Inside Higher Ed: "What’s the great benefit that elite institutions provide?"

[asteriskea]

<p>Inside Higher Ed "Reality Check" takes a close look at the stereotypes and problems related to elite - public and private- higher ed admissions practices that propose to level the playing field by ensuring access to all qualified and interested students: </p>

<p>
[quote]
We do indeed have to pay attention to the possibility that some graduates of high school who have the preparation and interest might be priced out of an opportunity to acquire a quality higher education, either by virtue of a high net cost of attendance or by the imposition of admissions standards that less affluent students find difficult to meet. This, however, is not a problem that belongs to elite public or private universities alone but is a challenge faced by all the providers of higher education in America. To focus on elite institutions is to make some pernicious and inaccurate assumptions about all the other institutions of higher education.</p>

<p>If we assume that everyone should have an equal opportunity to attend an elite public or private institution (since both are heavily subsidized by taxpayers), then we must also assume that attendance at a non-elite public or private institution represents an unsatisfactory and therefore unequal outcome for a student. If the community colleges, state colleges, non-flagship state institutions, and many non-elite private colleges represent an unsatisfactory and inequitable opportunity, compared to what we call elite institutions, that would seem to require us to assume that they do a poor job of educating students; that the results of their educational efforts are second rate; and that anyone who attends such places is sure to be deficient upon graduation. This kind of thinking may reflect the snobbery of some elite groups who can’t imagine a good education coming from a campus of the California State University system, or a fine education at a combination of Greenfield Community College and Westfield State College in Massachusetts. Such an assumption also reflects a profound ignorance about the actual academic performance of the students who graduate from these “non-elite” institutions.</p>

<p>The notion of “elite institution” deserves some attention. We who live and work in institutions labeled elite have every reason to accept the premise that only an education in our remarkable places is worth having even if we can present little evidence to demonstrate that our elite characteristics result in higher performance after graduation. Research that attempts to demonstrate the higher value of elite compared to non-elite education seems to indicate that while some people may benefit from instruction at a small private elite college, most students do just about as well after graduation, all other things being equal, whether they go to elite or non-elite institutions.</p>

<p>The elite status of an institution comes from its ability to spend more money than institutions deemed “non-elite.” These expenditures do indeed make a different institution. For example, a state flagship institution may have its faculty teaching only half time, assigning the other half time to research. The student activities supported by the elite institution may be more elaborate, the residential spaces more elegant, the quality of the buildings and other facilities more impressive, the student recreation center more comprehensive, and the intercollegiate sports program more nationally visible. These amenities define elite status for undergraduates, and many assume that the amenities reflect academic quality. Students and their parents like these amenities, they ask about them when they visit campus, and they appear willing to pay a premium for the opportunity to participate in the residential life of an elite university. Still, the data that would tell us that the students really learn more and will do much better after graduation as a result of these amenities is not very persuasive.</p>

<p>If we figure the cost of attendance at one of these elite institutions and compare it to the cost of attending a community college and state college, near where the student lives and where the student can hold down a job, we find that the best educational bargain by far is the community college-state college combination.</p>

<p>When we worry about whether poor people can get access to college, some imagine that a zero cost of attendance will solve the problem. That doesn’t really work. Even when an institution pays for the tuition and fees, including room and board, for students below some income marker, these students still come up short an additional $10K to make up for the opportunity cost of living away from home and losing the income from a regular 12-month part-time or full-time job. The public cost of subsidizing elite education for all is very high for rather limited gains. And, of course, there are not enough spots in what we call elite institutions to accommodate all the deserving students of all income levels.</p>

<p>Because space is limited, even in elite public institutions with enrollments over 40,000, the institutions select students based on various criteria, some related to geography, some related to ethnicity, some related to academic preparation, and some related to athletic skill. It would certainly be possible to add other criteria to this list to try and achieve an equal opportunity for all students. However, the only truly “fair” admission process would do what we suggested in an earlier Reality Check: fill the class using random selection from a pool composed of all high school graduates who meet the institution’s minimum admission criteria. There is a certain simplistic charm to this notion.</p>

<p>What’s the great benefit, then, that the elite institutions provide? Well, they are elite and they are expensive, and they have luxuries that aren’t available at the community college or state college, or non-elite private institution. Do they do a better job of helping students who have deficient high school preparation succeed? Surely not better than the community college that specializes in serving these constituencies.</p>

<p>The real issue for any state is whether its total system of public higher education is effectively serving the people for whom the institutions are intended. If we believe that only elite public research institutions provide quality academic preparation and degrees, we should close the community colleges, the state colleges, and the university campuses not deemed “elite” and transfer those funds and the responsibility for serving all graduates of the state’s high schools to elite institutions and require them to expand their enrollments to accommodate all the college bound students of the state.</p>

<p>This solution, impossible of course, would result in each elite institution reinventing community colleges, non-elite campuses located near the communities from which the students come, and investing only a fraction of the funding available in the high priced research university environment that many people define as elite.

