SUNY has in fact made changes due to redundancies. For instance, Albany eliminated majors in classics and certain languages, claiming those majors were available at other SUNY schools. Engineering is only offered at 6 of the SUNY’s, and even some of those have just a few disciplines. Most SUNY’s do not offer all majors. The Podunks exist for commuters (believe it or not, the majority of all college students commute) and for lower stats students.
For the life of me, I cannot figure why a specialty school like SUNY ESF is ranked with those state flagships. Apples and oranges.
By that list, Binghamton is woefully underrated. Fortunately regional residents, and especially regional employers, know how great it is. They love recruiting at the top public school of the largest state in the region. Tons of gem candidates that couldn’t afford (or didn’t want) the elite schools they could have attended. Some of the most successful people I know when to Bing. Almost every New Yorker can say the same.
Fewer, but larger colleges. So maybe kids have to go to college more than two hours from home. You do what you need to do. It’s incredibly inefficient as it is. I mean, why do we need Potsdam AND Plattsburgh, New Paltz AND Albany? We could easily half the number of colleges without losing beds.
Chardo, Binghamton is certainly not under-rated. Have you spent time on those other campuses and compared? Seems as though many of those claiming that Binghamton or other SUNYs compare favorable to the flagships of other states have never been to those places. Naturally there may be some things about a SUNY that is preferable to some things at the flagships and some students may be better off at a SUNY than a flagship but if you have spent more than one day at Lincoln, Kansas or Oregan and especially if you have spent time at Michigan, Wisc, Ill/Urb, Gainsville, OKC, the difference is unmistakeable. They are better on most dimensions but not on everyone and not for everyone.
“For the life of me, I cannot figure why a specialty school like SUNY ESF is ranked with those state flagships. Apples and oranges.”
I agree, its stats are lower (although that may not mean much) than Binghamton and SB and despite being 60 miles away I have almost never heard about it.
ayprcwbjmy: lack of knowledge by a segment of the population does not predicate strength or absence thereof.
It’s likely you haven’t heard of ESF because it shares its campus with Syracuse and it’s a specialty school. Within its specialty, it’s considered one of the best in the country.
SUNY ESF is considered one of few SUNYs in selection Group 1 (SUNY categories) meaning most competitive of the SUNY schools (along with Geneseo, Stonybrook, Binghamton), requiring that 60% of students have grades and/or scores within a certain range.
We visited the school in 2013 and found the staff to be really off-putting, insisting that she completely fill out a form that included her social security number and the obligation to write an essay in order to do a tour. We were also turned off by the massive amounts of taxidermy in the student center. My daughter said no thanks, and we left.
No doubt SUNY ESF is a fine school highly regarded within it’s specialty. My point is that such a specialized school, no matter how good, should not be ranked at all with general universities.
@neatoburrito, I think that’s incredibly shortsighted. The purpose of our public colleges is to offer an affordable education to our state citizens. Families who can’t afford to spend $22k to dorm at Albany may live close enough to commute to New Paltz or vice versa. Why would you want to limit the educational opportunities of our young people? And who do you think is going to pick up the cost if we make it impossible for the majority of students in NYS to commute to a 4-year campus?
The geographical distribution of SUNYs does not match the populationn centers of the state. Of course CUNYs are accessible to downstate students but there are plenty of SUNYs far, far away from where most people live in the state.
Most of them started as teachers’ colleges and it’s just a historical artifact that they are where they are. And yes, there does seem to be significant duplication, with a bunch of them sharing characteristics: 5-8,000 undergraduates, 55-60 percent female enrollment, biggest major education.
Of course there’s the same problem with prisons in NY. They are job creators in areas of the state with few jobs and with very strong advocates that they stay exactly where they are.
Many of these schools are in such isolated communities that I can’t imagine there is a great number of kids living at home to save money. How many people even live within commuting distance of Oneonta, Plattsburg, New Paltz, Potsdam, and the like? It is almost always cheaper to live off campus with roommate than it is to live in the dorms (except at Purchase, one of the most expensive areas in the country).
