agriculture and mechanical arts. Most states developed this program at their State University. But there was no State University system in NY at that time. Mass. has 2 Land Grant schools- U Mass. at Amherst and MIT.
As New York had no State University (SUNY established 1948), the land was given to Cornell- which was established in 1865. Cornell has a nice link on its site re: land grant status- including programs they run for the betterment of the people of NY (Cornell Cooperative Extension Program)
As a New Yorker and Cornell mom, I am proud and pleased when I see Cornell's presence at the Local Farmers Market in Jamaica Queens, teaching people about nuitrion: I am proud when I see Cornell's presence at the NY State Fair with 4-H activities or passing information along to the agricultural community of NY State. If you are really interested in Land Grant info, you can check out NASULGC.org. </p>
<p>Getting back to SUNY's- Maybe ConstantIllusion is correct- maybe we shouldn't dilute the majority of schools by creating one (or 2) Flagships. We all seem to have our favorites. What I can say Re: SUNY colleges
many of them do have one or two specialty programs. i.e Cortland for Sport Management-- Purchase for Performing Arts--Oneonta has Music Production and Technology--and the Crane School of Music at Potsdam (??)
In reality the University centers too have "specialties" Albany now has the Nanotechnology Center: Stony Brook has a new School of Journalism and Marine Science.<br>
So the reality is- one has to be a good consumer- do a little research and find the best fit.
And though we are talking about NY'rs fleeing SUNY, I believe enrollment continues to increase and there seems to be overenrollment each year at a lot of the SUNY's. So they gotta be doing something right!</p>
<p>IMO it's not that SUNY is doing something right, it's that people can't afford the alternatives, which have become astronomically expensive, so they have little choice.</p>
<p>My impression is that the SUNYs have been relatively starved for funding for a good while now.
Purchase is not far from me; from what I understand class sizes there are not what they should be for the type of programs they are running.</p>
<p>It would be nice if the people who do at least theoretically have the bucks to go private, for the very academically competitive kids, would frequently be inclined to choose a SUNY anyway. The way I imagine residents of virginia who have a UVA acceptance might feel. Now and then there's discussion on the Cornell board about whether a Cal resident should turn down Cornell for Berkeley. It would be nice if more NY residents could more frequently take part in such discussions in the same way.</p>
<p>But you don't get many of those discussions relating to a SUNY.</p>
<p>Yeah! but I did notice we have a kid from Maryland going to Buffalo on this thread. That's a switch. Maybe he'll share with us his reasons for going to UB and not Maryland.
For whatever it's worth, we still have over 50% of my district's HS grads going to a SUNY. And my district is a pretty "well to do district" on Long Island.<br>
And for all my friends who have sent there kids to U Maryland, Delaware, Penn State, U Conn- they do not feel there kid is getting a better education than they would get at SUNY but usually the decision to go OOS has to do with campus environment including sports- Greek Life etc. I'll admit, I view UVA and Mich a cut or two above Delaware/ Maryland etc.
It would be nice to have a choice like Va parents- UVA vs William and Mary!!</p>
<p>Based on what I have read on the internet, there is a consensus among educators and politicians in NYS that SUNY has not lived up to its potential, that it has, in fact, declined in recent years, and that it is clearly a second-tier system. That is one of the reasons the new Gobernor appointed the Higher Education Commission and appointed Hunter Rawlings, former President of both Cornell and U Iowa (?) to head the commission.</p>
<p>The key to creating a flagship is to raise admissions standards dramatically and only accept students of the same caliber as Berkeley and Michigan. And, second, to consolidat the best faculty and researchers on that campus. Better architecture would be very helpful, but isn't the first priority.</p>
<p>But then, one must ask--What is the role of Public Education?? Is it better to build a Flagship college that may make you feel good, but in reality will only serve a small percent of state residents?? Or is it better to have a myriad of decent schools throughout the state that serve ALL the people of New York.
I believe I read somewhere that no NY State resident lives more than an hour or two from a SUNY campus. To have an educational system- where anyone can take advantage to learn and better himself sounds pretty good to me. In fact, I find that ideal more appealing than a flagship school, where only a "handful" will be served.</p>