@latichever, the 2 TX giants have system endowments bigger than UMich’s. UT-Austin’s portion of the UT System endowment, I hear, is approximately the same size as UMich’s.
@JHS, UMich is definitely more financially independent of its state than UW-Madison is. MI’s contribution as a percentage of UMich’s budget is now in the single digits.
The two actually are intertwined, in my opinion. UMich started with the obvious strengths/draws of strong departments, professional schools and football program, but because the auto industry/Detroit was imploding back when many other states were still funding their publics generously, UMich was the first public to raise OOS tuition to that of an elite private. Then, because they did that (and because of state cutbacks), they felt the impetus to be good enough/appealing enough to compete with the private elites for OOS students. The state cutbacks also motivated UMich to reach out to alumni and foster an experience that students would like, so they were one of the first publics to aggressively grow their endowment like a private elite would.
@latichever, it is important to note that Wisconsin has several endowments that they report separately, such as WARF also at $2 billion-plus, unlike the majority of institutions that pool their endowment funds together for rankings, etc. This more than doubles the $2 billion-plus for UW.
Agreed, UW’s current model, nor its endowment, is the same as Michigan’s. UT-Austin has had an outsized endowment, usually parked in third place for endowment rankings, for many years; one wonders what Texas’ endowment would be if it divested itself of fossil fuel investments. It is no small feat that the UW model currently under attack managed to sustain so many of its departments at such a high level.
As there’s already another thread for Michigan’s impressive 16% endowment increase this year, it may be nice to keep this thread focused on the Wisconsin proposals and repercussions of the title.
@anhydrite, well, the UT board actually forbids UT from ever divest itself of the lands in the Permanent University Fund. They’re meant to provide income to the UT system in perpetuity.
I think you’ve misstated the Cornell-State of New York relationship. Part of Cornell University is a land-grant college. The NY State government provides support to that part of Cornell, and to Syracuse U for that matter, so the schools can provide an educational opportunity to eligible New York State residents in particular fields of study. Tuition at the state-supported units of Cornell and Syracuse is considerably less than at other undergraduate units of those universities.
I also didn’t read anyone’s statements here as misunderstanding Cornell’s structure.
Back in the day, a challenge for bright, New York state students who wanted to attend Cornell with in-state tuition, was to figure out how to make one of the three undergraduate contract colleges work for their career goals. It wasn’t an easy workaround – unless, for example, you truly wanted a degree in hotel management (and nothing wrong with this, except perhaps for fit; Cornell offers one of the finest hotel programs in the country).
Some tried double majoring, though I don’t think that often helped if your other major was housed in one of the four private colleges. I’m pretty sure some others tried to duplicate a bio-sciences track within the college of Ag. and Life Sciences. Etc. With the current price differential quoted by PurpleTitan, there’s no longer as great an incentive to attempt this.
Back to Wisconsin (which, by the way, also offers similar bio-sciences sequences in its land grant College of Agriculture and Life Sciences):
@rosered55, I am glad to see people are now honing in on shared governance. This is a fundamental issue that defines the UW’s unique operations and management. It is easy to see why dissolving shared governance, presumably to be replaced by a highly authoritarian model, must be very high on Walker’s agenda. This kind of attack aims a divide-and-conquer strategy straight into the UW’s heart. I didn’t see a mention of the specific clause Walker aims to repeal in this article, but if memory serves, those “in the know” over the past week were quoting clause 36.1 or 36.2 as containing the shared governance language at stake.
Changing the law does not force the UW to adopt any policy change. The Regents have said they will keep shared governance as part of their policy. They will have that power.
The makeup of the board of regents will change as terms end and the current and future governors appoint replacements, especially given the stacked legislature locked in by 2010 redistricting and that our gubernatorial elections are held in non-presidential years. That lower turnout is part of the reason we got in this fix. WI voted for the president in 2012 and elected a very liberal Senator that year.
As it was just a state statute it was never really locked in. Could change at any Legislative whim. Agree on the rest. Very sad state. The smart ones leave after graduation.
I wonder if UW will push for a different way to select the board.
Either directly elected (like UMich) or a mish-mash with all groups (alumni, industry, etc.) represented so that no one person can stack the board (like PSU).
A state legislator is already pushing for changes to the Board of Regents selection process to make it easier to get rid of anti-budget-bill members: http://www.thewheelerreport.com/wheeler_docs/files/0129nass.pdf.
Mr. Nass represents the Whitewater area, home to a UW campus, in fact the UW campus that will suffer the biggest cut in state funding (19%) under the governor’s proposed plan. Mr. Nass has been very critical of the UW System over the years.
Re: PurpleTitan’s suggestions, maybe a slight hope is that some prominent UW people, like Blank, have enough experience with other university systems outside Wisconsin to propose viable alternatives. No matter how dysfunctional the current state of the board is, it’s still hard for me to imagine things are so rigidly sealed as to prevent a clever workaround.
In other words, OK, so Walker’s efforts proved savvier than some realized, and he stacked the deck. But he still seems more of a bully than a tactical magician.
Even with the recent backlash, it’s still a deflating scene. Anybody got a good joke?
Cornell has been mentioned previously on this thread. IIRC, Cornell was founded as a land grant university in its entirety. It was divided into separate colleges some years afterwards when it began asking the state for financial support relating to its land grant obligations, in order to better track where the state money was going.
Its land grant mission is conducted via its four :“statutory colleges”. New York State residents receive a tuition discount at those colleges. The College of Hotel Administration is not one of those colleges, rather it is one of the “endowed colleges”.
The biology department is shared between the College of Arts & Sciences (an endowed college) and the ag school (a statutory college). The biology major requirements are identical, but each college has its own non-major requirements. Every NYS resident I knew who majored in biology there attended CALS, to save the $$.
Thanks for the clarification, monydad. According to wikipedia, Cornell’s College of Hotel Administration began as a statutory college in 1922, and changed to endowed status in 1954 (originally housed under Home Economics, which changed name to the current statutory college, Human Ecology):
“The Hotel School started in 1922 as a department within Home Economics, but became a separate, endowed college in 1954.[4]”
Yes, I also had friends do CALS bio to receive in-state tuition.
There is a college at Syracuse, a private university, that is part of the SUNY system–don’t recall which one–sure there are NY residents out there who can elaborate.