[/quote]
</p>

<p><a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2006/12/12/lombardi%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2006/12/12/lombardi&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

[marite]

<p>This article needs to be read side by side with the NYT article (in another thread) showing that colleges wanting to be more attractive to students RAISE their tuitions so that they match those of "elite" institutions. Thus, Ursinus college's tuition is as high as Harvard's.</p>

[asteriskea]

<p>Marite:
I agree completely and had the very same thought.</p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=274635%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=274635&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

[marite]

<p>The problem I see with articles such as this one is the facile correlation between "elite" and "expensive" especially when measuring the post-college benefits, and more especially so when measuring such benefits in mostly economic terms, as return on investment. The comparison is usually made between "expensive" (read "elite") institutions and state universities. Granted that the college experience may be quite different, but will a student whose family spends the same amount of money for the student to attend Ursinus or GWU get the same pecuniary benefits as a student attending HYP?</p>

[originaloog]

<p>I have always been a bit of a contrarian here, concluding that there is little correlation between some arbitrary ranking and a quality education based on published research and personal experience. However I do think the author of the OP article goes a bit too far.</p>

<p>I believe in a bracketting concept whereby colleges and universities fall into larger groupings w/r to education quality. It is foolish to think that the local community college and Cal-Berkeley will offer a similar "product" in the classroom. However it is just as unlikely that Cornell will necessarily offer a significantly superior classroom "product" than Ohio State, two universities I attended over the course of a decade. Yes, they are significantly different universities. But academic opportunities and challenges aboud at each IF the students are willing to take advantage of them.</p>

<p>The article which cited the phenomenon of raising tuition to improve a college's "standing" in the eyes of the consuming family is but one indication of how subjective college comparisons are. </p>

<p>There are rare exceptions as the discussion thread about Harvard College's Math 55 curriculum illustrates. But that may only create a bracket of one college for an extremely gifted mathematician.</p>

[marite]

<p>Originaloog:</p>

<p>Agree, and I would add--my reason for referencing the article on raising tuition--that there is no real correlation between expensive and excellent education.</p>

[roberthhid]

<p>Sartre wrote that "hell is other people" but heaven is other people as well. Its probably been mentioned is other threads but one advantage of the elite schools is the other students around you. When my son toured Columbia, the tour guide talked a lot about how great it was to be in a creative writing class with students so talented that it was a joy to read their writing. A very bright kid at a community college is going to feel lonesome.</p>

[mini]

<p>Having taught at both the University of Chicago and the Community College of Philadelphia, I can tell you from experience that this is more truism than truth. My UChicago students were obviously better prepared. They read better, they wrote better, they argued better. Every term at the community college, I had two (sometimes three) students who went on to receive full scholarships at Penn, and one occasionally to another of the Ivies - they wrote as well; but in the main, there is no question that the Chicago students were much better prepared.</p>

<p>HOWEVER, the life experiences that my Chicago students brought into the classroom were much more "impoverished". They often had no idea how folks actually earned a living, how governments "really" worked, and many felt quite uncomfortable outside of a bookish context. There were conversations and dialogues that took place, not regularly but on occasion, at the community college that went far beyond anything possible at Chicago, even when dealing with classical texts. </p>

<p>My favorite example is that we used to discuss the oligarchic propaganda myth from Plato's Republic (which I did regularly at both places). My Chicago students rarely understood it as propaganda, and they could only get behind it from reading critiques. It was usually the case that my community college students saw through it immediately for what it was, and it promoted lively (once even angry) conversation. I can't imagine that justified anger ever rearing its head in the Chicago environment.</p>

[epiphany]

<p>I really appreciate your Post #8, mini.</p>

[asteriskea]

<p>Yet another NYTimes article that ought to be read along side the OP piece:</p>

<p>
[quote]
As parents and students cope with the ever-rising cost of higher education, many debate whether attending private institutions — which charge far more than public universities — is worth the expense. Is the quality of the education better? Will students have more access to their professors? Will those professors be more distinguished? Do students make important contacts that pay off later in life? Are any such advantages worth going deeply into debt?</p>

