<p>"Princeton University and the College of New Jersey are schools of roughly the same size located just 12 miles apart, but they could be on different planets.
The world knows Princeton to be a very elite private school, while if anyone thinks of the College of New Jersey at all, it is as the former Trenton State College, a public institution serving a far less upscale population, with a much larger proportion of students receiving some federal or state government aid.
In one vital respect, however, the popular perception of these schools is wrong. A far better case can be made that Princeton is more of a publicly subsidized school than the College of New Jersey, which is proportionately more dependent on private funding.
Federal research grants play a role in paying professor salaries and providing funds for administrative and building overhead, but the major reason for my statement is simple: Princeton’s use of tax exemptions has facilitated its accumulation of vast amounts of wealth, something largely denied to the College of New Jersey and most other so-called state universities."</p>
<p>If you’re talking about rutgers vs princeton then you need to recognise that as with many states there’s more than one state school. A comparison would be more valid that looked at all nj stat schools and their various branches vs Princeton. </p>
<p>FWIW - if Christie’s plan to combine nj med school goes thru the result will be an institution that surpasses HMS in federal research funding.</p>
<p>This is a similar article that was in the NYT recently. I think what both articles are concerned with is the tax deductions private schools get with endowments from wealthy families, as well as the donor getting a tax advantage.</p>
<p>This is an erroneous concern because most private schools have little endowment.</p>
<p>“Adding together the $151 million in income tax savings to the $94 million in capital-gains-tax savings, the estimated $100 million in tax-induced gifts and the $75 million in research overhead, we get $420 million; dividing by 7,731 students, we get more than $54,000 per student.
$54,000 Versus $2,000
Do the same exercise for the College of New Jersey, and it appears that the school at most receives less than $600 per student in federal benefits annually. True, the college also gets state subsidies. Yet that adds up to only about $1,000 per student a year, so the total state and federal subsidies per student are less than $2,000, not even 4 percent of Princetons level.”</p>
<p>Taxpayers are subsidizing Princeton students to the tune of 50,000 a year and the CoNJ students to the tune of 2,000 a year…</p>
<p>When government budgets are so tight…there is something wrong with this picture.</p>
<p>Research grants are awarded based on the research productivity/ faculty proposals and, except for a very small percentage, simply cannot be used for undergrad student teaching, so to factor those in in the calculation of funds per student is simply absurd. Did the author bother to check to see if Princeton have higher research productivity and high profile researchers than College of New Jersey? Maybe that’s why it received more approved federal grants?</p>
<p>"$54,000 Versus $2,000
Do the same exercise for the College of New Jersey, and it appears that the school at most receives less than $600 per student in federal benefits annually. True, the college also gets state subsidies. Yet that adds up to only about $1,000 per student a year, so the total state and federal subsidies per student are less than $2,000, not even 4 percent of Princetons level."</p>
<p>I read the original article but it seems like it has all to do with Federal research funding. How is that Princeton’s issue? Should a State College necessarily get more Federal funding than a private U? Why?</p>
<p>dstark, usually somewhere close to reality but in trying to make this case–not so much. Of course PU wins major Fed research grants–it is a great research university as well as an Ivy. without PU there is no Princeton and all the major development that has come around it because of PU. TCONJ has generated a pizza joint and a drug store. PU is one of the economic stars of NJ.</p>
<p>There was a push here a while ago to strip non-profits of their non-profit status if they didn’t spend 5% of their endowment per year on the core mission of their non-profit. It was aimed directly at Harvard by a disgruntled legislator.</p>
<p>And I agree to some extent. Harvard could go tuition-free for around 1% of their endowment per year. For Princeton it would take 2% per year. So why don’t they? They are clearly more interested in piling up money. </p>
<p>And why should some rich person get a tax deduction for donating $30 million to a non-profit that doesn’t need the money and won’t spent it?</p>
<p>We do have PILOT programs, some schools contribute more than others. It’s a big issue because there are a lot of schools in the Boston area, and they are continuously expanding (or trying to) into the surrounding communities and taking property off of the tax roles.</p>
<p>The professors at Princeton have the intellectual ability to compete and get those grants. Then they spend the grants doing high quality research.</p>
<p>Why not bypass colleges altogether and spend the tax money on public schools? Or maybe just cut a check to each individual at birth? That would be more equitable, but our productivity might suffer. </p>
<p>In addition to research, maybe acreage held explains some of the disparity (translates to property tax exemption). If you’ve driven through New Jersey, and stopped, you appreciate the open spaces Princeton provides. I haven’t been to the CONJ, so don’t know what their campus is like.</p>
<p>I agree with the concerns about the endowments piling up. But apart from that, Princeton is no different from any non-profit that people can donate money to and take a tax deduction. What if you took away the tax breaks the Catholic Church gets and gave that to the College of New Jersey?</p>
<p>I’m all for taking away the tax exempt status of organizations like the Catholic Church, since they involve themselves in politics and lobbying. Any lobbying organization should have it’s tax-exempt status removed, imho.</p>
<p>As for the whole school thing, I agree it is preposterous that institutions with endowments the size of the GDP of small countries should be tax-exempt, but I can’t figure out how you work that out, since there are other, smaller, no less valuable private colleges and universities which do not have these huge endowments, but who, nonetheless contribute to educating our kids. (the state systems can’t actually do this for everyone who wants a degree, at this point.</p>
<p>So, how do you work that out? The less well endowed schools?</p>
<p>There are probably good historical reasons why Princeton and other private colleges have tax-exempt status. Colleges, like churches, are non-profit institutions whose work affects the quality of public life. Furthermore, like churches, they have been vulnerable to government meddling, including restrictions on freedom of thought and belief. So there is arguably some justification for protecting them from state authority (including the authority to levy onerous taxes). </p>
<p>As for government research funding, if Princeton is getting more research money than other NJ institutions, it may be because its professors are submitting more (and better) responses to federal requests for proposals (RFPs).</p>