@monydad: very well, change that to “powerful interests”. And the lobbying was more about keeping the public uni system weak in the Northeast.
Some excerpts from this paper by Harvard profs:
“The Northeast has substantially and significantly lower public
support for higher education than do other regions—that is, the coefficient on
every other region is positive and significant—even after including controls for
wealth and industrial structure.”
“To sum up, newer states with a high share of well-to-do families and scant
presence of private universities in 1900 became the leaders in public higher education
by 1930. They remain so today. The tradition of stronger private universities
and lower support for publicly-controlled universities in the Northeast also continues
to the present—the correlation of public college enrollments per capita in 1994
with private college enrollments per capita in 1900 is 00.56.”
If Cornell’s three Land Grant colleges had SUNY tuition of 6,700/yr for NYS residents rather than “discounted” tuition of 34,000/yr, those Land Grant colleges might have the lowest acceptance rate of all the Ivies due to every high-stat student in NYS applying.
@blossom I now understand where the confusion was. In post #236, I was referring to public and private school qualities. Obviously in terms of public Us MA is right there with NJ.
@stencils: NYS gets an awful deal for what they spend on Cornell (or if you want to look at it another way, how great VA, MI, and CA have it).
I believe NYS gives Cornell as much money as VA gives UVa.
Now compare the in-state rate at UVa and how many VA residents get to attend at those rates compared to how many NYS residents get to study (a limited set of majors) at Cornell at the reduced Cornell rates.
Even if Cornell has more cachet than UVa, in general (and UVa is no slouch in the prestige department), it just goes to show you the difference between having a public under state control vs. using state funding at a private.
If you follow the money, it appears that higher education is a relatively low priority for the New Jersey legislature. Although NJ is both one of the wealthiest and highest-taxed states, NJ lags well below the national average in per capita spending on higher education ($244 in FY 2014, or about 10% less than the national average of $272), and especially in higher education spending per $1,000 of personal income ($4.24, or 28% less than the national average of $5.90).
For comparison purposes, Michigan spends only $220 per capita (19% below the national average), but because it’s a less wealthy state this represents $5,40 per $1,000 of personal income, or just 8% less than the national average.
Most Northeastern states are well below the national average in support for higher education both per capita and relative to personal income. In fact, many are well below NJ’s marks (e.g., Pennsylvania is 49% below average per capita and 51% below average relative to personal income). NY is slightly above average per capita (+13%) but slightly below average relative to income (-7%), but the SUNY system is so balkanized and the political logrolling so fierce that no single campus can emerge as the clear “flagship.”
On the other hand, many of the biggest spenders per capita don’t have particularly strong flagships; top 5 in per capita spending are Wyoming (+144%), North Dakota (+104%), Alaska (+92%), New Mexico (+74%), Nebraska (+61%).
(all figures from State Higher Education Executive Officers Assocation for FY 2014)
I wonder why they are unable to create a strong flagship? Are they trying to do so (like Alabama is)? Maybe part of the problem is that these aren’t states that most people would want to go to in any case even if they had great colleges?
@insanedreamer: Well, they have tiny populations. So even if the per capita spending is high, the absolute amount of money publics there get wouldn’t be a lot, and it’s impossible to build a top university without much resources.
Also, because they have tiny populations, you just won’t have a ton of top in-state undergraduate talent either.
@PurpleTitan good point, that makes sense. I hadn’t thought of it in those terms before, but if you look at the list of the top 10 biggest states (in terms of pop.) they basically match what are considered the best public flagships in the country (with some exceptions like Virginia and Wisconsin having top flagships but not in the top 10 by population, and NY – for reasons I don’t understand – not having a top flagship [unless it’s supposed to be Cornell?])
“Well, they have tiny populations. So even if the per capita spending is high, the absolute amount of money publics there get wouldn’t be a lot, and it’s impossible to build a top university without much resources.”