<p>Tuition and room and board at private four-year colleges now add up to more than $30,000 a year on average, and rose by 81 percent, more than double the inflation rate, between 1993 and 2004.</p>

<p>Financial aid provided by private institutions, even to the upper middle class, has grown more than tuition — by 135 percent over the same period — and some universities provide substantial assistance to low-income students. Still, the dollar amounts are hard for most applicants to ignore.</p>

<p>Selection of a college, public or private, often turns on more than just money, of course. As Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, the president of George Washington University, put it, “Picking a college is like falling in love.”</p>

<p>Still, students, parents, college officials and high school guidance counselors have strong opinions about the value of a private education. Below is a sampling of views.</p>

<p>PEYTON RANDOLPH HELM</p>

<p>President, Muhlenberg College</p>

<p>There are certain things that most public colleges and universities cannot offer, said Mr. Helm, explaining why he thinks a private education, even at a small institution like Muhlenberg, in Allentown, Pa., is worth the cost.</p>

<p>“What private liberal arts colleges provide is very high quality and high sticker price,” Mr. Helm said, adding that “the sticker price is not necessarily the cost and it’s not necessarily the value” because of financial aid.</p>

<p>Mr. Helm stressed nonfinancial benefits, too. “The better, the more prestigious the institution, the more you have small classes and you have direct interaction with your professors,” he said.</p>

<p>Many private institutions have large classes, but Mr. Helm described a classics course he teaches with just 10 students.</p>

<p>“Some of them have been brilliant from Day 1, and there’s one of them whom I could barely get to open his mouth who came out with something brilliant” in the last days of the term, Mr. Helm said.</p>

<p>“If I had a class of 150 people, or 500 people, or 800 people, that isn’t going to happen,” he said.</p>

<p>Students may more easily get into courses they want at private colleges, Mr. Helm said. “If you’re not going to graduate in four years because you’re not going to get the courses,” then a public education may not be the best choice.</p>

<p>STEPHANIE A. BALBACH</p>

<p>Student, Indiana State University</p>

<p>Ms. Balbach, 18, a freshman, said she got a good deal at Indiana State, in Terre Haute, thanks to a pair of scholarships covering most of her costs. She does not think she is missing anything by choosing a public institution.</p>

<p>Even though her parents had saved to help pay for Ms. Balbach’s college education, she said, money was an issue. She considered three colleges, two public and one private, none too far from her hometown, Evansville. Indiana State offered the best deal. “Right off the bat they said, ‘Here are three scholarships that you would fit the criteria for,’ ” she said.</p>

<p>When she visited the university, she was even more impressed. “I immediately met the undergraduate dean, I met the director of the department I was interested in,” Ms. Balbach recalled. She added that although the university had more than 8,600 undergraduates, she felt she would not be a faceless number.</p>

<p>Her scholarships cover $12,396 for tuition, room and board; Ms. Balbach has paid a few hundred dollars for books and other expenses. She plans to major in insurance and risk management.</p>

<p>“This whole agenda that was lined up for me, when I saw that, I thought, ‘Wow,’ ” she said...</p>

<p>JIM CONROY</p>

<p>High school counselor, New Trier High School</p>

<p>Before anyone can figure out whether private education is worth the price, students and their parents need to know what the real price is, said Mr. Conroy, chairman of post-high school counseling at New Trier, in Winnetka, Ill. That means ignore the stated tuition.</p>

<p>“Don’t close the door yet until you see what kind of financial aid the school can offer,” Mr. Conroy said. Even when the tuition appears out of reach, applying — and waiting to see what aid may appear — is worthwhile, he said. “Colleges offer many types of financial support,” he said, adding that at some institutions, “60 to 65 percent of the kids are on some form of financial aid.”</p>

<p>But in the end, Mr. Conroy said, students and their parents must still decide what is the best deal for them. “Each one of these families is making a value decision,” Mr. Conroy said. “Families have said to me, we will pay for that school, we will not pay for that school. We will extend ourselves and sacrifice if he gets into — and you can name them, Harvard, Yale, Princeton — but we are not sacrificing for the next tier.”</p>

<p>F. KING ALEXANDER</p>

<p>President, California State University,</p>

<p>Long Beach</p>

<p>Anyone asking Mr. Alexander whether a private college education is worth its price gets an unequivocal answer.</p>

