<p>bud123, does your “old school thinking” expect the university to completely ignore the state of its financial health and enroll state students until it runs itself into the ground? Michigan receives less money (in absolute terms) from the state today than it did 20 years ago. In that time, the University’s cost of operation has doubled. Is the University obligated to take as many in-state students as it once did? Can it do so financially without compromizing its financial health?</p>
<p>Also, something else to consider are the actual numbers. In 1993, Michigan had 16,000 in-state students, while today, the University still has 16,000 in-state students. In the same time, the population of the state…and the number of applicants from the state, has remained pretty constant. So in reality, Michigan has not lowered the number of in-state students, it has merely increased the number of OOS students.</p>
<p>A non-profit with $7,000,000,000.00 in investments, $700,000,000.00 in “tax-free profits”, plus another $100,000,000.00 from football and basketball pleading poverty and demanding more taxpayer money or they will abandon in state students. Please…cry me a river. No time to see if the # of in state high schools grads has increased since 1993 but suspect it has. If UM wants to be a private university I could care less. If you walk, talk, and waddle like a duck…you’re a duck not a zebra.<br>
What is the mission of state flagships? To be inclusive, large, with low cost quality education to in state students or to exclusive, elite, expensive education for out of state students?</p>
<p>“What is the mission of state flagships? To be inclusive, large, with low cost quality education to in state students or to exclusive, elite, expensive education for out of state students?”</p>
<p>Perhaps Michigan should make its flagship school like most of the flagships around the country? You cannot maintain excellence by allowing mediocrity to creep in. There are plenty of those types of schools available.</p>
<p>@bud123 The endowment is quite large, but the endowment distributions are restricted. Just because they have the money doesn’t mean that Michigan has the legal ability to spend it how they please. A lot of the endowment is restricted for research, UMHS, or scholarships, which leaves much less for actual instruction.</p>
<p>If you look at state allocations over the last 10 years, a very interesting fact will become emergent. Over the last 10 years, the state funding in inflation adjusted dollars per student is literally less than half of what it was in the 2002 -2003 school year. To get a feel of how large this actual amount is, it comes out to over 175 million dollars in lost revenue. Just a couple of days ago, the legislature threatened to cut an additional 41 million. Needless to say, but the legislature is not concerned with keeping the states universities well funded. The University of Michigan was forced to adapt to the funding cuts and they had a couple ways of doing so. Perhaps this is a bit too simplistic, but here were some of their options:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>They could have just absorb the funding cuts. If they did this, Michigan would have to cancel many future renovations and be required to fire potentially hundreds of professors and cut salaries to many more. The star faculty that Michigan is known for would have left, and Michigan would have just disappeared into mediocrity. </p></li>
<li><p>They could drastically increase tuition. Sure this is one solution, but it definitely isn’t ideal. Instate tuition would increase by thousands of dollars. Michigan would have become the most expensive public university by a massive margin. It’s one option I guess.</p></li>
<li><p>They could decrease their size while keeping the IS/OOS ratio fixed. This would be one way to solve the funding dilemma. Unfortunately it would result in far fewer instate acceptances than today. </p></li>
<li><p>They could increase the number of out-of-state students. This option seems like a nearly perfect solution because the university doesn’t have to decrease the amount of instate students enrolled while the university is also able to increase geographic diversity. OOS students would still have an acceptance rate far below the instate acceptance rate, but the number of out-of-state students would still increase and the extra money they bring in would help fill the funding void. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>If you are being completely honest, option 4 is definitely the ideal. It’s what Michigan chose, and it’s really the only one that makes sense. As Alexandre mentioned before, Michigan has enrolled ~16,000 instate students for a very long time. Even though the size of the state has decreased substantially, Michigan still maintains to enroll ~16,000 instate undergraduates.</p>
<p>“What is the mission of state flagships? To be inclusive, large, with low cost quality education to in state students or to exclusive, elite, expensive education for out of state students?”</p>
<p>Bud123, Michigan has never been inclusive. It has always maintained high standards of admission. And the reason why Michigan’s endowment stands at $7.5 billion today is precisely because the state has been cutting funding for the last 30 years. In 1987, Michigan’s endowment stood at $250 million. It was not even among the top 25 wealthiest universities in the nation. Realizing that state funding was going to continue shrinking, the University make a concerted effort to improve its own financial position. Michigan has far outpaced all universities in the country in the past 25 years, leaping from being out of the 25 wealthiest universities to being the 6th wealthiest university in the country. But even with its current wealth, the university still has a long way to go to become truly financially independent. Heck, even Harvard, which is half the size of the Michigan and has an endowment 4 times larger does not have full financial freedom.</p>
<p>Also, the $100 million that the University generates from its athletic programs are reabsorbed by the athletic programs in form of salaries for the coaches, maintenance of the facilities, athletic scholarships, recruiting etc…</p>
<p>But bud123, as I said initially, Michigan has not given more spots to international and OOS students at the expense of residents. The number of residents has not changed in the last 30 years, despite the fact that the population of the state and the number pf applicants from the state has not increased during that time. In essence, Michigan never compromised its mission as a flagship.</p>
<p>Kron, Your points are noted and UM is not alone in the OOS issue. If above posts are correct 100% of UM’s student growth over 20 years has been OOS. WOW, it’s not hard to see who the prettiest girl at the dance is.
