Today's Detroit News Resport IS Rate

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Michigan
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<p>Seriously, ryan, I don’t know what your issue is but let’s look at this logically shall we. </p>

<p>1- URM doesn’t necessarily mean lower income. I’d hazard a guess to say there are far more moderate to high income URMs at Michigan than Pell URMs.
2- 4 year graduation rates are essentially meaningless to low income students. If you’re a Pell student, you’re more likely to need to take time off to work and support yourself and your family. You’re more likely to only take 12 credits so that you can work more to again, support yourself and/or your family.<br>
3- I don’t really see the so-called trend of lower URMs. Looking at the 10 year trend ([Ethnicity</a> Reports - Office of the Registrar](<a href=“http://www.ro.umich.edu/enrollment/ethnicity.php]Ethnicity”>Ethnicity Reports | Office of the Registrar)) the percentage of whites & Asians has remained relatively stable which means URMs have remained relatively stable. The drop in some categories happens when you start being able to report two or more races.</p>

<p>And there are lots of low-income kids living in good school districts. I was one of them. Low income does not necessarily mean unprepared.</p>

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<p>Roman pretty much hit the nail on the head “Low income does not necessarily mean unprepared” Neither of my parents graduated from high school but they pushed me hard in elementary and high school. I was able to go to a very well respected university in my major where I ultimatedly received my Ph.D. I was able to do this because of financial aid from an Educational Opportunity Grant (now known as Pell Grant). My boy is now attending UMich, we are out of state, and I am paying full ticket price for his attendance</p>

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<p>romanigypseyes, how do you explain the fact that even at the wealthiest schools (like Princeton), only 10%-15% of the students qualify for pell grants? Clearly, those schools are completely need blind. If anything, that proves that students from lower income families are at a disadvantage, whether it is as a result of inferior resources, teaching, mentoring, tutoring or advising. Wealth and socio-economics definitely do not determine ability and intelligence, but they influence academic performance. </p>

<p>I agree that Michigan has room to improve in the area of financial aid, but I am familiar with the University’s financial situation currently. Providing more aid will be done at the detriment of other functions. Gladly, the upcoming fund-raising campaign will should propel Michigan to “best-in-class” financial aid policies.</p>

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<p>"Wealth and socio-economics definitely do not determine ability and intelligence, but they influence academic performance. "</p>

<p>Yes it does. Genes. Darwinism. Sorry if it’s not PC but it’s true. Wonderlic score is EXTREMELY correlated with income and wealth. </p>

<p>Intelligence is very largely genetically driven. It is not hard to conclude that smarter people produce smarter offsprings, and are more likely to be more well-off. Obviously this logical argument is not a one-size-fit-all and there are always exceptions to the rule, but that goes without saying with all statistics; and statistics don’t lie.</p>

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<p>Nature vs nurture argument. I personally think it has to do with opportunities rather than ability. There is no way of proving it one way or the other.</p>

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<p>^So riddle me this, since you believe “there is no way of proving it one way or the other”, why do you say “Wealth and socio-economics definitely do not determine ability and intelligence”? Usually when people say “definitely”, it implies they have “definite” proof one way or the other.</p>

<p>Not that I agree that “there is no way of proving it one way or the other”, and I’ll post to elaborate in a bit after I finish what I am doing, but it seems like you are contradicting yourself.</p>

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<p>“So riddle me this, since you believe “there is no way of proving it one way or the other”, why do you say “Wealth and socio-economics definitely do not determine ability and intelligence”? Usually when people say “definitely”, it implies they have “definite” proof one way or the other”</p>

<p>Well bearcats, that’s me recognizing, after the fact, that there is indeed a valid, alternative point of view. But this thread is not about nature vs nurture, it is about the declining ratio of IS students, so let us stick to that topic.</p>

<p>“Not that I agree that “there is no way of proving it one way or the other”, and I’ll post to elaborate in a bit after I finish what I am doing…”</p>

<p>Like I said bearcats, this is a debate that has gone on for centuries now, and while both sides have come up with compelling arguments and supporting data, there is no way of proving it one way or the other. Since this thread isn’t about nature vs nurture, let us not start an off-topic debate and stick to the topic at hand, which is about the declining IS ratio at the University of Michigan.</p>

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<p>Think the article was last year and possibly the Michigan Daily that said more than 50% of the UG families at UMich made in excess of $250k, so you’re talking about an earning scope that is at least top 2% of all American households (but this would also be a likely finding at peer schools, particularly private ones or ones with equivalent tuition in terms of cost or OOS popularity – in other words, self-selecting to some degree.)</p>

