UW-Madison going down??

@Zinhead “As for the number of slots, a hard cap of 10 percent per department for OOS/NRA students seems reasonable as that is what other successful university systems have implemented.”

I would even back 20 or 25% OOS/NRA students. A student body that is more geographically diverse is a good thing. What bothers me it that the OOS/NRA students places are not distributed evenly across the university. It looks like UIUC is disproportionately gives the high-value engineer, and graduate school positions to those students. In contrast, in-state students are allocated more spots that have lower average earnings. That stinks.

To me, if they want to do that, maybe they should become private. Then they can accept all of the OOS/NRA students they want to.

The state could offer its annual contribution up for bids among several colleges and see where they can get the best deal to get Illinois students access to the best programs. Illinois could bid for it if they want to.

Whoa, @Zinhead! You seem really upset. I don’t know where to start.

First of all, check the mission statements of different universities…the ones I checked (NC, IA, MN, WI, FL, VA, WA, OSU, AL) all mention benefitting the nation and the world.

Second, I understand your displeasure at seeing so many IL residents “having to pay OOS tuition elsewhere”. It’s a shame that the state and the U of I system cannot provide a high caliber college experience for every “qualified” student. If I were a parent of a graduating senior who was not admitted, I would be angered that maybe, they were not accepted due to OOS and international students. But if you look at the number of graduating seniors, there still would not be enough “spots” in Engineering and Business.

Do you know how many 12th graders there were in IL in 2015?..about 147,000! And how many seats are there in an incoming UIUC Engineering and Business freshman class?..about 2,200…total.

It’s hard to say how many “qualified” students applied, but I imagine a pretty large number…think New Trier, IMSA, Stevenson, Walter Payton Prep, the Hinsdale schools, the Naperville schools, Lane Tech, Whitney Young, Northside Prep, Deerfield, Highland Park, etc. This selectivity is what has contributed to the strength of these UIUC degrees and subsequent job opportunities.

Then @Much2learn stated

Well unfortunately, OOS/NRA won’t pay their rates, for degrees without value in their eyes. (Would you?)

Anyway, the university has tried…I admit not well at times (heck, that’s a long list of scandals)…to balance funding with building strong, marketable degrees. If you are looking from the inside, out, you are very happy with what the university has accomplished in the Colleges of Engineering and Business. There are instances when cultures clash, but in-state students choose UIUC, because they value, and there is value, in their degree.

And @Zinhead I respectfully disagree with you on this point too. I don’t want “competent”, I want excellence in a flagship university. Michigan is the Outlier because of its huge endowment.

Sadly as someone else suggested, probably the biggest problem is that IL does not have alternative campuses of quality for its residents.

Shohld son choose UIUC or UW Madison in state for engineering?

@88jm19 “Well unfortunately, OOS/NRA won’t pay their rates, for degrees without value in their eyes. (Would you?)”

If UIUC doesn’t have enough money, then they should charge more for high value degrees to both in-state, OOS/NRA students, and trim departments where they can’t get enough students to cover the costs.

Alternatively, if they are just going to give the valuable seats to OOS/NRA students, then take the school private. The state will give them no money, and in-state students who want those seats can pay up. If the State wants to subsidize in-state students they can offer that to the students directly.

That would be better than pushing in-state students disproportionately into the less valuable degrees. To me that is disgraceful. People with engineering and business degrees create jobs. The State of Illinois should want those degrees to go to students who live in Illinois. Those students are much more likely to use their degree to create jobs in Illinois. Instead, UIUC gives those seats to students from China, and then we wonder why more and more american jobs are going to China.

For America to succeed in a world economy, we need more highly trained engineers, business people, and tech people here in the USA and we need to send more low wage jobs overseas. We have the best system of higher education in the world, and we need to leverage that to maintain America’s economic power, not foolishly give it away to foreign countries.

@herewelearn UW-Madison has an excellent engineering program, which makes it hard to justify spending $25K+ more a year for UIUC.

I agree with you. Son loves Madison as well. Only thing is that he feels like UW is a continuation of high school. He tries hard to leave h.s. and can’t seem to escape it entirely.

@herewelearn Has he been admitted to both? What kind of engineering is he interested in? Both schools have strong engineering programs.

Yes to both. One in COE and one in major AE. UIUC also awarded engineering achievement scholarship.

@Much2learn-

The university does charge Engineering and Business students more. For in-state students it’s about $5,000 more per year!

I’m sorry but this sounds silly to me…an “I’m going to take my ball and go home!”, impractical, improbable over-reaction.

Yes, it would be lovely if more in-state students could benefit from the high quality offerings at UIUC. But recognize the difficult balancing act in trying to increase the value of the various degree programs, in a competitive environment, at a time when resources are are more difficult to come by. Both incoming students and the university do not have limitless resources.

Yes, I recognize the shortcomings of the current state of affairs and believe there is room for improvement. But I am also of the age where the anger/frustration I see, can lead to poor decision-making. I can’t help, but think of the idiom, “don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater”.

Lastly, I think there could be a whole thread on the topic of what state university mission statements should be, but I don’t have the time or energy right now to start one. In my opinion, discourse can be fun, but in many instances, people erroneously think they will change the opinions of others. With that said, I think this thread has run its course for me. I sincerely hope Illinois and Wisconsin successfully navigate the changing higher education landscape.

@88jm19-

By “competent”, I am referring to an administration that does not have to resign every 2 to 3 years, or who has to pay out six and seven figure sums in legal fees or penalties to cover up for their mistakes.

