As an aside, equating NYU undergrad outside of Stern and Tisch(with some reservations) with a Porsche is a serious insult to Porsche IMHO.
What NYU has been effectively doing for the last 2-3 decades is trying to sell a car more comparable to a Honda Civic or Toyota Corolla while marketing it as a premium sports car akin to a Lamborghini or a Ferrari.
One difference between BU and NYU is that BU has historically been very transparent in its financial aid policies, whereas NYU historically was deceptive in the way it presented its financial aid packages to new students.
Here is information from BU’s web site that essentially tells applicants where they might stand in terms of likely aid: http://www.bu.edu/finaid/apply/newstudents/incoming/freshman-receiving-scholarships/ (I find the chart somewhat confusing but it at least upfront about the fact that not all students get aid, and that the amount of aid may vary depending on stats).
NYU (at least in the past) prepared financial aid packages that list Parent PLUS loans as if it were some sort of institutional aid – to make it appear as if full need is met. That is, rather than listing the COA and subtracting out grants,student loans and work study to display the EFC, NYU listed the Parent PLUS loan in the “aid” section of the document, so it looked something like this:
COA: $70,000
NYU Grant: $10,000
Student loans: $5500
Work Study: $4500
Parent PLUS: $50,000
Balance: 0
Obviously a knowledgeable person will figure it out, but this could be one source of frustration and resentment - and it also creates added psychological pressure on parents to borrow. Unfortunately, families too often fall into the trap of taking out a PLUS loan with the expectation that the student will pay it back after graduating.
It’s one thing to be skimpy on financial aid, quite another to adopt policies that tend to encourage student and families to borrow more than they can afford.
Setting aside the debate about whether an NYU education is the Porsche of college educations…I think the sore spot for many people here is that education isn’t quite a consumable good like cars - or at least, is not viewed that way. The Western ideal of the American dream, where anyone can rise to the top through hard work and ingenuity, is partially impeded by the knowledge that you have to be wealthy to pay for an elite education like NYU. And NYU is an easy scapegoat. It’s got more name recognition than GWU, USC or Boston U, and is at the top of the “dream school” list for more students. The Ivies, at least, promise to meet full need for their admitted students (never mind that fully half of their students are full-pay and only a small percentage receive full rides - they do well at concealing that or at least pushing it to the side).
There’s also the point that NYU’s rising tuition didn’t happen in a vacuum. College tuition all up has risen, which means that not only is it difficult to afford NYU but it’s also difficult to afford the SUNY and CUNY colleges too. CUNY colleges used to have NO tuition back in the day.
There was an interesting article that came out a few years ago about how GWU and USC (the focus was GWU, but USC was mentioned, IIRC) managed to raise their profile and desirability by raising their tuition rates. Over time they were able to use the extra revenue to build better facilities and attract better faculty and such, but the article strongly implies if not outright states that psychology was the linchpin here - people thought they were better because they cost more, so they were more willing to send their kids there.
NYU, and universities like it, that expand overseas (mostly to the Middle East and Asia) are not at all concerned about the impact to their U.S. reputation. They know that the impact will be nil. My guess is they’re concerned about revenue. The universities that are doing this are mostly fancy name-brand schools here that wealthy parents abroad have heard of, and they know they can attract students in those locations. That’s why NYU’s branch campuses are in Abu Dhabi and Shanghai, and Yale’s is in Singapore.
^ I think you’ve hit the nail on the head there. It is a (relatively) free market, and NYU feels that the high tuition it charges can help it improve its programs and faculty which will in turn help it attract bright students, more than simply increasing financial aid. Secondly, NYU’s foreign campuses are often fully funded by the foreign governments, or probably make more money from tuition, so I doubt it moves resources away from the rest of the university.
With regards to foreign expansion, just a small clarification: Yale-NUS and NYU’s foreign campuses are pretty different. Yale-NUS is an autonomous college of NUS fully funded by the Singapore government and is wholly independent from Yale. Yale only serves in an advisory role - for instance, collaborating with faculty and holding exchange programs, and does not receive any revenue whatsoever from Singapore.
Incidentally, the President of my LAC while I attended later became a senior admin at the NYU-Abu-Dhabi campus which caused some controversy among some of us alums.
Especially after a series of news accounts of the campus employing laborers who were being forced to live and work in horrendous conditions and subjected to serious abuses:
@cobrat (and others) sorry if the Porsche analogy was clunky… it was the 1st “luxury” brand that popped into my head. TBH - wouldn’t be the car brand of car I would pick even if I DID have unlimited funds. But I do think the point stands … let’s use blue jeans as the analogy instead - heaven knows the price range there is INSANE (from wal-mart to Neiman Marcus) and they all serve a similar function, thought they do exist in a variety of colors/cuts/fabrics. I don’t begrudge the fact that $200+ jeans exist, I just don’t plan to buy them… even if they are the very coolest things that have ever existed on the planet and give me the backside of a 22 year old
I should also add a caveat that my NYU knowledge is specifically related to Tisch… and the my kid’s program within Tisch - perhaps I would feel differently if she was part of a different school
^ Fair point, though I guess the ‘outrage’ people have is over the fact that college education shouldn’t be like the market for cars - allocation of places shouldn’t be based on ability to pay but strictly on merit alone.
