OT: This weekend, talked to northeast public U. administrators about UConn

[MilliniumPrince]

As a flagship State Institution, you want your out of state population to be around 15% as stated earlier. However, out of state students are free money. So having more than less isn't a terrible thing. Our brain drain is as much a function of CT not being the most appealing place to a 22 year old grad with options. NYC and Boston will always be a draw. Chicago and the twin-cities do well in luring east coast kids to their cities. And of course the South is pulling kids from everywhere. CT needs improved nightlife and public schools in the cities to keep our young grads in-state.

 

[Fishy]

One factor that no one has mentioned (not the administrators I spoke to either) is that Ne England has reciprocal agreements for state universities. It would be interesting to see how many out-of-staters come from neighboring states. If most are neighboring, then UConn does not experience the financial benefits that a school like Michigan does when admitting out-of-staters.

State-wide, Connecticut is currently a net-exporter under the RSP plan - about 1,700 out and under 1,000 in. About 500 of those end up in Storrs as undergrads and the majority of those come from Massachusetts. (Most states are net-exporters or are pretty much neutral with the notable exception of Massachusetts.)

The students that come in pay 175% (I think) of the in-state tuition and the programs that are available to the RSP are reviewed yearly.

It'd have a negligible impact on UConn's future plans.

 

[Skiblets]

As a flagship State Institution, you want your out of state population to be around 15% as stated earlier. However, out of state students are free money. So having more than less isn't a terrible thing. Our brain drain is as much a function of CT not being the most appealing place to a 22 year old grad with options. NYC and Boston will always be a draw. Chicago and the twin-cities do well in luring east coast kids to their cities. And of course the South is pulling kids from everywhere. CT needs improved nightlife and public schools in the cities to keep our young grads in-state.

Connecticut needs jobs in industries 20 somethings want to work in. Small manufacturing and insurance companies are not the sexiest places to work and those seem to be the core industries these days in CT. That and government but don't get me going there

 

[Sea Goat]

As a flagship State Institution, you want your out of state population to be around 15% as stated earlier. However, out of state students are free money. So having more than less isn't a terrible thing. Our brain drain is as much a function of CT not being the most appealing place to a 22 year old grad with options. NYC and Boston will always be a draw. Chicago and the twin-cities do well in luring east coast kids to their cities. And of course the South is pulling kids from everywhere. CT needs improved nightlife and public schools in the cities to keep our young grads in-state.

Info is pretty widely available regarding out of state student population at flagship public universities. The numbers are all over the lot. Michigan is quite high at 36%. Some other numbers are surprising. Fla - 3%, FSU - 9%, Ga - 9%, Clem - 29%, Indiana - 29%, Bama - 35%, UNC - 18% (by law), UVA - 26%, Texas - 5%, Penn St - 29%, OSU - 12%, UConn - 23%.
One general rule seems to be that the smaller states (Del, VT, NH, etc.) have >50% out of state students while the bigger states have more in state students by percentage. UConn does want to attract out of state students and it has done a good job of it. Talk to any college advisor at a CT high school and they will tell you UConn is a tough nut to crack for in-state kids and getting more difficult all the time. It just has become a very good school at a relative bargain. In previous posts, I have mentioned that second tier private universities in the NE (i.e. Syracuse) are very concerned that schools like UConn, Rutgers and Maryland are cutting into their market because people don't see the value of spending 3X UConn's cost to send a kid to Syracuse. (I also see this as a reason the likes of Syracuse won't help us a bit with the ACC.)

 

[billybud]

Out of state student tuition fees may have an impact....Florida's in-state tuition is relatively cheap...out of state tuition is roughly double.

 

[itgoeslike]

Connecticut needs jobs in industries 20 somethings want to work in. Small manufacturing and insurance companies are not the s e xiest places to work and those seem to be the core industries these days in CT. That and government but don't get me going there

UCONN is attempting to create a "research triangle" of sorts in Connecticut, which should help.

 

[itgoeslike]

Out of state student tuition fees may have an impact....Florida's in-state tuition is relatively cheap...out of state tuition is roughly double.

That's pretty much the dynamic with all public institutions. What's interesting in Florida is that FSU ten years ago was a relatively easy school to get into and UF was somewhat hard, but not too hard. Now, with all the pre-paid college kids in Florida, for in-state students FSU is somewhat hard to get into and UF is now difficult to get into. I know lots of legacy applicants to UF that were forced to go to higher rated schools out of state because they didn't get in. As mentioned by another poster, a similar effect is happening to some in-state kids vying to get into UCONN because you can get a good eduction at a reasonable price. And it until the new OOS tuition ramps up, it is still a pretty good value for OOS students.