<p>“The answer is no,” Mr. Alexander said, adding that high price does not mean high quality. “A lot of schools, particularly up in New York and New England, they want everybody to believe that.” He described what he called the Chivas Regal effect in which, he said, “the bottle looks great, but what’s inside doesn’t taste better.”</p>

<p>There may be benefits to students at the most elite colleges, Mr. Alexander said, including those in the Ivy League, where classmates who end up working in important and influential places can help one another later in life. But he added that most private colleges probably cannot achieve the same “network effects” and still charge several times the tuition of most public colleges.</p>

<p>Plenty of people who are now rich and powerful went to public colleges and universities, Mr. Alexander said. “Steven Spielberg went to Cal State Long Beach,” he said. “He’s doing all right.”</p>

<p>CAROLE K. BELLEW</p>

<p>Parent</p>

<p>Ms. Bellew is helping Luke, one of her two sons, attend Bryant University, a private institution in Smithfield, R.I., with 3,200 undergraduates. Tuition, room and board for his first year come to about $35,000, Ms. Bellew said, but her son received a merit scholarship that covers about $15,000. Other scholarships, including one from Cambridge, Mass., where Ms. Bellew lives, have brought the total amount due this year down to about $10,000. Luke has borrowed as much as he can on his own from the federal government, taking out Perkins and Stafford loans.</p>

<p>Ms. Bellew said she had hoped her son would apply to a public university, but he did not. After comparing what Bryant and the University of Massachusetts would cost, she concluded that with the aid, the two institutions were only about $5,000 apart.</p>

<p>“To me, it’s worth another $5,000 to give him the support I think he needs,” she said, adding that her son had learning disabilities and that she preferred him not to be one of nearly 20,000 undergraduates at the University of Massachusetts.</p>

<p>Ms. Bellew looked into private loans, but found she did not qualify, because until she changed jobs recently, she earned too little money.</p>

<p>“When you’re 60 years old and you’re financing a kid’s college, it’s a little bit scary,” Ms. Bellew said. The money she is drawing on, she continued, “is basically my retirement.”</p>

<p>JUSTIN R. ERICKSON</p>

<p>Student, Grinnell College</p>

<p>Mr. Erickson knew he wanted to go to Grinnell, in Iowa, from the start, and so far at least, he is sure it is worth it.</p>

<p>“When I visited, I loved it,” Mr. Erickson said.</p>

<p>His parents were worried about the money, he said, and warned him he would have to borrow. His younger sister will soon be ready for college and will need help to cover her costs, too.</p>

<p>He looked at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and applied there and to the University of Minnesota. But when he applied to Grinnell, he asked to be considered for early decision, pledging that, if accepted, he would enroll.</p>

<p>“I think it’s worth it,” he said, citing the small classes and the “small-town feel” of the campus.</p>

<p>He said he was unafraid of working hard to make attending the college possible. “I’ve had a paper route since I was 12,” Mr. Erickson said. Last summer he had two jobs, working more than 12 hours a day sometimes, to build up his college savings. He and his family have to come up with about $20,000 a year, after federal student loans and a $15,000 scholarship, to cover nearly $37,000 for tuition, fees, and room and board at Grinnell.</p>

<p>“The first semester, we’ve been able to cover, and we’re hoping next semester as well, but we’re not sure,” Mr. Erickson said. “It depends on how much my parents will be able to contribute. It will be interesting to see what happens down the road.”

[/quote]
</p>

[barrons]

<p>Some shocking numbers on the rising use of adjuncts at many top schools.</p>

<p>The American Association of University Professors just published a study of the numbers of adjuncts at a number of top schools. The number of adjuncts as a % of tenure-track faculty is shocking. Yale-50%, Columbia-44%, Harvard-57%, MIT 45%, Carnegie Mellon-55%, Johns Hopkins 54%, NYU 72%, Princeton 31%, USC 60%. Stanford was low at only 8.5%. Some major state schools included Indiana 31%, UCB 34%, UCLA 36%, Mich 46%, UNC 32%, Wisconsin 39%, UVa 33%</p>

[katliamom]

<p>What's interesting to me is the difference between, say, Harvard's 57% and Stanford's 8.5%. Certainly makes Stanford look very good.</p>

[mini]

<p>The numbers can be extremely misleading. Take, for example - the Washington, DC schools - Georgetown, George Washington, American. They all have reputations for using large numbers of adjuncts. But if you are undergraduate studying American Political Systems, would you prefer to be taught by "adjunct professor" Tom Daschle, or some young assistant professor who has to publish or perish?</p>