Of course, this point is highly debatable, especially when it concerns a degree that some might see as a ‘luxury’, like film making or drama, or when there are palatable alternatives in place (like public universities and CCs).
I believe NYU is need blind for admissions, but the issue is that they don’t meet full need. I agree with the post above (#22) that said calling loans FA is not a good practice… but lots of schools do it, including NYU. So if you know that NYU is expensive, and not known for strong aide going in… why are people always so stunned (and angry) when it turns out to be a lot of $$ to go there?
And as for public universities - U of Michigan has one of the best theater programs in the country… we would have been full pay there if D had applied, (OOS, and I don’t think they give much aide to OOS there, but TBH I don’t know) and there would have been I think less than $10k difference between Mich and NYU. IN fact, since my D did get aide at NYU (not a ton, but some) - I bet Michigan could have ended up more expensive. If I was paying $60k+ for a public school rather than a private one, would that make my families financial choices more palatable to the CC community?
My county high schools send a fair number of kids to U Michigan (from out of state) every year. If the family has saved enough to afford that yearly OOS tuition, room and board they have every right to spend their money however they want. And I have every right to think they are a little bit nuts to spend that kind of money for a (great, but not “Stop the World, I’m so Impressed,” great) OOS public flagship education.
It’s when the subject of paying for grad school, repaying student loans, fully funding parent retirement accounts, and student/parent debt come up that the choices are “unpalatable”.
Well, I know two NYU acting/film grads who are doing just great in the business, thanks in part to their (rigorous) NYU training and connections. One IS working in the film industry, the other came home, acted a lot in local theater productions and is now in a highly selective MFA program. The degree will give her an equity card, and the ability to teach acting/theater arts even on the college level.
Could they have done the same without attending NYU? Maybe. We’ll never know.
I PERSONALLY suspect that moxie, perseverance, talent and a bit of luck could have landed them where they are without it. But NYU certainly didn’t hurt.
And that’s why so many starry eyed students want to go to NYU.
NYU main selling point is that is in NYC. I am sure all their departments are perfectly fine and you can get a good education at NYU. that said you can get a good education at U of Arkansas or Wichita State too. If NYU was moved to say Little Rock AR and everything was exactly identical but different location the same clamor among those drawn to NYU would be gone,.I would argue against going to college in a big city with no campus. (you can do that for graduate school) IMO undergrad should be at a school where the overwhelmingly majority of students live on campus and that campus is a true self contained campus.
The actual reality of college in the US is that most college students commute to college from where they were already living, and even many resident students live off campus.
@zobroward - one area where I argued extensively with D was the lack of a “traditional” campus at NYU - that was SO important to my college experience at my idyllic LAC that it was a real sticking point for me. But D just didn’t feel the need. And I needed to come to terms with the fact that it was/is HER college experience, not mine. She has loved being in the city. And a funny thing is, I have to say, as she nears graduation, she is open to being AWAY from NYC, in part b/c she has had that experience. She has a much more realistic idea of what it takes to “make it there” (to quote Sinatra) b/c she has seen it IRL.
The funny part is back when I attended HS, if a classmate had a choice between UMIch or NYU…especially any college other than Stern or possibly Tisch, they’d overwhelmingly choose UMich…and this was coming from a NYC public magnet.
UMich was considered a public elite along the lines of UWisc, UVA, UNC-CH, UCLA, Berkeley, etc while having admission stats which overlapped with students in the middle-upper-middle part of my graduating class who would have also been shoo-in admits to NYU(sometimes including Stern or Tisch). NYU with the exception of Stern or possibly Tisch…no way. One admitted major difference was that UMich was pretty good about FA back then.
Incidentally, one famous alum of my public magnet, Lucy Liu, started her undergrad career at NYU for one year in the mid-late '80s before transferring and finishing at UMich. When most of us public magnet alums read that, we weren’t surprised.
My impression is that while Tisch and Stern are widely known, most other NYU programs and majors are not. The university’s leaders have, however, spent a lot of time and effort in recent decades building up the quality and visibility of other programs, including medicine, law, economics, political science, and others. I think they’re having some success there, judging by reputational rankings of graduate programs.
One payoff to NYU of broadening the reputation beyond the schools named by other contributors to this thread should be seen in NYU’s ability to draw dedicated endowment funds, including money for endowed faculty positions. But that payoff takes a lot of focus, prioritization, and time – a generation perhaps. This strategy also may help to account for why NYU harbors funds for the longer term rather than expending them more immediately on lowering undergrad COA.
NYU’s graduate programs, especially professional ones such as medicine and law have had renowned reputations even back in the '80s along with the undergrad Stern and Tisch to an extent.
Also, within CAS, their math(their graduate Applied Math ranking has been in the top 3 for decades), medically related science fields(great though cutthroat pre-med program), English Lit, and History have also long been known for being the gems within CAS for undergrad/grad.
However, a lot of CAS’ top departments then and now are much better experienced as a graduate student than as an undergrad not only because of finances, but also because NYU has and continues to prioritize their graduate schools/students over the undergrad population.
One department which CAS has successfully built up to being top 3 in the last 2-3 decades is the Philosophy department. They weren’t in the top 3 before the early '00s.