 

[Stinger92860]

Connecticut needs jobs in industries 20 somethings want to work in. Small manufacturing and insurance companies are not the s e xiest places to work and those seem to be the core industries these days in CT. That and government but don't get me going there

How about hedge funds and other financials. Where do you think the growth jobs are by industry? You need to get southwest of hartford. I will also throw in large manufacturers, but not sure they are hiring a lot of uconn grads, with the exceptIon of engineering. All is not lost here in CT.

 

[progrocks]

I have no idea how mediocre privates like Syracuse are going to survive in the future, never mind lesser schools like Quinnipiac and down to schools like University of New Haven. The price of private education is out of whack and I have no idea what they offer compared to comparable public's.

NESCAC schools will be fine, and the giants of the IVY league have the endowments to do what they want, but the future is in the publics, but the states are constantly doing their best to screw that up too

 

[upstater]

I have no idea how mediocre privates like Syracuse are going to survive in the future, never mind lesser schools like Quinnipiac and down to schools like University of New Haven. The price of private education is out of whack and I have no idea what they offer compared to comparable public's.

NESCAC schools will be fine, and the giants of the IVY league have the endowments to do what they want, but the future is in the publics, but the states are constantly doing their best to screw that up too

There are plenty of mediocre students with a lot of money to populate many of the privates, and Syracuse may survive on that basis. But the wave of the future is that education at such schools will be downgraded because the research universities are going to draw most faculty. So, Boston U., NYU, should survive. Many of the smaller schools will survive too. Never underestimate how much money is out there.

 

[Sea Goat]

There are plenty of mediocre students with a lot of money to populate many of the privates, and Syracuse may survive on that basis. But the wave of the future is that education at such schools will be downgraded because the research universities are going to draw most faculty. So, Boston U., NYU, should survive. Many of the smaller schools will survive too. Never underestimate how much money is out there.

That might be true now, but how does one justify paying $60k/year to go Syracuse? This cost will only increase and I think the better public universities will continue to stride by their private brethren, excluding the elites (The Ivies, Nescac and a few others). UConn already out paces Syracuse in admitted student profiles and is more selective in the admission process.

 

[upstater]

That might be true now, but how does one justify paying $60k/year to go Syracuse? This cost will only increase and I think the better public universities will continue to stride by their private brethren, excluding the elites (The Ivies, Nescac and a few others). UConn already out paces Syracuse in admitted student profiles and is more selective in the admission process.

The answer is simple. The cost of Syracuse is justified because you can't get inot SUNY or UConn.

 

[DarthGrumpy]

The answer is simple. The cost of Syracuse is justified because you can't get inot SUNY or UConn.

True, even in the early 1990’s, SUNY’s were hard to get into. Although I was from CT, I had a lot of connections to upstate NY and applied to 6 colleges. The only school I did not get into was SUNY Buffalo (U Buffalo) while I was accepted at UConn and Syracuse.

 

[Sea Goat]

True, even in the early 1990’s, SUNY’s were hard to get into. Although I was from CT, I had a lot of connections to upstate NY and applied to 6 colleges. The only school I did not get into was SUNY Buffalo (U Buffalo) while I was accepted at UConn and Syracuse.

Some of the SUNY schools are top notch. SUNY Buffalo has had a good reputation for years. The biggest problem with the SUNY system is its diffuse nature. It is hard to have consistent institutional quality with so many campuses. I can see UConn and Syracuse were on a similar academic trajectory until the several years ago when UConn really took off. Now UConn is surpassing Syracuse in most every respect. Again, I think smart consumers are making value judgments re: the cost to attend these 2 schools vs. quality of education.

 

[upstater]

If the country continues slashing public higher education the way it has the last 6 years, then Syracuse will have much more of an argument.

 

[Stinger92860]

If the country continues slashing public higher education the way it has the last 6 years, then Syracuse will have much more of an argument.

While the rest of the country slashes budgets, The Nextgeneration funding will drive 10 years of growth for UConn. That should lead to us furthering the gap with a Cuse and others.

 

[upstater]

While the rest of the country slashes budgets, The Nextgeneration funding will drive 10 years of growth for UConn. That should lead to us furthering the gap with a Cuse and others.

It's a great investment in infrastructure. It's needed and will help UConn a lot in the future.

But, the correlation between bigger tuition increases and faculty hires is a concern. Really, any public school could do that. If schools nationwide jacked tuition to $12k, they'd have a pt of money to make new hires. The question is whether that's good policy. What you'd like to see if funding restored. Maybe not to 2007 levels, but at least to half of those levels. That would be a great benefit. When it comes to surpassing other schools where it counts, instruction, you have to put money there.