<p>Re: Pell. I think the ranges of 10 - 20% Pell students makes perfect sense at the schools outlined. Pell gives students a whopping $6k a year. Where on earth could they go to school for that except a local CC or maybe in-town regional university? The fact that 10-20% of students at rigorous institutions are Pell grant recipients means a good deal of either virtually full funding OR egregious error in assuming student debt via parent PLUS loans.</p>

<p>And as odd as it is to find myself defending bearcats :wink: I must say that while there is obviously something to the nurture argument, it’s pretty difficult to argue with the biologically determined/genetic IQ capacity and its correlation to standardized test scores as shown statistically in unpopular/not PC but careful statistical analysis, eg. Richard Herrnstein/Charles Murray et al, god rest Herrnstein’s poor, highly misinterpreted soul ;)</p>

<p>That said, all that amounts to is describing the size of a bucket…not how much water someone collects ;)</p>

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<p>Three problems with what you say, ryanc00per:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Not all URMs are low-income.</p></li>
<li><p>An even lower percentage of the URMs who attend or have ever attended the University of Michigan are low-income; many, perhaps most, are from middle-class or affluent backgrounds.</p></li>
<li><p>Most low-income people in the state of Michigan are not URMs; most are white. The poverty rate for white residents of Michigan is 15%; non-Hispanic whites make up about 80% of the state’s population, so about 12% of the state’s population are non-Hispanic whites living in poverty. The poverty rate for African-Americans is higher, around 40%, but only 14.3% of the state’s population is African-American, so only about 5.7% of the state’s population are African-Americans living in poverty. In other words, there are about twice as many poor whites as poor blacks in the state. Hispanics/Latinos represent only 4.6% of the state’s population, so although the poverty rate among Hispanics/Latinos is 37%, Hispanics/Latinos living in poverty constitute only 1.7% of the state’s population.</p></li>
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<p>My perception would be that the University of Michigan has done a poor job of reaching out to, recruiting, and retaining well qualified low-income applicants of all races; it turns a blind eye and a cold shoulder toward lower-SES students of all races, in a race-neutral way. This is unfortunate, and something that as an alum I am not proud of. Yes, you can point to places like Princeton and UVA and say they’re doing just as poorly in this regard, if not worse, but that’s not good enough. Some universities are doing much better. As a public institution, the university has an obligation to do better; historically public universities have been a powerful engine of upward social mobility, and that must continue to be a central and defining part of their mission going forward. Even if the legislature isn’t providing the resources for it, the university does have the resources to do better on its own, or it must develop new resources for this purpose.</p>

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<p>“As a public institution, the university has an obligation to do better; historically public universities have been a powerful engine of upward social mobility, and that must continue to be a central and defining part of their mission going forward.”</p>

<p>I am not sure I agree bclintonk. As you know, I am a big proponent of social programs (by American standards, I am a bleeding heart commie!), but not at the expense of the University. Anybody who cares about the long-term sustainability and continued success of the university should support courses of action that lead to financial stability. Clearly, the University cannot depend on the state of Michigan while it proceeds with its business to educate its people at highly subsidized rates…subsidized by the University! I expect everybody to pull their weight, the university included, but what many resident are asking for is plain lunacy (read financial suicide). Seldom have I ever seen such a sense of entitlement. You all have it way too easy. Try living in my own country (Lebanon) for a few years, then you may understand how lucky you all are. The majority of my countrymen can’t even afford basic necessities. </p>

<p>The fact is, the state has failed the University of Michigan. In 1960, state funding covered 80% of the University’s cost of operation. Today, it covers only 15% (not including the cost of the Medical Center or Athletic Complex, both of which are entirely self-sufficient, entirely funded by their own revenues). In 2004, Michigan received $330 million from the state. Last year, it received $280 million. That’s a decrease of $50 million in a 10-year span, not factoring in inflation. Assuming inflation is 3% annually, the state should have provided the university $450 million last year, instead of $280 million. That’s a significant difference. </p>

<p>That being said, I think the University is improving nicely on the FA front. The FA budget has grown by more than 10% each of the last 7 years. With the new fund-raising campaign, I expect Michigan will see a significantly larger FA budget, one that could well cover 100% all student needs (including OOS students).</p>