I wonder how UW can be a continuation of HS. I lived on campus coming from a suburb and it was a different world. A friend walked to campus from her parents’ home- her mom worked in the Res Halls offices. Yes, I ran into a couple of HS classmates in a class but otherwise never saw anyone I had known. Even if the HS student did several youth options classes they will not have had the campus experience. If the student has already been taking UW courses s/he will already be experiencing college and not HS.

One way to make sure it doesn’t feel like HS is for locals to live on campus freshman year. Get out of the house. Find the money to avoid commuting from the childhood home. I used scholarship money and was on a tight budget, but worth it. Attending classes on campus is so different than any HS. Get out of the comfort zone and do not socialize with HS buddies (that can be a problem for those from outside Madison as well). Make the choice to reach out to people NOT from HS.

PS- with all of the UIUC posts I don’t see UW doing that badly in comparison.

I agree. This is what I hear from many students in my suburb of Chicago - many go anyway because it’s in-state - but many would rather go to WI or MI to get both the education, and what they perceive to be the quintessential college experience. (Not saying said experience isn 't really available at UIUC - but the prevailing perception seems to be that it’s not…)

UW Chancellor yesterday reported over 85% retention rate for faculty with outside offers this year. Above typical year average retention. Most faculty recruiting for senior jobs is now closed. With all the negative press that’s very good news and shows commitment at UW to maintain high quality no matter what state says/does. Also
https://badgerherald.com/news/2016/03/07/blank-says-uw-must-continue-to-increase-financial-aid-after-scholarship-raises-44-million/

@barrons The Great People scholarship program, that raised $44 million sounds impressive, but UW-Madison spends about $41 million a year, already on need based institutional scholarships/grants. They spend about $90 million total (need and merit based), which includes Pell Grants, private scholarships, etc. The school still only has about 14% of the undergraduates on Pell Grants, so it’s not low SES “friendly”. It’s good that UW-Madison wants to address this issue with more need based aid, but with the push to increase OOS enrollment, that’s a trend that’s not going to change any time soon.

You can compare it to UIUC, which spends about $154 million a year ($70 million on need based aid) and has about 22% of the undergraduates on Pell Grants (even with a large % of OOS students).

UW-Madison also plans on increasing merit aid, in a battle over enrollment. More funds for Merit scholarships, will lead to less funds for need-based scholarships and grants (and other items, like faculty salaries and facilities).

http://www.edcentral.org/merit-aid/

By the way, The Great People Scholarship?, sounds like Chairman Mao came up with the name…

I think it would be great if Madison offers some better merit scholarships. I have 3 high performing instate students who did not go to Madison and chose other universities because of merit (we make too much for financial aid, but too little to afford 3 in college.) My oldest two were valedictorians of their class and both NMFs and UW Madison offered them $2250 per year to attend (and oldest got another $1,000 per year engineering scholarship.) Compare this to what other states offer for their high achieving instate students and it is sorely lacking.

From IN, our merit awards dropped, from full to about 60%. While UW didn’t offer Alabama level of merit – $2250 out of a $10,400 tuition is not a bad deal for instate. And UW room and board is much more reasonable than at many schools.

To my mind, UW is in the doughnut hole of schools – not quite Berkeley or Michigan, so can’t get away with $45k OOS tuition, but strong enough that it does not need to give is not substantial merit to attract the best in and out of state students, like IN or Alabama or others do.

Of course, as the public flagship, UW should be focusing efforts on attracting the best and the brightest of the Wisconsin residents and making the school a realistic financial option.

Gator–it’s not always a zero sum game. Some alums will prefer to support more merit aid. The total money needed is not that huge. WARF could re-direct some grad student $$$ to UGs. Grad students are fewer today as jobs are often scarce.
Also you numbers appear WAY off. According to UW Fact Book the spent about $125 M on undergrad scholies and grants including Pell. P84

http://apir.wisc.edu/datadigest/201415Digest/dd15_web.pdf

That 85% number does not tell the whole story. My anecdotal evidence is that UW is having a harder time hiring at the entry (assistant professor) level. In other words, UW is losing some job candidates to schools that it would not have lost to 10 years ago. A second point is that you need to look at the universe of schools that are trying to poach senior UW faculty. Once again, my anecdotal evidence is that more and more schools think they have a chance at prying faculty members away from UW. It is not just Harvard and Yale; schools such as Temple are now in the mix:


http://www.philly.com/philly/education/20160310_Temple_gets_outspoken_education_prof_with_national_profile.html

@barrons I’m using the 2015-16 Common Data set, section H1

https://apir.wisc.edu/publisherssurvey/CDS_2015-2016.pdf

The number I quoted didn’t include Tuition waivers (about $10 million) and Athletic Awards (another $12 million). Otherwise, about 50% of the “aid” for undergraduate students is in the form of student/parent loans and federal work-study (and that’s reflected in both the CDS info in H1 and on page 84 of your linked document).

EDIT: and it looks like graduate enrollment has been flat (if a bit higher than back in 2005).

Jobs in academia are currently at a premium. They may have a hard time recruiting “high performing” entry level folks, but I’m sure their is no shortage of candidates for each opening.

The Regents vote today on the new tenure and other policies. From Inside Higher Ed:

https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2016/03/10/u-wisconsin-regents-consider-new-tenure-policies

It is good to see that UW still offers graduate studies in hyperbole.