<p>electronblue: I know some pretty hippieish twentysomethings. </p>
<p>My nephew graduated from a prestigious LAC last year with his self-designed major in the philosophy of alternative agriculture. Then he and a bunch of friends rode bicycles across the country, starting in Norfolk VA and coming to rest for the time being high in the Rockies, where they are living in a communal house and working subsistence jobs. He’s a heck of a bread-baker and mandolin-player, too, and his hair goes halfway down his neck if he doesn’t tie it back.</p>
<p>His sister is a modern dancer (and sometime barista or grocery-store clerk) in a West Coast city.</p>
<p>He’s not the only alt-ag fan. One of my daughter’s good friends from high school, NYU grad living in Brooklyn, is all about community supported agriculture now. And another, Smith graduate, is working on a farm in the Pioneer Valley.</p>
<p>One of my son’s friends is triple-majoring in Philosophy, Slavic Languages, and Anatomy, and plans to support herself as an EMT.</p>
<p>Hippieish enough for you?</p>
<p>morandi: I’m glad to know that about Bowdoin. As I said, I don’t really have any good source of information about it (although I do know that it was seen as having an especially good pre-med program, and that its entering classes have pretty impressive stats). Part of what I know about it comes from a highly (negatively) biased source, and I try to weed that out, but maybe not enough. I would never have guessed that Bowdoin had more hippies than Bates, although it’s not terribly surprising that Colby is seen as preppy.</p>
<p>In light of financial pressure on college budgets, I would strongly recommend digging into the year end financial statements and cost-cutting plans of those four colleges. I think you will find that there are some signficant differences in financial condition.</p>
<p>Bowdoin is, relatively speaking, in solid financial health coming out of the market crash in terms of per student endowment, sustainable endowment spending levels, debt ratios, cash call commitments, etc. The difference is striking enough that I would have to seriously consider financial position trumping other considerations at this moment in time, especially if it’s a close call on student preference. It’s important to understand that everything you have seen at colleges in the recent past is **NOT **going to be there over the next four years. There are real cuts occuring that are going to have real impact.</p>
<p>Wow, interesteddad, the debt comparison is very interesting.</p>
<p>What is the source of your data? I’d like to know how these schools compare with the women’s colleges my daughter is considering (Wellesley, Smith, Mt Holyoke).</p>
<p>I haven’t seen such ■■■■■■■■ since Bush’s weapons of mass destruction bromide. Interesteddad has conveniently compressed about six different statistics into one massive, financial “Piltdown Man” called, "Per Student Endowment Net of Debt. To arrive at this figure one has to take a college’s endowment and FIRST divide it by enrollment. Right away that should tell you something is up, because naturally the college with the largest enrollment (Wesleyan) will tend have the smallest per capita endowment. What he coveniently leaves out is that Wesleyan also has the LOWEST RELIANCE upon endowment of the bunch and yet compares favorably in just about every academic component one can think of including student:faculty ratio. A fairer comparison would be to compare per capita debt to per capita revenue which is what a real financial rating system would do.</p>
<p>Fendrock, my kid applied and was accepted to 3 of the 4 schools you mentioned (Vassar, Wes and Bowdoin-- didn’t apply or visit Midd) and several other schools mentioned here (Bates and Colby). We visited, asked around and she had several visits before making her decision.</p>
<p>So first, I would say that I don’t think admissions was random. I thought it was and made her apply to a LOT of schools-- only to find out that where she was rejected was more selective than the rest of the pile. </p>
<p>I would say that Vassar and Wes are further left than Bowdoin. Bowdoin has a bit more of a sports culture than perhaps the other 2 schools that had stronger arts cultures. We were surprised that the Vassar-Wes-Bowdoin decision was <em>not</em> common. The trends seemed to be more Vassar-Wes-Oberlin and Bowdoin-Dartmouth-Cornell (which is odd to me because Cornell is HUGE and Bowdoin is tiny so I don’t see how those overlap). We thought Bowdoin food was better and dd said dorms were bigger. (I don’t recall all the dorms.) Vassar and Wes are train rides away from NYC which was a draw. Vassar had open curriculum but dd wasn’t crazy about the boy-girl ratio. Wes was more culturally diverse. I could go on… Honestly, they were all lovely schools and I wish kiddo could have bopped around among them. :-)</p>
<p>You can look at it a different way, if you like. Total per student spending in the fiscal year ended June 30, 2009. In other words, this is the baseline before the budget cuts.</p>
<p>Or, you could look at what the endowment spending rate would be if they spent the same amount from the endowment again this year based on the new lower endowment levels. The higher the percentage, the more cuts have to be made to bring endowment spending back down to sustainable levels (below 5%).</p>
<p>Most important, if I were a parent considering any college, I would seek out the presentation on cost cutting at each school and spend some serious time reading. All colleges have budget issues. Some have significant budget issues and have shown commendable transparency in working through the cuts. But, you would really have to compare schools to get a relative sense of faculty cuts, enrollment increases, and so forth that will impact the quality of the undergrad experience. In addition to the following links, the school newspapers can be informative. Many schools are in the process of approving long-term budget cuts starting next July after short-term measures for the current fiscal year:</p>
