<p>Hopefully this professor's NYTimes Op-Ed will knock some sense into an administration bent on sucking as much money out of its students as possible for seemingly pointless reasons.</p>
<p>Or, at the very least, it may highlight to all those NYU students exactly why it is they're paying more than most everyone at comparable institutions...</p>
<p>I assume this professor is fully tenured!</p>
<p>in my department, the student body doubled in 5 years. We’re reaching our infrasturcural limit. The only way we would be able to afford to expand our department is for more students to come in, and accept more international students, who pay way more in tuition. There have been talk of a 22% increase in tuition within the next couple of years. Thank god I’m not going to be around for long. I can only imagine that this problem is much worse in NYC</p>
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<p>Question: How many people do you know that have made a college decision based solely on construction?</p>
<p>Discuss.</p>
<p>Has anyone asserted that anybody makes a college decision “solely” based on an institution’s construction plans?</p>
<p>I think it’s just shocking to me NYU would waste such resources on a plan opposed by faculty, the city, and the majority of students who understand why they’re getting so little financial aid. </p>
<p>I mean, I’ve always assumed NYU over-charged because they had no choice. But it’s completely shocking to see that no, they do have a choice, they can move into investments, they can lease instead of own (Like, I don’t know, every single other rational business or school in manhattan), and they do have the option of investing more heavily in their students–they just clearly don’t care to. </p>
<p>I just feel so bad for all those duped 17 year olds piling on mountains of debt because they don’t know better.</p>
<p>@wolv67- I agree with what you point out, except I think you should realize when a large area of manhattan is made undesirable it affects a lot more than just those who live on the block and may be woken-up at 5AM by construction. </p>
<p>When an area is made undesirable for whatever reason, it could be major construction, or a closed subway stop, or a news article about a gruesome crime, a large amount of people that traffic that area will adjust. That means businesses that depend on joggers or commuters see a dip in sales, everything from Galas to institutional art projects will go to another neighborhood, community organizers focus their events elsewhere, the list goes on and on. In the most extreme case, we saw it happen to virtually all of downtown after 9/11, and some areas still haven’t recovered 10 years later, and others never will. </p>
<p>It may sound cliche, but NYC is a large and connected community–unless a change to that community is beneficial, it should be avoided. And it doesn’t sound like throwing these monstrous buildings on top of a beautiful neighborhood benefits anyone or anything other than the NYU administration’s vanity–it doesn’t even seem to benefit NYU students.</p>
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<p>Well, if universities are, as in the article, “spending many millions on construction projects, building grand new campuses to draw more students”, then clearly they want students be awed by the pretty buildings, scream “DADDY! I WANNA GO HERE! IT’S soooooo PRETTY!” and have that be the end. I know a university that does this primarily to
‘attract students who are Ivy League caliber.’ Granted, they’re suffering severely in academic offerings, student space, and plenty of other areas as a result.</p>
<p>It’s not simply because ‘everything’s pretty!’ Nice housing, athletic facilities, resources, etc. etc. etc. all attract students and parents, which is the end goal for the college. Of course, there’s a line that separates ‘improvement’ from ‘facade,’ and some schools cross that line.</p>
<p>PieceofToast, you put it much better than I did. It seems that schools who dump the most money into their ‘prettiness’ are the ones that have the biggest difference between the nice and glossy (and expensive!) brochures and reality.</p>
<p>This is nothing new. I’ve seen many, many colleges go through this same process as they expand and build, my alma mater included. And yes, it seems to make a difference in the acceptance rates within their peer groups. COlleges have been shoring up their facilities for the past 10 years in ways that have made many of them luxury settings. When I look at student boards, the concerns kids often have with schools, in choosing which ones, have to do with the amenities offered. </p>
<p>NYU is not hurting in applicants as their accept rate show. A number of my son’s friends were denied last year and reappled, and accepted this year and their parents are more than happy to pay the full cost, as they are able to do so…</p>
<p>cpt, It’s great your friend can pay full. And of course it’s common for schools to expand amenities, and unfortunately it’s common for expansions to be a bit pointless other than as recruiting tools.</p>
<p>However, NYU is unique in that they receive such a large percentage of their revenue from tuition (which is often only what lesser established schools fall to, with little options for investments etc.). That leads to NYU ranking 6th in the nation for student debt (and fascinatingly NYU is the only school on the list that can actually be called a “real” school). Also, I know NYU isn’t hurting for applications, but it should be, and if students and parents were more educated it would be. 55% of students go into debt to study at NYU, many of them go into exorbitant amounts. </p>
<p>With the stats needed to get into NYU it’s likely most of these kids would have gotten into peer institutions with great financial aid, and some with amazing scholarships. My heart goes out to these 17 y/o kids who can’t process the fact that maybe $200,000 of debt isn’t worth it to go to your “dream school” (that’s actually only your dream school because of simply seeing it on felicity, or gossip girl, when you were 15). </p>
<p>I know the family’s have a responsibility to tell the kids no, but I also know many are willing to take on the needless debt burden to fulfill their children’s dream. Even if that dream was only from a well-placed media marketing campaign to 14 year olds.</p>
<p>Many of these families are being scammed, pure and simple. And I’m going to keep posting about it because collegeconfidential should educate prospective high school students to look beyond the glitz and glam, and make the right choices. </p>
<p>Some sample reading:
<a href=“http://www.villagevoice.com/2011-11-09/news/debt-and-debtor/[/url]”>http://www.villagevoice.com/2011-11-09/news/debt-and-debtor/</a></p>
<p><a href=“Stock Portfolio & Tracker - Yahoo Finance”>http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/02/17/nyu-students-protest-loan-debt-load/&icid=dsk_df_news</a></p>
<p>(be aware the average they cite has actually increased by about $10,000, to over $45,000 and is projected to increase to a figure closer to $60,000 within the next two years if construction begins as planned)</p>
<p>smorgasbord, college decisions are binary decisions. I go to college A, I don’t go to college B. If I rated college A as an 8.5 and college B as an 8.4 and the value of this new construction in college A was worth 0.2, that was enough to chance my decision about where to go. The new buildings don’t have to be the sole factor, they just have to be a factor.</p>