<p>The point is Michigan hasn’t increased its %OOS intake in recent years compared to 20 years ago when the state appropriation accounted for more than 50% of the budget.</p>
<p>So, they haven’t increased the % of OOS admitted, but significantly increased the charge to OOS students? It’s still about the money…</p>
<p>giterdone, Michigan is a non-profit. It does not raise tuition costs to benefit individuals. It does so to cover the cost of operations. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), Michigan has set its standards higher than the state can afford. </p>
<p>At any rate, Michigan’s tuition increases have not outpaced the national norm. Most years, the increase in tuition has been ~4%-6%, which is in line with most universities. </p>
<p>The problem, as GoBlue points out, is the following:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>State appropriations have decreased steadily from 1992-2012 while the cost of operation has increased. As a result, state funding, which used to account for over half of Michigan’s cost of operation, now accounts for less than 10% of it. </p></li>
<li><p>The population of the state of Michigan has declined in that same period of time, from over 10 million to under 10 million. </p></li>
<li><p>The undergraduate student population of the university of Michigan has grown from 18,000 to 27,000 in that period of time. </p></li>
<li><p>And yet, somehow, the IS : OOS ratio has remained roughly the same throughout; 65%-35%</p></li>
</ol>
<p>This simply does not make any sense. The University of Michigan’s undergraduate student body should not have grown at all. It should have remained 18,000 but the IS : OOS ratio should have gone from 65 / 35 to 35 /65.</p>
<p>Alexandre, Michigan would be in a gigantic ****storm if it dropped to below 50% in-state as a public school. Although going private makes sense logistically, this would reflect very poorly upon public higher education as a whole, since Michigan is one of the top universities in the country and doing so would basically say that our government cannot sustain a world-class university. Thus, all Michigan can do to deal with the change in state appropriations is to increase their number of undergraduate students.</p>
<p>Not really nomadha. Michigan can do whatever it wants. There is no law that forces Michigan to maintain a 2 : 1 ratio of IS to OOS students. If the University wanted to reverse the ratio, it could. Obviously, it would have to be done gradually, over the course of several years. </p>
<p>Furthermore, turning private is something that the University would do as part of a national trend and with the consent of the state. Other private universities, including UVa, are already considering it. Unfortunately, states are strapped for cash at the moment and would seriously consider working with some public universities to turn private.</p>
<p>“Other private universities, including UVa, are already considering it.”</p>
<p>Other PUBLIC univeristies, including UVA, are already considering it. ;-)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Universities aren’t “cost control” organizations either. It doesn’t make sense that it costs upwards of 30% more to educate per student, at Michigan, than almost any other BIG 10 school.</p>
<p>Giterdone, you have to consider several things:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>To residents, Michigan is not that much more expensive that several Big 10 schools. In fact, I am fairly certain that PSU and UIUC are more expensive to residents of their respective states.</p></li>
<li><p>To OOS students, Michigan is indeed more expensive than all Big 10 public universities. That’s because it commands a certain stature nationally that the others do not. Whether deserved or not, Michigan’s academic and reputational peers are schools such as Cal, Cornell, Northwestern, Penn and UVa. All of those schools cost as much, if not more, than Michigan.</p></li>
<li><p>Michigan’s cost of operation is ~$3 billion (not including the hospitals). That’s much higher than any other Big 10 school. For example, the UIUC’s operating budget is $1.9 billion. OSU’s is also around $2 billion, as is Wisconsin-Madison. The reason for this is simple. Michigan has a multitude of state-of-the-art facilities and a large world class faculty, designed to give undergrads the sort of experience that only select few universities can provide. This cannot be said of other Big 10 public universities.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>All in all, Michigan has the quality to command such high tuition and the costs of operation that commands such high tuition. Ironically, the quality and prestige that make Michigan so appealing are the very factors that make it expensive to so many who desire it.</p>
<p>This said, I agree that financial aid is an area of development at Michigan. I am confident that the university will address it with the urgency it deserves.</p>
<p>that we can agree on.</p>
<p>Alexandre, Cal is significantly cheaper than UMich both in-state and out of state, however UVa is on a par.</p>
<p>Actually nomadha, you may want to check on Cal. Last I checked, Michigan tuition cost ~$1,000 more for IS students and $3,000 more for OOS students. That is insignificant. However, cost of living more than made up for it. In the end, the cost of attending Cal is actually higher than the cost of attending Michigan.</p>
<p>^ That sample Cal student budget is inflated. You can live with the bums in People’s Park if you’re on a budget. ;)</p>
<p>Journalism- not even offered as a major.</p>
<p>Journalism! Not even available as a career anymore ;)</p>
<p>When we first started looking seriously at schools at the start of D’s sophomore year (about 4 years ago), OOS at Michigan was substantially higher than the other top public schools D was considering (Cal, UVa, Texas and UNC) about 10K more. Since then, Mich has been increasing tuition at about 5%/year but Cal and UVa have been raising tuition at a much higher rate and have almost closed all the gap. Thus, the only real bargain in OOS tuition now at a top public is UNC. (Texas, while an excellent school, is a slight notch below the others.)</p>
<p>What do you mean by weak? Michigan does well in all rankings. But know that rankings are largely based on research output not on teaching quality. Undergrads shouldn’t worry so much about rankings as being in a place where you’ll be happy, work hard, and find a life path. As for teaching, for a research university, it works very hard to give a good undergraduate experience, much more so than Berkeley, in my view. The bad weather is overstated. Mich gets four seasons. Fall is breathtaking, spring, and summer are green and lovely. Winter is too long but it is cozy and pretty with the white snow on the limestone buildings. Big problem with Mich now is the price for out of staters. For in-staters, unless you get a full ride somewhere else, go to UM. It’s big which has it’s good and bad. You’ll experience more types of people and programs. But if you are shy, you’ll have to find a niche. They have residence programs built around interests which helps with that.</p>
<p>Its Offensive Coordinator.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t say UM is weak in the physical and natural sciences, but it certainly is not as strong in those areas as it is in others, especially the social sciences, and the gap seems to be growing over time. Granted, UM has long had perhaps the strongest set of social science departments (along with Harvard, Berkeley, Madison, and Chicago), and no university (by definition) can be equally strong across departments, but UM would be well served, I think, to bolster the strength of faculty in the hard sciences.</p>
<p>how are Michigan’s study abroad programs? I’m thinking about spending a year in London for business</p>
<p>oohtobeagooner</p>
<p>pretty much as good as any university’s study abroad programs; you can go just about anywhere in the world, and provided the university meets your needed classes, you should be good to go. there’s different organizations that help set up studying abroad and have made it fairly painless for some of my friends who have done it so far.</p>