<p>I think accepting highly qualified out of state students improves the quality of the state university system. The problem comes when there are not many good options for state residents and the few state schools are filling seats with out of staters. I don't know what other state options Vermonters have; if there are a number of state schools available to accomodate those who did not get into the flagship school, the ratio does not seem out of line to me given Michigan, UVA, Wm & Mary have similar breakdowns between state and out of state students. I wish our top state universities can attract more out of staters. The only reason I would complain about a college taking too many out of staters is if the lower cost state subsidized option are meager to the point that State U is the only room and board choice at that price. Delaware has this problem. I think that is a state that needs to have some recipricol arrangements with Pa and MD where so many of their Uni students come from. We have relatives there whose children did not quite make the U of D cut which meant community college for them, and a boarding college would have been much better for them. Their budget did not permit anything other than state schools.</p>
<h2>"Idmom, in your evaluation (opinion?) regarding the graduation rate at UT-Austin, aren't you omitting the critical fact that the Austin campus has one of the largest student populations in the nation? With such great numbers it's no surprise that the number of students who don't graduate (in a timely fashion) is similarly notable."</h2>
<p>Since we are talking percentages not numbers, I actually don't think the size of the population has anything to do with it. The quality of the population is why the attrition rate for the UT system is so high and this is a fact that has been recognized by and is a source of concern for UT administration. </p>
<p>(I have got to learn how to do that quote thingee.)</p>
<p>
[quote]
Quote:
Major Sources of funds for the University are:
- Patient Revenues 44.1%
- Tuition & Fees 15.5%
- Grants & Contracts 14.1%
- State General Fund Appropriation 8.5%
- Gifts & Endowment 7.8%
- Auxiliary Enterprises 7.5%
- Other 2.5%
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Perfect example of why you have to be careful with statistics.
44% of the funds for the University come from patient revenues. Published stats for the university are greatly skewed by the med school/hospital - same thing is potentially true for any university with an attached med school.</p>
<p>Not agreeing or disagreeing or disputing any particular point, just making the observation that it is hard to even be sure you are comparing apples to apples when using statistics from each state. Have to know what is in the statistics. </p>
<p>IN the case of the Dean's statistics, I think the discussion is more centered around the academic division, but it is easy to start quoting figures that include the med school and its Medicare supported structure.</p>
<p>It's good to get input from the source :), thanks .</p>
<p>ldmom: Just saw your add-on--correct on all counts! Thanks. :)</p>
<p>ldmom:</p>
<p>[ quote]the actual words you want to quote.[ /quote]</p>
<p>do what i did, but leave out the spaces after the first brackets.</p>
<p>Jack, I did not mean to imply that students are all the same if they come from the same state but I do think that there would be more similarities then dissimilarities. I think there are two points of discussion here - diversity and academic acceptance stats.</p>
<p>I'll just speak of Pennsylvania when I say that I believe that the majority of students at our local state colleges are not only residents of PA, but that generally their hometown is within three hours. And while some of them may have moved here from someplace else (we did!) most did not. I did not realize that North Carolina had such a huge NEW population. (But it certainly crossed our minds as a great state to relocate to whenever we thought of moving) </p>
<p>Yet while every student is unique, having visited over a dozen colleges with both of my kids, I still think that our public schools in PA are not very diverse. I'll keep quiet about diversity in NC since I can't speak with authority. Shoot, now I'm going to get in trouble with Pennsylvania posters.</p>
<p>I'm not sure what you mean when you say, "I would hope that the out-of-state students at UNC-CH do not share your same view and are, in fact, much more open-minded about <em>all</em> students, regardless of their home region, and view each and every one as unique individuals". I apologize if I'm wrong but I thought that the avg. stats required for NC residents was lower for UNC-Chapel Hill compared to that of oos students. With the NC mandate of accepting only 17 - 18% of oos students, doesn't that mean that the oos student pool is more competitive? Academics is a small part of what makes someone who they are, I never meant to suggest that I would think someone was a better person because they were an oos student at UNC - Chapel Hill, just that I would know that they probably did very well in school. I know boring adults that went to well known colleges and even more interesting people that went to unknown colleges - but I don't judge anyone by where they went to school.</p>
<p>Jack, whether you believe it or not, the referenced article clearly stated that at UVM, the school under discussion for the article, out of state students DO make it possible for in state students to pay such a low tuition rate. Vermont is unique in that it is a physically large state with a pretty small population of college age students. Here the higher education budget is exceedingly small, simply because there is a limited overall population, never mind one that would be benefitting from the university. Without the high percentage of out of state students, there wouldn't be much of a student body here. I know many in staters and many out of staters here, but it remains a fact of UVM's existence that it's astronomical out of state tuition rates keep the school's endowment so full, and not the tax dollars of vermont residents. Vermont's OOS tuition rate is the highest in the country for a school of its size. </p>
