Many large public universities are struggling with budget cuts that may result in larger classes, more limited financial aid, and more places in the most popular majors being allocated to international and OOS students to increase revenue.
How are concerns about these cuts impacting your college decisions?
The SUNY system has been strangled since its founding. Now they are expanding some campuses by admitting increasing numbers of students without hiring adequate staff. Some campuses are busting at the seams. Talk to students at the university centers! They complain that they can’t get advising, they can;t find seats in the library, they are closed out of classes…oh but the dorms are swank, the student centers are new and the admissions building is gorgeous. ! Academics? Say what? Nahhhhh.
Actually, this doesn’t just impact instate students, but also impacts internationals who aren’t prestige-bound and choose colleges based on the general experience they’ll have. Because budget cuts primarily affects the undergraduate experience (class size, delivery method, personal advising, access to professors, time to graduate) + creates tuition instability (possible hikes, difficulty in predicting costs) they definitely affect where students apply and,when admitted, where they choose to go.
As we visited schools we continued to hear about students in larger classes, students unable to get classes, students needing a 5th or 6th year to graduate, faculty turnover due to cuts, a lot of uncertainty about the future, and the high bar to be allowed to change majors at many public U’s.
It increasingly gave me the impression that the gap between private and public schools is growing, and that students who can may be increasingly studying to private alternatives.
Unfortunately it’s affecting us a lot. D is a junior and qualifies for automatic tuition+fees to flagship but is almost a last resort now. If nothing changed, it would provide a great education and acceptable advising, etc. but forecasting future budget cuts on an already stressed system concerns me.
Does this affect directionals as well as the flagships?
@LBad96, budget cuts hurt directionals more than flagships. Top flagships have the reputation to attract plenty of OOS/internationals. So if the state cuts, they at least have the possibility of bringing in more OOS students at full-pay. In IL, a couple of publics in Chicago that you likely haven’t heard of are about to close down due to the budget fiasco.
@Much2learn, the gap between publics and privates has been widening for decades now.
At this rate, more publics will become de facto privates like UMich/UVa/PSU (they each get a tiny percentage of their budget from their state; <5%, I believe).
@sportsman88 “If nothing changed, it would provide a great education and acceptable advising, etc. but forecasting future budget cuts on an already stressed system concerns me.”
Right. I don’t want to send our daughter there wondering whether she will need to transfer in a year.
We have been especially troubled by the state universities’ penchant for managing changes in student demand for various majors by actively funneling students by limiting/blocking access to high demand majors, and forcing them to either choose among lower demand majors or transfer elsewhere, particularly within engineering.
The private colleges are offering much better flexibility and understand the need to adjust their product to student demand. I think that this is much more difficult to achieve this at a public university with more bureaucracy and less budget, and a generally unstable environment.
I was hoping that we wouldn’t need to spend the extra money for a private college, but after all of our visits she is leaning strongly that way.
It’s no wonder that 60 - 70% of NJ students go outside the state. Unless you come from the designated low income zones or are very low income the value of NJ state schools is a joke.
@PurpleTitan "@Much2learn, the gap between publics and privates has been widening for decades now.
At this rate, more publics will become de facto privates like UMich/UVa/PSU (they each get a tiny percentage of their budget from their state; <5%, I believe)."
It seems to me that the strongest of these schools should consider developing a plan to transition to a private entity over time. Then they would no longer be subject to the whims of day-to-day politics, and the state would no longer have to send tax money to them. It could be better for everyone. This would seem to be especially true for the best publics like Cal, Michigan, UVA, Wisconsin, UCLA, Illinois, and North Carolina.
More possible in some states than others.
In many states, the university board is appointed by officials. In MI, they are elected by MI voters.
In any case, what state are you talking about?
In UIUC and many UC’s, you are admitted by major, so you know what you get.
At many privates, you get a choice because they have excess capacity (and an undergraduate body that is a fraction the size of flagships).
@PurpleTitan "More possible in some states than others.
In many states, the university board is appointed by officials. In MI, they are elected by MI voters."
I would think that the state would like to not have to fund the school in the future. It could be a “win, win.”
“In UIUC and many UC’s, you are admitted by major, so you know what you get.”
However, if a student wants to change his/her major at some point, like the majority of students do, then you go into the funnel of limited/blocked access to popular majors. UIUC has such a constrained budget that to pay the bills, they have to sell their most valuable seats in high demand majors to full-pay international and OOS students. To do that, they have to erect barriers to keep the in-state students out, and that is exactly what they do.
Alaska is facing an insane budget shortfall this year and next (low oil prices helps pretty much everyone except us and a couple other states), and even though the University of Alaska System was unlikely for at least my older two given their interests, given the budget cuts that happened last year, are on the table for this year, and are likely for next year, they’re simply not on their lists at all anymore.
The state has been desperately trying to keep smart kids in-state for college, since that means they’re more likely to stay around afterward, and brain drain has historically been a big problem for us up here. The smart kids, though, can see the potential for resource and support issues down the line, and so when serious budget cuts happen, well…
@Much2learn, states may not want to fund their publics, but that doesn’t mean that they want to give up control of their publics.
Yes, many publics have constraints if you want to change in to their most popular majors. One way to look at it is that they are maximizing their resources (and the elite privates have the luxury of maintaining excess capacity). UIUC is also a bit on the extreme end in fitting kids in to majors (even among publics), for better or worse.
Have you looked in to Engineering Pathways?
@PurpleTitan “@Much2learn, states may not want to fund their publics, but that doesn’t mean that they want to give up control if their publics.”
That is completely true. However, the long run impact is that the schools are damaged. If states can’t afford to fund them, then states need to allow the U’s the flexibility to do the things required to generate funds, and maintain a high-quality student body in the long run.
The current approach is a series of reactive cuts and bandaids that prevent the schools from planning for the future because future funding is unknown and they remain overly constrained by the bureaucracy.
I think a planned phase-out of state funding over say 10-20 years, with a concomitant phase-out of state requirements would be better for everyone in the long-run. The states can deal with their budget realities, without slowly destroying great universities in the process.
The states would still control their directionals, most of whom probably do not have the resources to transition to private schools.
@OnTheBubble “It’s no wonder that 60 - 70% of NJ students go outside the state. Unless you come from the designated low income zones or are very low income the value of NJ state schools is a joke.”
Even when it is free, it still may not be a good deal if you can’t gain access to the most employable majors.
@Much2learn, heh. What’s “ideal” and what happens in reality often are far from the same, as you likely know.
I doubt IL will follow PA’s PSU/Pitt/Temple model soon.
In any case, in the case of UIUC, is it because your kid doesn’t want to commit to a major? Getting in to EE at UIUC may be tough, for instance, but it’s still easier than getting admitted to an Ivy/equivalent.
@PurpleTitan “I doubt IL will follow PA’s PSU/Pitt/Temple model soon.”
I am not familiar with their model. What do they do?
“in the case of UIUC, is it because your kid doesn’t want to commit to a major?”
No. She has been admitted to Chem E, which is her primary interest. She is currently happy with her major and UIUC has an excellent program. However, well all know that most students want to change their major at some point. If that happens it can be quite difficult to make that change. A student in that situation may have to decide to major in something that is not their choice, or to transfer to another school to be able to study what they are interested in.
She is not comfortable going there knowing that if she wants to change there is a significant chance she will have to transfer out.