<p>The high percentage of adjuncts at Harvard might reflect a high degree of intellectual vitality, with visiting scholars and professionals teaching single courses and wanting to be there, or it could reflect faculty who, when it comes to teaching, couldn't be bothered. (I suspect the truth is that both are true.) And, at Stanford, it could mean lack of a professionally engaged faculty, or a strong commitment to teaching. You can't tell either way by looking at the data.</p>

[marite]

<p>I'd want to know how these percentages are arrived at. Do they include only Faculty of Arts and Sciences or professional schools as well? If the latter, then the Harvard Medical School has a huge number of adjunct profs who teach maybe one course but are full-time practitioners.</p>

<p>In Faculties of Arts and Sciences--which are of more significance for undergraduate education--language instructors are usually non-ladder (non-tenure-track); again, if a school offers a large number of language classes, it will have more non-tenured instructors. Some time ago, the Crimson published an article according to which 30 undergrads were turned away from Chinese language classes because of a lack of available instructors. To accommodate the increased demand would mean hiring more preceptors who, by definition, are considered adjuncts.</p>

<p>Another consideration is that in order to keep their largely administrative roles, some administrative staff are required to teach at least one course, thus making them adjuncts. Finally, some programs such as Expository Writing or Creative Writing rely heavily on adjuncts (such as Jamaica Kincaid or Lan Samantha Chang who is now Director of the Iowa Writing Workshop). </p>

<p>So I'd like to see more context given to these bare percentages. What exactly do they represent? Not necessarily a cost-cutting measure or inferior teaching.</p>

<p>EDIT: Cross-posted with Mini!</p>

[bethievt]

<p>My master's degree program in counseling psychology was taught 100% by adjunct profs. They were all active practitioners in the field of psychology and "practiced what they preached" out in the real world. Since I was training to be a practitioner, I thought I was extremely well-served by this program.</p>

[barrons]

<p>Most of Harvard's are shown as full-time non tenure track so they are the small army of lecturers and asst profs not on the tenure track. I doubt Med School clinical profs are included but every med school has many of these including Stanford so it would show.</p>

[marite]

<p>Thanks, Barrons. It looks like the survey has been mixing apples together with oranges. Non-tenure track assistant profs, preceptors, lecturers and senior lecturers are not the same as adjuncts. </p>

<p>From what I understand, adjuncts are paid by the course. Full-time preceptors and full-time assistant profs are paid a salary on the same principle as tenure track profs. Lecturers (who can become very highly paid Senior lecturers) should also not be considered adjuncts. All assistant profs in the math dept at Harvard (and I believe at a number of peer institutions) are non-tenure track. But they are not adjuncts.</p>

[barrons]

<p>The point of the study was to highlight the decline in tenure track faculty. That's why they included both non tenure track and part-time faculty. Yale was about 50-50 for non track and part-time.</p>

[marite]

<p>Yes, but that's not the same as adjuncts. Sorry, but that sounds like sloppy reporting to me.</p>

<p>I also think that the decline in the number tenured faculty (though not of tenure-track faculty) is a good thing. Too many faculties have fully tenured departments with profs who have little incentive to retire even when they reach 70. I once talked with a prof in a social sciences department at a major Canadian University who told me that only one person in his whole department was not tenured. Regardless of the qualifications of the person who was hired to fill that non-tenured slot, the person had no prayer of being promoted to tenure as the department wanted to keep that slot open so as to get "new blood" in.</p>

<p>I do, however, support the increase in tenure-track hiring. I've never understood why the math departments at Harvard and some other institutions have this policy of not making tenure-track appointments at the assistant prof level.</p>

[barrons]

<p>The article did not say only adjuncts. That might have been my error in the decription. Adjunct was a lot quicker to type than non tenure track full-time.</p>

<p>Here's a snip with the gist</p>

<p>"The index's cumulative findings confirm the omens that have loomed large to academic-labor activists for years: Since the 1970s, the proportion of tenured and tenure-track faculty members in the American professoriate has dwindled from about 57 percent to about 35 percent, while the proportion of full- and part-timers working off the tenure track has grown from about 43 percent to 65 percent.</p>

<p>Moreover, the proportion of professors in line for tenure has shrunk faster than the proportion of those who already enjoy tenure. The interpretation: "We really don't have a replacement generation of faculty on the tenure track," says Mr. Curtis."</p>