<p>Forget the kids… I would love to bop around them! </p>
<p>Speaking of finances, etc, however, I’d be interested to get Interesteddad’s opinion about Midd’s move to tie increases to their comprehensive fee to 1% above CPI, especially considering his numbers above (which I don’t have a real clue WHAT they “really” mean), although I do agree that a school’s reliance on the endowment for operating experiences should be part of the equation in some way, but there are a lot of things to look at - deferred maintenance, need for new or refurbished facilities, etc. Those schools that hadn’t done those things prior to two years ago sure as heck aren’t in a position to pick up those projects now. Midd’s trouble, if you can call it that, is that it greatly improved and expanded its physical plant in the last decade or so, so they aren’t looking at huge issue of maintenance quite yet. Not sure what either Bowdoin or Wes had going on prior to the souring of he economy, nor what they may have shelved either.</p>
<p>Long story short… I agree that what can be the most frustrating to try to figure out is yes, this is what the school looks like today, but how about next year? So while some may compare financial aid offers, those who pay full boat are going to want to consider, at least a little bit, that what they think they are buying (if you can even quantify it all) is actually what they will still be getting. Are they cutting student services? Tutoring? Entire sports programs? Not saying they are, but worth scouring websites and other blogs etc to get a sense of transparency.</p>
<p>Everything I’ve used comes from (or is derived from) the year end financial statements from June 30, 2009. Sometimes you have to go to the NACUBO list to get a clean endowment number – believe it or not, that is sometimes hard to pinpoint from the fianancial statements. Go figure.</p>
<p>I actually cheated a little this year and used the new 2009-2010 enrollment numbers to get per student figures. In an absolute sense, that means the numbers are off a bit – using last year’s dollars divided by this year’s student counts. However, a number of schools started implementing significant enrollment increases this year (to raise revenue), so I felt like it was important to start capturing the impact of that. Increasing enrollment while cutting faculty and staff will be the most fundamental change in the undergrad educational experience going forward.</p>
<p>Basically, the colleges all made emergency cuts for this current year: salary freezes, hiring freezes, moratoriums on capital improvements and renovation projects, and so forth. Much of that is not sustainable. You can’t have salary and hiring freezes forever, so they are now approving long term sustainable budget adjustments to replace those, plus additional budget cuts (if necessary). This second bite at the apple is why you are now seeing a flurry of financial aid policy changes and so forth.</p>
<p>If you can tell me what the student/faculty ratio will be at any of these schools two years from now, you are far better than I am. The targets (enrollment and faculty size) are moving so rapidly that is impossible to nail down the numbers. For example, Amherst and Swarthmore are both 8:1, but going forward, Amherst will have fewer tenure track positions for 1800 students than Swarthmore currently has for 1500. This is one of the key issues I would want to look for in reading a college’s cost cutting plans.</p>
<p>Moda:</p>
<p>I don’t have an opinion yet on Middlebury’s recommendation to the board to base its future planning on sticker price increases of 1% above CPI. I’m not sure if they intend this as a firm pricing policy or simply the number they plug into their planning models. Either way, it tells me that they are sensing softening demand from full-pay or near-full-pay students. In a tight budget scenario, you cannot afford to lose those customers, even if it means lowering the price for them a bit. $51,000 revenue isn’t as good as $54,000, but it’s a heck of lot better than zero or than replacing that with a half-pay finanancial aid discount. I’m holding off to see some colleges start setting their prices for next year. Swarthmore should set its price in this coming weekend’s board meeting. Amherst has already budgeted to increase 5% in each of the next two years.</p>
<p>basically, what this shows is how unreliable endowment size is in predicting future budget cuts. If a college with one of the highest per capita endowments in the country has to dial back on a need-blind financial aid policy, less than two years after it was implemented, it can only be because of something we, as observers, are missing like the proverbial forest for the trees.</p>
<p>Interesteddad: data are interesting, but Moda’s mention of what Middlebury’s debt now provides its students is an important factor that is lost in the numbers (a point johnwesley seems to be making in another way): would be hard pressed to find better science, humanities, library, and athletic facilities than Middlebury’s, and so wasthe sacrifice of its endowment/student net of debt worth it? Would Amherst and Williams, with far greater per student endowment like to have its suspended science and library projects (respectively) completed, and whose students are better off right now in terms of access to such facilities? Data are great and the high endowment/student (net of debt) ratios at S, W, and A are impressive, but how does one factor in the “wealth” in the ground and already providing dividends to present and soon-to-be students? A high endowment by itself never did anything to enhance an education.</p>
