Is University of Michigan a long run declining school?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Michigan
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@tz2s6v Having gone to Harvard, I don’t know what “counselling” support you are referring to, ditto Columbia. At both Harvard and Columbia (and to a lesser extent Brown and Yale) the administration’s retort is that students were bright enough to be admitted and so are bright enough to do well. None are “touchy feely” universities.

As for endowment, Michigan doesn’t have “few” resources, and the 99% of the endowment is “owned” by the Ann Arbor campus. While the wealth of Harvard and Princeton is massive, Michigan’s resources and capabilities dwarf those of most other universities.

As a Michigan resident you can relax. The university long ago recognized that the taxpayers and legislators of the state had zero intention of giving it meaningful support. This began under President Shapiro in the early 1980s. He is the one who said that the university was “publicly assisted” and not “publicly financed or supported”.

You also need to look at debt levels. This is a major worry at Harvard (and Columbia). Harvard is carrying massive debt. And as recently as 1998, Columbia was facing massive funding gaps. Harvard this year is reducing graduate admissions in the face of a budget squeeze.

22

“I was thinking of Michigan’s endowment in comparison to private colleges like Harvard ($37 billion @ $1.7 million per student), Yale ($25 billion @ $2 million per student) and Princeton ($22 billion @ $2.7 million per student).”

Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford and Yale are in a league of their own.

“My understanding from the U of M endowment report is that the $9.7 billion endowment is for three campuses (Ann Arbor, Dearborn and Flint) and 61,000 students. That represents $159 K per student.”

Your understanding is incorrect. Michigan’s endowment is almost exclusively for the Ann Arbor campus. The combined endowments of the Flint and Dearborn satellites is roughly $100 million. The remaining $9.7 billion are for the Ann Arbor campus. So the per student endowment for the Ann Arbor campus is $220,000/student, which is comparable to Brown, Columbia, Cornell and Johns Hopkins.

“Even a school like Notre Dame with a $8.7 billion endowment has an endowment of $714 K per student. That is over 4 x the Michigan endowment per student.”

Notre Dame and Rice are outliers. They are indeed very wealthy given their size.

“Furthermore, according to the Michigan report I read the $9.7 billion is actually a sum of many smaller endowments. Many are targeted for specific uses across three campuses and are not generally available.”

While it is true that the three universities share the endowment, like I said above, the lion’s share (99%) belongs to Ann Arbor.

“My point is that I believe U of M has done amazing things with relatively few resources over the last decades. I hope that they can keep it going in the future. I do think that there are issues that will need to be addressed that some of their peer schools will not experience. I am not saying that U of M is declining, but as a Michigan resident it does give me pause.”

Your concerns are natural, but unfounded. You needn’t worry. Michigan is as well positioned as the majority of its private peers. Like I said even on a per student basis, Michigan is as well off as Johns Hopkins, Cornell, Columbia and Brown. Also, Michigan’s endowment is outpacing that of most of its peers. Finally, if Michigan were to go private (which is highly unlikely), it will most likely shrink significantly in size, enrolling slightly more OOS and international students and significantly fewer in-state students.

“With respect to dorms at Brown, Columbia and Penn, I have not seen them. I will take your word for that. I have seen dorms at U of M, MSU, Duke, Princeton and Notre Dame recently. From what I saw, the U of M dorms were a step down. The U of M students I know seem to be in a hurry to move out of the dorms.”

Notre Dame and MSU are not peer institutions. Students who seriously consider one will seldom consider the others. Princeton dorms are ridiculous! :wink: But then again, it is Princeton. I visited Duke dorms way back when, and I was not impressed one way or the other. To be honest. the most beautiful dorms I have seen are not necessarily at the best colleges or universities. WUSTL, Princeton, Yale, Bowdoin, Rice and Pomona have AMAZING dorms. But most of the nice dorms I have seen are at universities like Loyola in Maryland, Regent in Virginia, Whitworth in Washington etc…Most elite universities, Michigan included, have old dorms that are plain and functional, but not necessarily beautiful or luxurious.

“With respect to counseling, I was speaking more about the counseling provided to freshman as they find their way. It was based on comments from the sons and daughters of my friends and my daughter’s friends at U of M. That is admittedly a small sample, but their seemed to be a trend of less time available and less interaction helping freshman students select majors and plan their schedules. I could be wrong and don’t have hard data to back that up.”

Michigan is fairly standard for a major research university when it comes to counseling. It is hit or miss depending on the student and her/his advisor, but that is the same at other research universities, even at wealthy private peers like Columbia and Penn. At Michigan, students are assigned a faculty advisor during orientation. They are very accessible, resourceful and knowledgeable, but they expect the student to take the initiative. They will not go out of their way or chase students down, but if the student takes the initiative, they will accommodate as needed.

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@tz2s6v , I am not sure that Michigan is any harder to be admitted to then back in the day as an in-state student. Michigan still accepts around 4.5-5% of MI high school students, about the same percentage as a decade or two ago. There are just fewer HS students in Michigan.

Average GPA and test scores have risen because a) larger percentage of OOS students, b) A significant expansion of the engineering school, whose students have higher scores, c) No race-based preferences, which resulted in lower average scores, and d) more qualified/motivated high school students.

I think you could make the case that because of the price gap between in-state Michigan and OOS publics and privates, more students choose to stay at home than in years past, but I have not seen data to support that.

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This entire thread is based on a false premise, i.e., that there is an honest debate about whether Michigan is “a long run declining school”. Every metric that matters (endowment, selectivity, academic qualifications of enrolled students, prestige, rankings, reputation, employment data, graduate school admissions, etc.) establishes the exact opposite …that the University of Michigan is on an upward trajectory that will continue for the foreseeable future. Anyone who says otherwise is either a Michigan hater or is not paying attention.

25

“Having gone to Harvard, I don’t know what “counselling” support you are referring to, ditto Columbia. At both Harvard and Columbia (and to a lesser extent Brown and Yale) the administration’s retort is that students were bright enough to be admitted and so are bright enough to do well. None are “touchy feely” universities.”

Thanks clarifying this matter exlibris97. So many on CC believe that major private research universities (like Harvard, MIT Columbia, etc…) offer undergraduate students a significantly more personalized experience, where classes are much smaller and taught exclusively by faculty who always care about teaching undergraduate students. Their opinion of public universities, regardless of quality, is quite the opposite; huge lecture halls, high levels of contact with graduate student instructors who cannot speak English, indifferent faculty etc…The notion that in most instances, the gap between public and private universities is in fact not that significant is foreign to most.