<p>It's depressing that our gov't is starting to privatize the many institutions of of our society. In fact, they are literally selling out public properties that have been constructed with every tax payer's hard earned money. From basic infrastructure (many major interstate highways and bridges have already been sold or leased to corporations like Morgan Stanley, e.g. The Brooklyn Bridge in nyc) to the health care system to our higher education system, there is a prevalent (yet very well-disguised) trend to privatizaton of what used to be public institutions. Have we actually gotten poorer? or is it simply because of misuse and waste of public funds that ought to be properly distributed? If privatization worked so well, why don't they simply whole-sale the nation known as the United States of America altogether to business giants, along with our army, navy, and airforce?</p>
<p>hawkette:</p>
<p>I'm surprised by your OOS tuition numbers for UM. I got my $15,000 number directly off their website. Where did you get yours?</p>
<p>Tarhunt, I just paid my kid's Michigan OOS tuition bill for the semester and hawkette's number is actually low ($15,700 and it will go higher as a junior). Are you sure you weren't looking at a semester number rather than a full year?</p>
<p>IMO, Michigan would have a decent shot at going private by shrinking the class size... assuming they could strike a deal with the state regarding the land and buildings. Nearly 40% of their students are OOS... much higher than most of the state universities noted. I believe they also have a top 10 endowment.</p>
<p>Yes, I believe that must be what I did. I misread "full term tuition" to be "full year tuition." Here's the link:</p>
<p>I just have to disagree about Michigan. I believe that state appropriations are around 20% of the budget (though different reporting methods make it a bit difficult to do apples to apples comparisons). That represents about $320 million. It's tough to replace all that, let alone fund capital campaigns, improve endowments, and the like.</p>
<p>And, then, there's just a gut feel. I don't have evidence and will not try to defend my gut. But let's just say that my gut tells me that Michigan doesn't have quite the cachet it needs to go private and make it stick.</p>
<p>As for shrinking the student body, then you shrink revenues, and remember that universities have a number of fixed costs to cover. When you shrink revenues, you shrink faculty and grad student jobs. That means that you shrink grant money, which also shrinks grad student jobs. That leads to reduced research and reduced reputation among peers. That leads to difficulty attracting and retaining the best faculty, which continues a downward reputation spiral.</p>
<p>About the last thing you'd want to do when you lose $320 million in state revenue is shrink tuition revenue at the same time.</p>
<p>Maybe UM could go private, but I just don't see the Big 10 business model being conducive to that.</p>
<p>Tarhunt, I recently read on a thread that UM state funding was down to 11%. When you reduce students, you can cut overhead and increase selectivity. You may not reduce tuition revenue because the portion eliminated would, for the most part, would be in-state revenues. Although I don't have the numbers to do the calculations, the state may not kicking in enough to subsidize the reduced tuition for in-staters.</p>
<p>The success would depend upon the response of UM alumni. Or maybe even the response of one alumnus... the Google co-founder. Larry, whaddyathink? ;)</p>
<p>ParentTrap:</p>
<p>UM site has $320 million out of total budget of $1.3 billion. I don't think that's 11%, is it?</p>
<p>Sorry, I work in higher ed. I don't buy the "cut overhead" thing. Fixed costs are fixed costs. They will not go down because you reduce the number of people matriculating. Debt service is debt service, for instance.</p>
<p>A very few overhead costs can be decreased. You'll need fewer accountants and fewer counselors. You might be able to cut the admissions staff a bit. But the grounds and maintenance staff will be the same. The budget for the library will be the same (or expect problems). Etc.</p>
<p>I seriously, seriously doubt that cutting $320 million from the budget without increasing tuition revenue is a viable business model. But, anything is possible, I suppose.</p>
<p>Increasing tuition for UCs is a negative thing.</p>
<p>This is something I've wondered: are the state gift figures to specific UCs released? More specifically, how much money does the state give Berkeley each year?</p>
<p>If you allow a public school to go public, there is no in-state tuition subsidy ... that is, everyone pays OOS tuition. That's a sizeable revenue stream even without increasing OOS tuition.</p>
<p>Take, for example, the University of Michigan. 65% of the 25,000 undergrads are currently enjoying a 20K resident tuition subsidy. If they all have to pay OOS tuition, there is an additional $325M in annual revenue, minus a certain percentage for additional scholarships.</p>
<p>But of course that's not gonna happen, as jags correctly pointed out that the state is not gonna grant the university full autonomy.</p>
<p>UVa's also smaller than most state schools (15000 undergrads vs. 25000 undergrads). Not to mention alumni are quite wealthy.</p>
<p>The whole purpose of Public Universities is to support the residents of that state. Thats why I'd be outraged if such a measure happened and did not go on the ballot. School intiatives in my area, always do pretty well. You can't just privatize UCB and UCLA, thats in violation of the Donahoe Act of Higher Education. The state of California owes it to the residents of this great state to have cheaper tuition and it should require favoritism in selecting students from CA HS or CA CCC.</p>
<p>
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Yes, it completely destroys the fundamental purpose of the UC system which is to provide an affordable education to California's students.
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</p>
<p>
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The whole purpose of Public Universities is to support the residents of that state.