Since the cds doesn’t specify how many upperclassmen are living in off campus apartments and how many are living at home, the closest we can get is an estimate would be to look at the percent of freshmen living off campus and just assume they are commuting from home.
Even though there used to be distinctions between various categories of university, the desire to be “more” takes over. Community colleges intended to serve local communities, those with GEDs who may want to take courses while working, want to be more then that-so instead of focusing on programs that serve local people, perhaps those that never had a chance to go to college, they aspire to be “more”. Build dorms and try to mimic 4 year colleges. The 4 year colleges try to be more-and morph into larger universities, adopt grad programs. The 4 centers strangled by budget disasters for a long time then overbuilt after the need for them to be bigger had already subsided. So now they need to fill swank dorms at a time when there is dwindling need due to decrease in college age population. So they are recruiting in places like China-anything to fill beds and seats. Wonder how much each international student is costing tax payers despite their higher tuition levels.
This is a reply to Oldmom’s post. There are fallacies embeded in the article linked to this thread. Tuition does not cover the full cost of attending SUNY’s. Even the full price of international tuition does not cover the full cost. So federal and state taxes, among other sources, supplement tuition for each student. Families of US residents typically pay into the system for decades prior to a student attending. After NYers graduate, many will continue to pay into the system for many more decaades. New Yorkers pay very high taxes, some of which is used to support the SUNY system. International students don’t pay taxes prior to attending and don’t pay a cent after graduating either. And their tuition isn’t paying their full cost. So those students are still costing tax payers money. Since they pay slightly more it may seem like each internationl student costs less, but US residents have usually already paid into the system for years. When an international students is accepted over a US resident, the US resident who should have priorty for having paid into the system for so long is being displaced. It is a horrible trend. It is not about “globalization”. It is about local campuses getting to keep more money but tax payers paying Albany more.
Based on what I’ve seen of enrollment patterns, each local campus probably gets to keep more $$ for each international student while Albany pays out for them which means that the cost is obscured while the local campuses have an incentive to recruit them. On top of that, they are very expensive to educate. At least some compuses have had to buld new offices for international students including special advisors and others to help with transitions, language and more. On top of that, unlike what was true in the past when there were many fewer international students, on at least some SUNY campuses a large segment of the Internationl students segregate themselves from others and socialize only with others from their native countries. That is understandable since some can barely speak English but it detracts from the college experience of US residents.
Are you a Binghamton student? Do you have any evidence of how the presence of international students detracts from the college experience of U.S. residents? What is the source of your Bing hostility?
Issues related to the impact of international students on the experiences of US students are not limited to SUNY. There have been tons of articles about the same issues and the motivation for accepting them. The issue for SUNY is that the univeristy is turning NY students away in favor of internationals when NYers have paid much more in taxes to support SUNY then the internationals pay in extra tuition so no international student should be given a spot if eligiable NYers are turned away. Oldmom, have you walked the campuses of the 4 SUNY centers recently? http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/september_october_2013/features/international_students_separat046454.php?page=all In NY international students are not bringing in more money then they are costing. From Stephens article "But a limitless supply of international students changes the game quite a bit, Roza said. “People say, ‘Oh well, they’re supporting our kids,’” she said, referring to the financial benefits of having out-of-state and international students. “But they aren’t supporting our kids if our kids aren’t getting in.”
So what’s your beef with SUNYs and Binghamton in particular, beyond a bunch of articles?
Public colleges all over the country are actively recruiting full-pay international students since state governments are no longer supporting them to the extent that they used to, and it’s a way to hold down tuition increases to local students. Do you think it would be better to charge a bigger premium to out-of-state students? SUNYs are a relative bargain to them at $10k more than what’s charged as in-state tuition.
Oldmom, I could not be clearer about my opinions. You want more criticisms? The posts are direct. Yes it would be better to charge a premium to out of state students. SUNY wants to attract them so that it can appear to be attractive to them. The tuition is structured so NYers are paying to underwrite out of state and foreign students. Instead SUNY should focus on being a good option for NYers.