<p>Can someone tell me what is the reason behinde this? Graduate aren't sucessful as their peer schools? How could they keep the education quality with spend $20,000 less per student compare with their peer schools?</p>
<p>Whatever numbers you're looking at aren't relevant anymore. All colleges took huge hits to the endowment in the last six months. Whatever Bates' endowment was, it's something a lot less now. And that's true for its peer schools as well.</p>
<p>What schools are you comparing it to?</p>
<p>Here is what they put on their web site:</p>
<p>"You may be surprised to know:
Bates' endowment is one-half to one-fifth the size of our NESCAC peers, including Amherst, Bowdoin, Colby, Middlebury and Williams, and half the national average for other selective liberal-arts colleges.
Because its endowment is low, Bates spends far less per student than its academic peersas much as $20,000 less per student in a given yearyet tries to deliver the same academically rigorous, expansive experience as its competitors."</p>
<p>My son likes Bates but I am very concern about this issue.</p>
<p>Bates per student endowment of $161k isn't lower than the national average. The "average" college doesn't even have an endowment to speak of.</p>
<p>Without spending a lot of time, it appears that Bates endowment is right in line with its competitor schools in the rankings. Looks like they spend about $50,000 per student per year. That's about the same as Oberlin, for example.</p>
<p>Of course Bates doesn't spend the $80,000 per student per year that the luxury joints like Swarthmore and Williams spend. I don't think anyone realistically thinks that Bates is competing against the big endowment LACs.</p>
<p>I am not a Bates historian, but the endowment trajectories at most of these school were well established by the 1950s. The first half of the 20th century is when most of the big endowment schools built their endowments. Occasionally you see a former big-endowment school that lost ground due to a bad management decision. For example, Haverford was big endowment school in 1960 and ate into the endowment when they made the mistake of a growth strategy into a declining market in the 1970s.</p>
<p>As a current Bates student, here's the deal with the endowment:</p>
<p>It's low. But low is relative -- Bates' endowment is low for the NESCAC but not really low for any other liberal arts college. We complain about the endowment fairly frequently - but do I <em>really</em> think we're deprived compared to other NESCAC peers? Not at all. Obviously in the next couple years there will be cutbacks but that's the case for all schools, it seems. Bates traditionally trained teachers and ministers (as opposed to captains of industry) and never built up the kind of endowment that Colby or Bowdoin has. We still have a brand new (and expensive) dining hall and residence hall, a lot of nice new dorms, and $250,000 student club budget.</p>
<p>No, we don't have an unlimited supply of money like Amherst, Williams or Swarthmore, but I have not honestly noticed a significant detriment in my education because of it. Bates is still a wonderful, caring, and amazing environment to live in, and I haven't noticed a lack of funding as a detriment on campus at all really.</p>
<p>There's a stiff law of diminishing returns. Only a small percentage of endowment is used each year as part of the ongoing budget, and most of the difference between $60k and $80k per students represents spending on arboreata, climbing walls, sports facilities, 18-hole golf courses, and grants replacing loans for students who don't actually need them. Endowment also represents value of physical plant - put the school in suburban Philadelphia and it is likely to be worth a bit more than in a dying industrial town in central Maine. In many areas, you will be hard-pressed to find an educational difference - if you look at the faculty by department, you will find that they received their Ph.Ds from exactly the same set of schools, and who was hired at one versus another had more to do with the year other profs retired or left than anything else. </p>
<p>The other thing to remember that the larger endowment schools will be taking much larger hits in annual budgetary spending as a result of endowment hits than the those with smaller endowments, which were spending much smaller sums to begin with.</p>
<p>Thanks "Luckycharmed", I still have mixed feeling about Bates, however my son like it NOW and I will let him make his own decision. As mother I just try to provide him more informations.</p>
<p>Mom1991, how come you didn't thanks Mini? I thought that was a pretty good post.</p>
<p>Don't get so hooked up on average costs. Mini gave many reasons why. I would bet that the marginal costs are similar at Swarthmore, Williams and Bates. Definitely nothing like a $30,000 difference.</p>
<p>I actually thanks for all the input from each of you.</p>
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grants replacing loans for students who don't actually need them.