@PurpleTitan You are absolutely correct. Using the terminology in economics, these states are so small that they do not have economies of scale. That is the reason why in my earlier post that I mentioned NJ is a big state with a big economy. If NJ really wants to have a really top notch public university, it can do it.
@prof2dad, if NJ had wanted to a hundred years ago, you mean. You may want to read the paper I linked to as well. Attitudes and advantages from the past persist.
@PurpleTitan Yes, it does persist to some degree. But it does not mean things will never change. Who would thing UChicago would have such a high ranking today 20 years ago, right? IMHO, NJ can do it as long as it really wants to given its size and resources.
@prof2dad, if you’re in academia, you would know that the U of C has always been a powerhouse in research and academics (which is the hard part to achieve). They simply went from disdaining to game admissions to gaming it hard. And it’s not like the U of C was that lowly ranked 2 decades ago; it floated around 10-12, if I remember correctly.
For a big mid-tier public to suddenly challenge the top tier in academics is alot_ more difficult.
Academic reputation of universities is one of the most persistent things in this country (or the world). Look at college rankings/tiers from a century ago, and you would see very little change (only a handful, such as Duke cracking the top ranks because a wealthy benefactor gave a load of money to struggling Trinity College).
@PurpleTitan I think your memory serves you very well. If UChicage can go from say 10-12 to something like 3 in 20 years, I believe Rutgers can go from something like 72 to something like 41 (the current UIUC rank, I believe) in 20 years if NJ really wants it given it size and resources.
I am not saying NJ needs to do it; I respect NJ residents’ choice.
Over my teaching career, I had quite a few undergraduate finance students came to me seeking my advices about which graduate program should they apply to. Because I teach at a flagship state university in a New England state, many of my students had their eyes on NYU, MIT, BC, BU, etc. I always told them that they should look into Rutgers business school as well because Rutgers is a very solid school and has a very good location (not too many state flagship universities can say that they have a good location). I actually have a friend teaching at Rutgers so that I know its high caliber.
On top of it, my S represented my state competing in a few national math competitions when he was a high schooler. His team did not do that well because his team was completely destroyed by state teams from MA, NY, and NJ. I had the first-hand experience knowing the caliber of high-quality NJ students.
I simply think Rutgers can be even stronger given its human capital, location, and economic resources; that is it.
@PurpleTitan looking back at your post about Cornell, I wonder why NYS doesn’t ditch funding for Cornell (which frankly will do just fine without it) and pour it into building a UCLA, UVirginia or UMichigan equivalent in NYS over the next few decades. I understand your point about the slow development of public schools in the NE due to all the privates and alum dominating local legislatures, but that was some time ago. I know zero about NY/NE politics, but is there a particular reason there’s no focus on it now?
@prof2dad I’m not entirely sure about Rutgers location being “good”. New Brunswick isn’t a picturesque area by any means, it’s actually rather gritty and unflattering.
@LBad96 How long would it take for a NYC employer to travel to New Brunswick to do a campus recruit? In contrast, how long will it take for the same employer to travel to say Buffalo, NY to do a campus recruit? Now consider you are that employer. If you have time for only one campus recruit and Rutgers and SUNY Buffalo have the same level of talents (and holding other factors constant), where would you go?
@insanedreamer, NYS people will have to answer that, but I suspect that politics and clout has something to do with it. There are a lot of influential Cornell alum in NYS.
@prof2dad: Not saying it’s impossible, though it’s easier for a private to rise just by gaming rankings (look at NEU), but as I stated, all UChicago had to do to rise was change their attitude towards gaming rankings because it was already stellar academically in many areas. Just purely on academics, do you think RU matches UIUC? I know RU is top-tier in philosophy, but UIUC is top-tier in engineering, CS, and accounting, which combined cover a bigger area.
@PurpleTitan For business, yes, RU is on par with UIUC. RU has advantage in finance; UIUC was very strong and is still strong in accounting. I know rather little outside of business school though.