<p>Regardless, this issue is coming at a time when the university has made a large point of taking steps to improve the overall quality of the student body. If an in state student doesn't fit the school's needs, there is no reason he should be accepted to that school. In just a year UVM's applicant pool has jumped by a huge amount and the school became massively more competitive. This means that average students from EVERY state, not just Vermont, were not accepted. While state schools are generally more accessible, vermont gets a lot of very talented applicants from nearby states every year, and there's no reason to lower the standards they're trying to raise simply because there are parents pitching a fit that their kid was rejected from a reasonably tough school.</p>
<p>Additionally, the article made it sound as though the student was waitlisted simply because he was in state, but that probably wasn't it. Maybe he wrote a terrible essay, his scores were only average compared to the rest of the pool, or his extracurriculars were less than stellar. We have no way of knowing how he stacked up, but the sense of entitlement conveyed by the article perturbed me.</p>
<p>OOS kids getting in is only an issue if they are underqualified and taking places of qualified applicants who live in the state. if that is not the case, then the OOSers should get into the college over instaters. the federal government guarantees you a public education up to 12th grade, but not a college education. you are not guaranteed to get into any of your state's institutions except the community colleges. i personally think it is good for a college to have lots of kids who do not live in the state because it promotes diversity and creates a better environment.</p>
<p>re # 18
ldmom, where are you getting the information that UT is now taking near 80% of its freshman class from the top 10%? The latest data I can find is that it is less than 70%, and has held steady at that level for the past three years. see <a href="http://www.utexas.edu/student/admissions/research/HB588-Report8.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.utexas.edu/student/admissions/research/HB588-Report8.pdf</a>, Table 2b
Also, where are you getting that the UT 6-year grad rate is near 40%? I believe the 5-year grad rate is in the mid 70%s and the 6-year grad rate is near 80%. See <a href="http://www.utexas.edu/student/admissions/research/HB588-Report8-part2.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.utexas.edu/student/admissions/research/HB588-Report8-part2.pdf</a>, Table 2</p>
<p>Princeton review reports 4-year grad rate for UT at 39% and 6-year rate at 74%. US News reports 6-year grad rate at 79%.</p>
<p>Looking at the data further, I notice that across the board the top-10% have higher grad rates than the non-top-10%. Again, see See <a href="http://www.utexas.edu/student/admiss...ort8-part2.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.utexas.edu/student/admiss...ort8-part2.pdf</a>, Table 2 </p>
<p>Doesn't this completely undermine any contention that the automatic top-10% admits are lower quality and less prepared than the non-top-10%?</p>
<p>As a Vermonter, I can affirm that there is great anger in the state over UVM's policies. Our public high school is one of the best in the state and a student in the top 10% of the class was denied entrance this year. UVM is telling guidance councelors to steer their students away from UVM and to the lesser known state colleges. UVM is spending a great deal of resources to become a "national unversity" at the expense of being a member of the Vermont community--that is their choice, of course, but eventually the state legislature is going to say "enough" and reduce funding.</p>
<p>Besides being a very expensive out-of-state u., the in-state tuition is among the highest in the country. Grants to Vermonters who are not valedictorians are pitiful. My daughter, number 3 in a class of over 200 was offered a Vermont Scholor award worth $1500. It was cheaper for her to go out of state to a college which did not offer any merit aid. I do not believe for one minute that OOS are keeping in-state tuition down. They are funding new sports facilities, a huge new student union and other trophy facilities.</p>
<p>As an out-of-state student at UNC-CH in the 70's I realize it is a fine balance, but I think UVM's dreams of grandeur has pushed them a little over the edge and that they have forgotten their mission. Many other residents, and taxpayers feel the same.</p>
<p>kathiep - Diversity in PA in not sooo bad...25% of the students at Penn State- university park are OOS. Granted, there are quite a few from NJ, NY, and Maryland, but that isn't much different than a private school in PA like Lehigh. PSU also has a large population of international students. As in-state residents, we see this diversity as a good thing. My son wanted to go to a top OOS state school but did not get in. We were happy to have a reasonable in-state choice.</p>
<p>[Our public high school is one of the best in the state and a student in the top 10% of the class was denied entrance this year.] </p>
<p>We also experience this at some of NJ's top public high schools. It is very tough to gain admission to TCNJ from some NJ public high schools. As I understand it, it is easier to gain admission from other public high schools within our state. I guess the big difference is that TCNJ has few out of state students, so nobody can point fingers at out of state students and say that their spots were taken by those from out of state. Our instate costs are very high too, and many students decide to leave NJ for other oos options.</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
It's good to get input from the source :), thanks .
