Which states receive/lose students (public universities)

Parents Forum
41

@Marian makes sense.
“New Jersey, for example, doesn’t have the capacity to serve all its own students in its state university system. There just aren’t enough places. So exporting students is a necessity. It would be a necessity even if every kid in the state loved Rutgers.”

@LBad96 I think your arguments are contradictory. “TCNJ…seems to only fit a certain niche of students and many if not most NJ students just don’t feel the vibes at that school” and “NJ schools do a notoriously poor job in the arena of attracting OOS students into the state…” TCNJ doesn’t seem to have any problem filling its seats with top notch students. Since a low percentage are OOS, obviously enough in-state students find it attractive enough to attend. Similarly, Rutgers gets a bad rap but has no problem filling its seats with in-state kids, but there are only so many seats to be had.

42

@carachel2 At first look, it appears Texas loses a lot (students migrating out), but you have to compare it to the total number of first year students. With 246,012 first year students, 26K (11%) migrating out doesn’t seem like much.

California is the same way, they have 41,820 students migrating out, but that’s only 11% of the in-state students.

Column 6 in the NCES data, Ratio of in-state students to residents enrolled in the state, best show’s this fact. Texas and California are both 0.89, with only Utah has a higher ratio (0.90). The national average ratio is 0.82.

The worse states, outside of DC, are Vermont (0.52), New Hampshire (0.55), and Connecticut (0.57).

43

@carpoolingma your arguments don’t prove that mine are contradictory at all. And top notch students at TCNJ? I’d call them very good students for sure, but idk about top notch…they get a bad rep for having snobby students (NOT saying I agree with that, btw). I said that NJ publics can’t attract OOS students into the state, and nothing you said proved me otherwise. If anything, you only proved my point right.

44

It is true that NJ publics aren’t attracting OOS students, but the exodus of students is largely a population issue.

45

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/01/05/leaders-ask-what-free-tuition-would-mean-new-york-campuses This is an interesting assessment of SUNY now and in the future . . .

46

@carpoolingma --Exactly–I teach at a NJ state school, and probably 95% of my students are from NJ. That’s pretty much the case at all of the state schools. New Jersey students CAN’T all stay here–there aren’t enough seats for them.

47

I’ll also point out that my school gets a lot of transfers, and most of them are NJ’ans who started out elsewhere and then came back after a semester or two.

48

Fun with numbers. So many factors. Numbers of students relative to numbers of college spots- and places available for high ranking kids. Reciprocity and other financial reasons to cross state borders. Huge numbers of college students in some states. Rankings of various public flagships. Thanks for the fun maps and tables.

49

" I don’t think UNC accepts many OOS students - same for UT-A and Michigan. So that could be why there aren’t more coming in."

True for UNC. Could not be more wrong for Michigan. It ain’t sometimes called “Half-Michigan” for no reason. Lol!!

50

@GreenTeaFanatic (post #39), you are absolutely right. PA is one of the “bad” states and does not do anything to retain its best and brightest. My D1 did receive a full scholarship from Pitt as she was one of the GAP (for SOM) attendees. However, my D2 received next to nothing from either Penn State or Pitt to make it worthwhile. She had received both the Morrill Prominence and the Buckeye scholarships at OSU. She is at GTech now.

51

Pennsylvania actually has a sizable net influx of students, in large part because it has a really large number of colleges. In the 2014 NCES numbers, it came second to Arizona in net students coming into the state. It does lose a fair number of students to Ohio and West Virginia in the west, and elsewhere in the Amtrak Corridor in the east, but it pulls in a ton of students from New York and New Jersey. In 2014, it had the 6th-highest total of students leaving the state for college. (That figure largely tracks population – four of the five states with more students leaving are larger than PA, and only one state larger than PA has fewer students leaving.) But it had the third highest number of students from other states enrolled in college there. Only California and New York were higher.

52

Any other perspectives on the constant outflow of New Jersey students? Anything that perhaps doesn’t have to do with the overall lack of spots at NJ in-state colleges?