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</p>
<p>As I have said before on other threads, UC is basically already 'private'...for the Phd programs. For example, there are years in which some of the PhD programs at Berkeley won't matriculate a single new student who is a California state resident. Not even one. Instead, all of the incoming students in those years were either OOS or foreign nationals. California state residents also enjoy no admissions preference when applying to UC PhD programs. Furthermore, PhD students usually don't really care about receiving in-state tuition subsidies, as their tuition is going to be paid for by their department as part of their package (either fellowship or RA/TA-ships) anyway. Hence, whether you come from California or someplace else bears no relationship to what you would "pay" for your PhD (which is in most cases $0 regardless of what residency you hold). </p>
<p>The same lack of admissions preference is apparently true for many of the UC professional grad programs. For example, Boalt Law specifically states that California state residents enjoy no advantage in the admissions process. However, granted, if they are admitted, state residents do get a tuition subsidy.</p>
<p>The same is true of UCLA Medical School</p>
<p>"Residence: No preference is given to state of residence"</p>
<p>The point is, many of the UC graduate programs already behave like private schools. In particular, if Berkeley decided to declare its PhD programs to be "private", not a whole lot would change. After all, many of those programs already don't matriculate that many California state residents. In fact, in some years, some of them matriculate no state residents.</p>
<p>Which leads to an interesting question. If the whole point of a public university is to support/serve state residents, then why are so many PhD programs at many of the top public schools (i.e. Berkeley, UCLA, Michigan, Illinois, Virginia, Texas, etc.) bringing in so many students that are not state residents (or, particularly in the case of science/engineering, PhD students who are not even US citizens/residents)?</p>
<p>
[quote]
If the whole point of a public university is to support/serve state residents, then why are so many PhD programs at many of the top public schools (i.e. Berkeley, UCLA, Michigan, Illinois, Virginia, Texas, etc.) bringing in so many students that are not state residents (or, particularly in the case of science/engineering, PhD students who are not even US citizens/residents)?
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</p>
<p>There is more than one way to "serve." One way is to provide opportunities for state residents to earn degrees (with state support). States are certainly concerned about that, but they generally seem most concerned about degrees at the baccalaureate level. </p>
<p>Other ways to serve include the production of knowledge and technology, and states seem less concerned with who universities recruit to do that at the graduate level. Maybe they should be more concerned; maybe they should be thinking about the state's supply of PhDs and other advanced degree holders, and look harder into whether state institutions are failing to meet resident demand. I dunno. I just have not seen this be a hot-button issue in my state.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Take, for example, the University of Michigan. 65% of the 25,000 undergrads are currently enjoying a 20K resident tuition subsidy. If they all have to pay OOS tuition, there is an additional $325M in annual revenue, minus a certain percentage for additional scholarships.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I wonder, have we repealed economics? Using your logic, all any business would have to do to make more money is raise prices. Unfortunately for businesses, raising prices also means losing customers to the competition. No university can decided to just raise prices and make everything all warm and fuzzy. I wish we could.</p>
<p>IMO, this thread really shows the dilemma facing public universities as they try to maintain pace with their private peers while still honoring their contract with their state residents. It is a difficult balancing act and these state universities will have a tough time meeting the interests of the various constituencies. Broadly speaking, if the politicians stay in control, the states will likely continue to have financial strains, not to mention the populist calls to open up more places to IS students at the flagship schools. These two factors impair the public's ability to compete with the top privates and could also damage the quality of the educational product that they deliver in the classroom. </p>
<p>A great college like UC Berkeley is not immune to such pressures. My impression is that their strategy to date has been to play the PR game by pushing its reputation (as sakky points out, mainly fashioned by OOS graduate students) but allocating fewer resources to serve undergraduates and admitting large numbers of IS transfer students to satisfy the demands of the politicians and the voters (see OceanPoet's post above for what they will say). The loser is likely to be the future UC Berkeley or UCLA undergraduate who will face tuition increases, larger classes, and perhaps fewer resources to serve the undergraduate population. What's a college president and his/her administration to do???</p>
<p>Well, I don't think it's possible to underestimate the collective intelligence of a state legislature. I believe that the state level is where we get the widest spread between elected talent and issue complexity. </p>
<p>State legislatures rarely understand the concept of investment, or competition with other states, or the like. Certain states, either by luck, planning, or a bit of both, have systems in which there is a crown jewel, public university. Some even have more than one. Some, and maybe all (I wouldn't know) states seem hell-bent on tearing that system down if they're lucky enough to have one. Other states, who don't have that system, are desperate to build one.</p>
<p>It's very possible that we'll see our crown jewel publics largely disappear.</p>
<p>Miami of Ohio is a "public university" but the tuition (about 20,000/year I believe) is the same for everyone. Residents of Ohio receive a "residency scholarship" to attend, some more or less depending on their qualifications. I remember reading a newspaper article (U.S. Today?) that said that this will be the wave of the future as far as public universities go--they have much more contril over who is admitted--the money that is raised through state taxes still pays the scholarships for those in-state students so in-staters can't get upset, but a much higher percent of OOS are admitted than is usually found iin in-state universities.</p>
<p>Tarhunt,
Unfortunately, I agree. The politicians understand how to get re-elected. Arguing that attracting a higher quality student body involving more OOS students will help the school and its reputation over the following 5-10-20 years is not going to win many elections. Same with raising tuition rates in order to keep services to undergraduates high. </p>
<p>However, I doubt that the crown publics will all disappear as some will have the financial resources to make their own decisions and tell the politicians to butt out. But for the others, it is hard to see how they will improve, or even maintain, their competitive position against the top privates.</p>
<p>^ That's why California especially needs to abolish term limits for state legislators.</p>
<p>We elect people with very little experience, and they only have their own agenda...</p>
<p>I have a question for those of you who love to quantify: do OOS students actually pay more money over four years to support the oos state university that they attend than an individual resident does in the 18 years before their student goes to State U? </p>
<p>Say the OOS difference over four years is $80,000 in Michigan. Is that more or less than than a Michigan resident would spend over 18 years to support the university or university system? Should it matter?</p>