[/QUOTE]
Also worth noting is that the academic division includes graduate programs. The first few pages of the</a> buget document are pretty interesting. One thing I didn't realize is that only three times in the past 15 years has tuition accounted for a greater percentage of the budget than grants and contracts. And, while the medical center brings in 44% of the budget, the academic division costs about $200 million more to operate. </p>
<p>Another interesting bit of info about how much money per student some flagship schools get from their state (page 16 of the UVa budget doc):
[QUOTE]
The following chart shows the Universitys standing among peer public institutions using the 2005-06 state appropriation for each school:</p>
<p>UNC-Chapel Hill..$21,771
UMichigan...........$16,311
UMaryland...........$14,604<br>
UVa.....................$9,939
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE]
UVM is telling guidance councelors to steer their students away from UVM and to the lesser known state colleges.
[/QUOTE]
I find this extremely disturbing. I decided to look up some budget data from UVM. If you like crunching numbers, [url=<a href="http://www.uvm.edu/%7Eofabweb/Buddocweb06.pdf%5Dthis">http://www.uvm.edu/%7Eofabweb/Buddocweb06.pdf]this</a> is interesting<a href="opens%20a%20PDF">/url</a>.</p>
<p>dt123 -</p>
<p>Thanks...I need to clarify that stat...I rolled too much up into one number.</p>
<p>Within the UT system, the 6 year graduation rate is below 37 percent for most of the institutions as described in this 11/2005 article. Though the following article implies others wise, I believe UT-Austin IS higher than the nat'l average of 52%, but lower than most schools with similar facilities. But the article DOES seem to state all UT institutions are lower than the national average. Nevertheless, the overall system graduation rate is dragged down by the low performing campuses. It should be noted that no UT campus has the ability to reject auto-admits even if admissions counselors feel a student is unprepared. Also, according my conversation with UT-Austin admissions in May of 2006, the Fall 2006 freshman class will be between 76% and 78% auto-admits at the Austin campus.</p>
<p>Lack of academic preparedness is the main reason cited for the attrition rate.</p>
<p>US News and the like are focusing on the individual school and I know that some schools will recalculate their stats according to survey parameters...that may explain why there is such disparity among all the reported statistics.</p>
<p>dt123</p>
<p>Your link didn't work for me. To answer your question, in many cases, "no."</p>
<p>In order to accept your premise, one would have to assume that all high schools provide class rank information. According to NACAC, somewhere between 80% and 90% of non-parochial, private schools do not report class rank. Most public schools still do, but the publics with high-performing students bodies are, increasingly, not reporting class rank.</p>
<p>So, the universe of students for which class rank data are available is not a random universe. It is skewed toward public schools that produce average or lower test scores. This is not always the case, and the skew may not be as pronounced in Texas as in some other states, but it is certainly skewed, nevertheless.</p>
<p>It stands to reason that, in a statistical population skewed toward high schools where test scores are average or below average, those finishing near the top of those high schools would perform better than those finishing below the top. It does not mean that those in the top 10% of their classes in this population perform better than those in the top 30% from elite public and private high schools.</p>
<p>Tarhunt, try <a href="http://www.utexas.edu/student/admissions/research/HB588-Report8-part2.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.utexas.edu/student/admissions/research/HB588-Report8-part2.pdf</a></p>
<p>my point is:
1. top 10% admits have better grad rates than non-top-10% admits at UT-Austin, therefore
2. the grad rate of top 10% admits relative to non-top-10% admits, does not, as ldmom claimed, diminish the the reputation of UT-Austin</p>
<p>I believe every public H.S. in Texas ranks its students, given the importance of rank to college admission here.</p>
<p>Out of state students at most state schools CERTAINLY help subsidize the instate students. Typically at the major schools with large OOS populations and high OOS tuition about 25-50% of that is "profit" for the school and helps cover the costs for instate not proviced by the state. Wisconsin has made this argument very time the topic of cutting OOS enrollment comes up.They also lowered some OOS tuition at the other campuses because they lost too much enrollment and needed the money.</p>
<p>dt -</p>
<p>re: your post 31. It depends on the characteristics of each population (top vs. nontop). I think I know which link you speak of because I've seen it before....and if I'm correct about the link, imho doesn't tell the whole story. Especially since highly qualified non tops from high performing schools are often exported out of state or to private institutions in Texas not bound by the law. If you wanted to make a meaningful comparison of performance, I would think you wouldn't compare the top ten percenters vs. non tops at one school, but a comparison of all in the state.</p>
<p>We had a really good discussion about this a few months ago. It is a hugely controversial subject here in Texas.</p>