GENERAL: I’m a current junior and used to be a writer a student media organization so I know a lot about the issues you’re speaking about. I’m going to try and address everything you mentioned point by point. To begin, the academics and reputation of RPI as an institution as well as starting salaries are phenomenal. That’s nothing to be concerned about in any regard - if you go here and do well, you will get a job making a lot of money if you try. All my friends that have graduated so far have gotten jobs at good companies making good money. You name it, Google, Amazon, Mathworks, Government Agencies, Banks, etc.
RATIO: As far as the student-faculty ratio, that’s nothing to worry about per say. Originally, RPI calculated student-faculty ratio by considered all faculty that mainly teach undergraduate courses plus all graduate students in the calculation. The problem is that graduate-only professors (RPI has many of them) cannot be included in the calculation so it artificially inflated the undergraduate student-faculty ratio. When they changed it, people made a big deal about it, but I’d honestly say it’s fair, especially considering that pretty much every university does student-faculty ratio calculations with only undergraduate professors and students. Grad and undergrad ratios should be separate since they’re separate programs.
FREE SPEECH: In terms of free speech, RPI does not like protests against its administration. This isn’t exactly uncommon in higher education, especially given that some colleges have literal “shutdown” buttons in president’s offices so they can hold out until the police get there if there’s a protest. RPI doesn’t censor professors or students in the academic setting, this has never happened and never will happen. RPI is very open to new ideas and thoughts in the classroom environment.
STUDENT UNION: The situation regarding the student union is complicated - it’s pretty much about the conflicting authority over student activities. The school wants to have a say and the students don’t want them to have any say. The school also does not want to follow old traditions like allowing student government to approve of new people hired for the students before they’re hired. Please keep in mind these traditions are unique and unusual in higher education. There is no other private university in this country that affords its students so much power and authority over their own governance. We literally control our own activities budgets, fees, and hiring processes - they’re completely transparent, done by students, and done in a public meeting/forum.
The problem is that this sometimes leads to conflicts of interests and when that happens students protest. RPI students are very active and care about the student union as well as their freedoms on campus. The school tried to take down posters regarding an unauthorized protest (very few colleges allow protests without approval) and also led investigations into whether students violated policies. In the end, no one got in trouble, but students got pissed.
FINANCES: In terms of a ‘financial shortage,’ that isn’t exactly a thing from what I’ve seen. I’ve heard from older alumni that the school used to not renovate things, but from what I’ve seen there’s almost always renovations happening to classrooms. They just redid a bunch in Carnegie (the oldest building on campus), etc. A lot of the buildings are old, but the school maintains them and does a lot of work.
They’re always hiring new tenure-track professors and it seems that there’s plenty of money being floated around for student research. It’s really easy to get research grants at RPI - pretty much everyone that applies for the summer undergraduate program that can find an advisor gets $4,000 to do research. Summed up: the school does not have a financial problem, it has a debt problem. That’s getting paid off - it decreased by like $50 million from last year, but until it does it restricts them from investing considerable segments of the endowment which limits growth. So again, it’s more of a “I’m not making as much money as I should” problem than a funding shortage problem. The school’s budget is over $150,000,000 a year for 7,000 students and growing - that’s not exactly poor.
ARCH: The reasoning behind the summer arch is two-fold: most RPI students do internships/co-ops and it’ll save the school money since they’ll have a steady revenue stream all year-round. Similar programs were adopted at Purdue, Northeastern, and Darthmouth with a lot of success. I know a lot of people that have done it already, they found the co-ops themselves, but really had a great experience with the arch. A lot of offers come from the career fair and RPI joblink and such, but you should definitely look for yourself. Pretty much it forces you to find a co-op or internship before you graduate. Honestly, don’t be concerned about finding a co-op though. It’s not hard if you have above like a 2.8 GPA and you apply to a bunch of places. Even if you can’t find a co-op, you can do research at RPI (it’s really easy to get research) or work to pay for next semester. Think about it, let’s say you’ll make $3,500 working for 10 weeks over the summer, turn that into 20 weeks - you now have double the money to pay for school for that academic year. So anyway, I’m an optimist - I think it’s a good program and there’s really nothing that can go wrong. The biggest argument against it right now is that students don’t want to go to school over the summer, but it’s super beautiful/warm in Troy over the summer and there will be a lot of parties and concerts. Lake George is also 20 minutes away and not an expensive trip, so yeah.
If you have any more questions feel free to DM me! I really have loved my experience at RPI so far and definitely recommend it.