<p>From a purely student oriented perspective of “what is MY education going to be,” I think Northcat makes a very good point. The expansion of facilities and what’s available for students is pretty amazing. Longer term,however, I think how a school handles its spending is going to be a tricky business for many private colleges, and even the elites will not be immune to making some tough calls. How a school prioritizes its resources (and how quickly they correct errors past and present) should play a role in college decision making, however, MOST 17 & 18 year olds look at college decisions that way. :)</p>
<p>So, in that respect, this thread was more about a feeling, the culture of each of these schools from a student perspective, not a financial or administrative one.</p>
<p>My Middlebury alum interviewer was quite surprised that the closest “peer” LAC I’d applied to was Swarthmore–the others were all SoCal or Midwest. I ranked Oberlin and Midd about equal in personal desirability; I really liked, though didn’t love, both schools. Yes, Midd is preppier, but predominantly “granola prep” (and with a lower % of varsity athletes than Bowdoin, though this is irrelevant to the OP). Campus culture was very important in my college search.</p>
<p>Of two students from my HS who matriculated at Vassar (we don’t have many applicants to there, despite being East Coast), one was a straight-edge musician and the other a WASP recruited lacrosse player. They both love college, as far as I know.</p>
<p>I think your percentage of athlete numbers might likely have to do with the size of the student body itself of the two schools and fielding a similar number of teams. (?)</p>
<p>However, I’d love to hear more about the nuances of “granola prep”! :)</p>
<p>Well, Williams was one of only two liberal arts colleges that had a need-blind for internationals. I know Swarthmore had looked at it and decided they couldn’t afford it.</p>
<p>As for how many buildings were built during the bubble years, yes, that’s one factor I would consider, although I guarantee that if there were a magic wand to make new buildings go poof and put the money back in the endowment, both Williams and Middlebury would be fighting over the wand. Heck, Middlebury just closed a brand new dining hall built in the last five years. Ouch. Williams never wanted that fancy new theater in the first place. The President who did that deal with an alumnus got fired over it.</p>
<p>The problem with the very high debt loads at Middlebury and Wesleyan is that the debt service part of the budget can’t be cut. It’s a zero sum game, the higher the debt service, the more cuts have to be found elsewhere. I think what has some schools spooked is that the variable rate debt is an historically low interest rates that are expected to rise sharply in the coming years. That’s creating some nasty outyear budget problems.</p>
<p>Having said that, you have to look at the totality of a particular school’s financial situation. They’ve all got budget challenges. The choices they make in cost-cutting are pretty clear statements of priorities.</p>
<p>Just to correct a point: the new dining hall at Middlebury was not closed; it is used daily. It no longer serves the traditional college board plan. It houses the Colleges foreign language tables (10 languages daily, served lunch in the target language, no English), and serves as the main “events” hall for dinners that follow lectures, or is used for group gatherings. The issue for Middlebury was having three very large dining halls — the other two seat 585 and 500 at one time. The hall that was converted from board plan use was to be the third of FIVE(!), associated with the 1998 planned commons residential system (a la Yale), where each “commons” (there are five) would have its own dining hall. Thank goodness that plan was amended by the current president (his predecessor proposed the commons system). That hall that was converted, Atwater Dining Hall, is a beautiful building, but just to correct the record – is still in use, but just not for the meal plan.</p>
<p>Modadunn - I’ve never visited Bowdoin, so I can’t comment except on the surprisingly high % numbers–IIRC, nearly 60% of Bowdoin students play a VARSITY sport. I didn’t seriously consider it in my search, but my interviewer named it (unsurprisingly) as one of the most common cross-application schools with Middlebury.</p>
<p>Regarding “granola prep”: I think that culture label applies to Midd and Kenyon, the latter of which a friend once aptly called “save the world prep.” The girl that I hung out with on my visit to Midd–my host’s suitemate–was a Northface-wearing white girl who told me flat-out that one of the things she loved most about Midd was how “quirky” the people were. I don’t think they’re as quirky as Wes students on the whole, but I do think that being proud of quirkiness distinguishes Midd from a school like Colgate or even Williams (vis a vis my immaculately stylish tour guide, though I’m sure mythmom will contradict me).</p>
<p>I’d like to point out that Middlebury also has additional revenue streams that most other LACs do not (the language schools, schools abroad, Bread Loaf School of English, Monterey Institute of International Studies, language academy, etc.). In addition, Middlebury is exploring the possibility of capitalizing on its strength in foreign language instruction by offering on-line or packaged language modules to the masses (a la Rosetta Stone). If successful, this could generate tens of millions of dollars in revenue every year. The biggest concern with this proposal is cheapening the brand.</p>