53

LBad, NJ has great public transportation. A kid without a car can get him/herself back and forth from a bunch of places relatively easily. My family members in other parts of the country who end up subsidizing a car or having to jump through hoops to get the college kid there and back are envious of the “Amtrak corridor”. Not to mention Path, Bolt (el cheapo bus service) etc.

54

“I am always amazed at the amount of love I hear about U Vermont-- especially among prep school kids who can’t get into Williams, Bowdoin, Middlebury or Amherst- and parents who happily pay out of state rates to send their kids there. Kids visit and get excited about the vegan restaurants and aging hippies smoking marijuana outside the Banana Republic a block from campus- even when they come from places which have Banana Republics of their own, and lots of aging hippies to boot. But the mountains are beautiful and who cares how much it costs when little Johnny or Suzie want to go to college in a “cool place”?”

UVM was started as a private university. Today, it calls itself a “quasi-public university.” It is the smallest land grant research university with a medical school. If my memory serves me correct, it is an odd and interesting school in the sense that it is the only D1 school without a football team. It runs almost like a private university with emphasis on liberal arts education (relative to the other public schools) and with a very high level of student service and undergraduate teaching on par with its private school competitors. Thus, it is often treated by its out of state applicants as if it were a private school (image-wise more in line with prep schools), instead of a public school. The other reasons for many parents willing to pay its expensive out of state tuition (either the most expensive or the second most expensive one) are (1) UVM has strong alum base in Boston and NYC for more than 2 centuries and they are willing to sent their kids back to Vermont, (2) Burlington indeed is a cool town that not only entertains kids but also their parents, (3) it honors college is quite well run and places well into good grad schools, (4) its medical school is quite nice and takes in quite a few of its own undergraduates.

55

Prof- your analysis makes sense.

Still- would you pay a premium for U Vermont if you lived in a state with a higher ranked flagship AND you had the expense of getting your kid back and forth to Burlington (assuming you didn’t live near a Jet Blue airport with service to Vermont?)

56

blossom: no because the state flagship university I teach will provide free tuition education to my kids. :slight_smile:

57

Is the lack of state university seats in NJ the cause or effect of NJ students going elsewhere? Seems like the lack of seats is at least partially due to lack of demand, since it does not seem like the NJ state universities are among the most selective state universities (which would be the case if there were high student demand relative to space available).

It is one thing if NJ students go elsewhere because they aspired to Rutgers (NJIT, Rowan, etc.) but could not get in. It is another if they go elsewhere because they never considered attending Rutgers (NJIT, Rowan, etc.) in the first place.

58

PA has lots of LACs and small catholic colleges, which might give good merit/aid to some students from other states, which makes it more affordable and more desirable to go there over their instate schools.
Some states have reciprocal agreements and let students take their state grant with them when they attend school in PA.

Ohio seems to lose some instate students to neighboring states, I think instate students get a lot less merit than OOS (Of course instate tuition is also cheaper). Same with PA, NY, NJ.
Illinois is also losing students because of poor state aid/high instate college costs.

I found it interesting when you look at Ohio State’s dean’s list and there are pages of students from certain states, such as CA, IL, NJ, NY, PA, IN, MD,TX, MA, CT.
More surprising are the number of kids from states that have pretty good instate merit/aid, like GA, TN, KY, MI, VA, FL
https://news.osu.edu/assets/uploads/SP2016DeansList_NOT_OHIO.pdf

Same when you look at U Alabama, and how many top OOS students they attract from GA, IL, KY, LA, MA, MD, MI, MO, WI, VA, PA, TX, TN, SC, NJ, NC, OH.
http://uanews.ua.edu/2016/06/deans-list-students-named-for-ua-spring-2016-term/

59

@mommdc, well, 'Bama has those full-ride/full-tuition scholarships that would beat the in-state rate for those who do not qualify for fin aid. OSU has those as well.

60

@prof2dad: I believe quite a few schools are Div1 but don’t play football.