<p>Also, I hope the university does not lower its standards to admit students from lower income families. I can appreciate slightly lower grades and standardized test scores to adjust for the lack of resources and opportunities available to those applicants, but I still expect them to have the same intellectual horsepower and potential.</p>

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<p>Soooooooo true! Sadly, Umich is not alone :)</p>

<p>There was a story in the Michigan Daily this summer I think where someone from the university was quoted as saying that under the revised approach to FA they would be giving meet-need-based aid to OOS students whose families earned less than 40k. I’ll see if I can find it.</p>

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<p>Here it is

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<p>In the article, they also cite 48% of families with income higher than $150 k…but I know I saw hard data for more like 250 a few years ago, so suspect this figure is off, which explains the qualifying note :)</p>

<p>Here’s the article: <a href=“https://www.michigandaily.com/article/regents-approve-lowest-tuition-increase-29-years[/url]”>https://www.michigandaily.com/article/regents-approve-lowest-tuition-increase-29-years&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>I’m not suggesting the university lower its standards. I am suggesting that it should be much more aggressive in finding, marketing itself to, and recruiting highly qualified lower SES students. </p>

<p>Look, I came from some hard-scrabble mining towns in the UP. The University of Michigan had a reputation there as a “school for rich kids,” by which people meant kids from upper-middle-class to affluent suburbs of Detroit. And that perception was not inaccurate; if you look at who the in-state students are, they skew heavily toward the higher-end suburbs. There are relatively few from small town and rural areas of the state; relatively few from the urban core; and even, relative to their number in the college-age population, relatively few from the vast working-class suburbs of Detroit and working-class areas of smaller Michigan cities. Sure, there are some from each of these places, but the numbers from places like Grosse Pointe, Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, West Bloomfield, etc., are overwhelming. </p>

<p>This may seem like the natural order of things to some; after all, it only stands to reason that the best prepared and best qualified applicants are going to come disproportionately out of the best public and private schools, and from the (mostly affluent) families that value education most highly and are heavily invested in their kids’ education from early childhood on, etc., etc. But I maintain there are plenty of “diamonds in the rough” in less affluent corners of the state, and the University doesn’t do a good job of finding and recruiting them and making them feel welcome.</p>

<p>It’s been my perception that a lot of those students end up at Michigan State. I don’t have data to prove it, but I suspect a lot more kids from small town and rural Michigan and from the working-class suburbs end up in East Lansing, and their perception is that they’re more welcome there. At least as I think about all the people I’ve known over the years who have attended the two schools, there’s a pretty sharp SES skew, with the more affluent much more heavily represented at Michigan and the less affluent much more heavily represented at Michigan State.</p>

<p>You can say “the state has failed the University of Michigan,” and I won’t disagree with that. But the University is still a public institution, created by the state constitution and governed by a Board of Regents elected by the citizens of the state. IMO, as a public institution it has an obligation to serve all the people of the state, not just the affluent.</p>

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<p>“Exponentially” is an exaggeration. “More likely,” yes, but not “exponentially” so. </p>

<p>Not sure how well poverty rates for the overall population map onto the student population at Michigan; my guess is not too well, because low-SES students of all races are probably underrepresented in the student body, i.e., both the non-Hispanic white student population and the URM student population probably skew more affluent than the state as a whole. </p>

<p>But if you look at the overall population of the state, substantially more African-Americans and Hispanics are above the federal poverty line than below it, and there are more non-Hispanic whites below the poverty line than there are URMs below the poverty line. So in “isolating” URMs as a proxy for low SES, you’re making two huge mistakes: most URMs aren’t poor, and most poor people aren’t URMs.</p>

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<p>GBbobcat, the athletic department contributes a lot to the identity of the university. I would say the two entities benefit from each other mutually. The revenues generated by the athletic programs should go back to the athletic programs. You won’t find many students or alums argue against that.</p>

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<p>Because that’s the way academic achievement skews. Lower-income kids are far less likely to complete HS, far less likely to earn top grades & class rank in HS, far less likely to earn high SAT/ACT scores, far less likely to attend college of any kind, and far less likely to attend highly selective 4-year colleges than their more affluent counterparts. And that’s true across all races and ethnicities. I’m not saying there aren’t any low-income URMs in the Michigan student body; certainly there are some. I am saying it’s a mistake to assume a randomly selected URM student at Michigan is likely to be from a low-income household. Some are, but many are not, and the percentage of URMs in the Michigan student body who are not from low-income households is much higher than the percentage of blacks and Latinos in the overall population of the state who are not low-income.</p>