How much money is enough for non-profits U’s? 7 Billion?, 70 Billion? 7 Trillion??? How much real estate do U’s need to own (tax free)? It’s hard for a state to support a university with 7 billion in the bank when people are hurting to save an elderly tenured faculty’s job or maintain a university rank in the USNWR.</p>
<p>“If above posts are correct 100% of UM’s student growth over 20 years has been OOS.”</p>
<p>There is an simple explanation for this bug123. That’s where the growth in the applicant pool has taken place. Michigan’s applicant pool has grown from 20,000 in 1998 to 55,000 this year. The vast majority of this growth has come from OOS and International students. The IS applicant pool has hardly grown.</p>
<p>“How much real estate do U’s need to own (tax free)? It’s hard for a state to support a university with 7 billion in the bank when people are hurting to save an elderly tenured faculty’s job or maintain a university rank in the USNWR.”</p>
<p>That’s precisely why the University has grown its endowment. So that it does not have to depend on the state, which as you aptly point out, has far more pressing priorities. But please understand, universities are forbidden from using more than 4% or 5% of the value of their endowment on an annual basis. That means Michigan can use approximately $350 million from its endowment. While this seems like a lot, a university with 42,000 students and 6,000 professors will require over $2 billion of expenditure to stay afloat.</p>
<p>OP, I think both schools are great! Michigan was my safety and I was completely happy with it, but I just found out I was accepted to Northwestern!! I’m really shocked! I’m going to go to Northwestern! Maybe I’ll see you there? Good luck with your decision, whichever you chose will be a great choice.</p>
<p>Congrats on your acceptance to NU reddog25. I’m really impressed that you were so sure you would get into Michigan. My only question to you is that if Michigan were your safety school, you surely must have applied to some combination of HYPSM as well. Any luck with any of those universities?</p>
<p>I have applied to Yale, Princeton and Stanford. Not expecting to get in to any. NU was my first choice and I’m pretty surprised I got in. I think Michigan is equally as good, really. NU is just better for what I want to study (Journalism/Communications)</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure NU has the best undergraduate journalism program in the country. Could be wrong though. </p>
<p>Sorry to everyone- I didn’t mean to hijack this thread- Just sooo excited to have gotten in!!! : )</p>
<p>Reddog, how did financial aid compare between Northwestern and Umichigan?
I as well as others would like to know.
Also what were your stats?
Congrats : )</p>
<p>You guys are all too kind! Thank you, it means a lot. </p>
<p>Mikejohnson, I have yet to receive financial aid information from either school. My understanding is that those will be mailed. However, I think they will probably be equally expensive. I will post when I find out. I will consider Umich if the school really comes through financially. Though, admittedly, it would be hard to pass up Medill.
My stats are:
SAT: 2290 (760 Math, 730 CR, 800 Wr)
3.9 UW
Top 3.5% of class
Lit Subject Test: 770
Chief editor of school newspaper among other ECs.</p>
<p>Congrats reddog. Northwestern’s journalism program is top notch. Michigan does not have a journalism program but turns out some top notch journalists.</p>