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<p>What exactly do you mean by "don't actually need them"?</p>
<p>I mean exactly what I said. To assume that students with family incomes of 150k and above attending top colleges and universities can't shoulder $20k in long-term college debt (when the federal government assumes that Pell Grant recipients from families making 15k a year can) is both an absurdity and a travesty, and is simply a way for colleges to avoid accepting and paying for substantial numbers of highly qualified low-income students. To me, it means that the colleges (including my alma mater) have so much money, they have taken to using the excess in a socially irresponsible fashion.</p>
<p>I've stopped sending alumni checks - they've proven to me they don't need the money, and can't be trusted to spend it wisely.</p>
<p>There is more to it than luckycharmed stated:</p>
<p>Bates has ALWAYS admitted women. This means that for decades, a huge portion of alumni didn't make an income as women did not work (compare to Bowdoin who started admitting women in the 1970s).</p>
<p>Bates major expansion happened in the 60s and 70s meaning that the alumni body hasn't been all that large.</p>
<p>For a long time, Bates had a very poor fundraising record because the college's egalitarian social ethos spirit clashed with the realities of the college business and the institution and its alumni didn't know what to make of it. </p>
<p>Id say that the college has addressed all these issues but it will obviously take a long time for them to catch up. </p>
<p>Add to this a tradition of training teachers and preachers and a very conservative investment policy and you understand why the endowment is lower than at other NESCAC schools.</p>
<p>My son transferred from Bates for reasons not connected to endowment, academics, or even (somewhat to my surprise) location. I can tell you that Bates is exteremely well run compared to Bard where he is (very happy too) now. The Administration at Bates really seemed to know what they are doing.</p>
<p>Facilities are Bates compare well with most of the 25 other schools I toured with my two kids and that was before the new dorm and new cafeteria were online.</p>
<p>Remember that livings costs and other expenses may be lower in Lewiston than in other locations. Faculty recruitment is not hindered by the possibility of lower salaries in a lower cost area.</p>
<p>I would not worry about the "low" endowment though one has to admit Swarthmore's numbers are eye popping.</p>
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I would not worry about the "low" endowment though one has to admit Swarthmore's numbers are eye popping.
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<p>I think that "were" would be the operative word in today's market. Swarthmore has said that their endowment was down nearly 30% in mid December. Because they were spending at the low end of their endowment spending range (3.75%) after a series of strong return years, they won't have to cut endowment spending signficantly next year. Instead, they will simply let the spending rate rise to the high end of their policy range (4.75%). However, they are already working thru contingency plans should the endowment stay at its current level for an extended period. They would begin implementing the contingency cuts about a year from now.</p>
<p>I think most of the colleges we talk about here on CC are positioned to weather the economic downturn. However, if I were choosing colleges next April, I would definitely be reading the annual financial reports and keeping abreast of cuts each school is planning.</p>
<p>Unless there is some kind of unexpected market recovery, every college and university in the United States will be cutting programs and faculty expense. It's not just the endowment spending. It's anticipated reductions in tuition revenue, charitable giving, and research grants all at the same time. When all of the revenue streams are projected to decline over a multi-year period, there is simply no alternative but to reduce operating costs. Colleges are so labor intensive that this is impossible without making real cuts in real academic programs.</p>
<p>Actually, doesn't Grinnell have a better endowment per student than Swat and Williams? Or comparable at least (of course, it is down now). Comes from one big donor (Noyce of Intel) plus one good money manager (Buffett)...</p>
<p>I think the endowment might have less to do with the quality of the classroom experience than it does with the quality of the rest of the experience on a college campus...</p>
<p>Well I certainly think we'll see a slowdown in new buildings, etc -- but I think Bates will be okay. You guys should check out ETH (the president of Bates, Elaine Tuttle Hansen)'s notes on the economic climate at Bates:</p>
<p>Bates</a> College | Current Economic climate and Bates
Bates</a> College | Update: Economic climate and Bates</p>
<p>Grinnell had been the top per student endowment liberal arts college, followed by Pomona, Amherst/Swarthmore, and then Williams.</p>
<p>Grinnell's endowment just got murdered. It was hammered even by the end of last fiscal year in June 2008. The things they were doing to generate huge returns didn't work when the market headed south.</p>