(05-10-2020 11:26 PM)Kit-Cat Wrote:  These state systems of directional colleges would work a lot better if they did something like what they did with the University of California system.

They put in a rule where you had to be in the Top 10% of your graduating class for admission and if not you were headed to the Cal State system. Maybe for the newer schools like Irvine or Riverside they lowered the permissible threshold to Top 25% initially.

A clear 1st and 2nd tier is easier to understand than to have a over sized land grant watered down with community college transfers combined with regional public universities that can't develop because of directional brand issues.

Ohio has a situation where all of them tried to run themselves as if they were in the first tier. Akron was planning to rebrand as Ohio Poly and become a Georgia Tech for the state of Ohio. While it was an interesting idea for Akron schools are stepping on each others turf all the time.

I had a friend of mine who was in a PhD program at Bowling Green who thought it made the overall higher ed system more competitive. As we know from the sports world too much competition for recruits can be a problem vs. fewer but stronger programs.

That is the Texas philosophy. Instead they have a big mess with all their independent competing systems-Texas, Texas A&M, Houston, North Texas, Texas Tech, Texas State system (Texas St. is just one member) and about 5 independents. Their National University Research Fund (to create more AAU type schools like Texas and Texas A&M) has 8 schools in to increase competition instead of just picking winners. Houston, Texas Tech and UT Dallas have reached the goals to get funding. Anybody would have known they were the top 3. But with UT Arlington (likely #4) and North Texas, it splits the DFW effort. UTSA and Texas St. split the Austin/San Antonio effort. UTEP is also in the group.

(05-11-2020 08:55 AM)Kit-Cat Wrote:  

(05-11-2020 12:56 AM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(05-07-2020 08:39 PM)chargeradio Wrote:  Could Akron be reasonably merged with Kent State, Youngstown State, or Cleveland State? The State of Ohio might be able to convince the MAC to offer YSU the replacement spot in the MAC to limit the carnage

I just don't know how much money it will save.

Cutting down duplication in admin personnel by cutting down the number of colleges is likely to be a lot more effective at cutting costs.

You start merging schools and you open up an opportunity for the cancer of administrative staff expansion to grow along lines of the "campus" this and the "campus" that and then the "University" this and that to oversee the campus positions.

Akron is facing the ongoing decline of the local technology-based industries that it developed a focus in serving. Certainly it would have been better if they had cut out some of the admin fat sooner and plowed the money saved into upgrading their standing as an engineering / technology school, but barring a time machine, there's no way to go back now and retrieve the money squandered on administrative staff empire building.

It's just hard to fight the ever growing share of University revenue going into administrative staffing and the resulting shrinking share going into education.

Here is my idea for a NE Ohio clean up plan:

1) Merge Youngstown St with Kent St. Youngstown is not a big enough city to need their own independent 4 year institution. That would save administration costs.

2) Give Akron the Ohio Poly brand and become a smaller 13k-15k STEM school for Northeast Ohio. That way it would become more desirable yet still stay big enough for MAC sports.

3) The above would make it less competitive regionally for Cleveland St as they wouldn't be competing directly against Akron (moving up) and Youngstown St (moving down).

Youngstown could be a 2 year college. Kent has several of those. Ohio has already combined some of those 2 year branches where Kent, Miami and Ohio St. were competing.

(05-11-2020 12:30 AM)Stugray2 Wrote:  

(05-10-2020 11:26 PM)Kit-Cat Wrote:  These state systems of directional colleges would work a lot better if they did something like what they did with the University of California system.

They put in a rule where you had to be in the Top 10% of your graduating class for admission and if not you were headed to the Cal State system. Maybe for the newer schools like Irvine or Riverside they lowered the permissible threshold to Top 25% initially.

A clear 1st and 2nd tier is easier to understand than to have a over sized land grant watered down with community college transfers combined with regional public universities that can't develop because of directional brand issues.

Ohio has a situation where all of them tried to run themselves as if they were in the first tier. Akron was planning to rebrand as Ohio Poly and become a Georgia Tech for the state of Ohio. While it was an interesting idea for Akron schools are stepping on each others turf all the time.

I had a friend of mine who was in a PhD program at Bowling Green who thought it made the overall higher ed system more competitive. As we know from the sports world too much competition for recruits can be a problem vs. fewer but stronger programs.

It's actually top 8% to get into UC, and for most families, because they make well less than $140K per year it's essentially tuition free (there are only means based grants for UC). The UC system though struggles to stay in the black. So they give >15% of the seats to foreign students, over half PRC (even more when you count proxy families), because they pay full out of state tuition plus international fee.

In truth you have to be top 5% to get in the school of choice and your major of choice (it's even more restrictive for Engineering and certain science fields where it's on par with Ivy League). A lot of applicants get the FU acceptance letter" "We would like to inform you that your application to (your primary school) in (your preferred major) has been transferred to UC Merced for General Studies." That's what the 6-8% range get. If you are 4-5% and want a major like pre-Med or EE you will be accepted by to the school of choice but under General Studies.

The CSU system is basically commuters schools. Excepting Cal Poly and arguably San Diego State, there really is not anything like a school on the land grant level like say Oregon State, Washington State, Utah State, Colorado State where you get a combination of good graduation rates and a residential University experience. (Cal Poly is as impacted as several UCs).

This large gap between the systems creates an opportunity exploited by schools all over the country. California sends so many students out of state that roughly $2B in student spending (tuition, roam and board, etc) goes out of State every year.

So the CSU system comes at a cost.

Well there's the "campus experience" and the education. California has Cal-Berkeley, UCLA and Cal-San Diego that are top 10 public schools in the country. UC Riverside, UC Santa Barbara, UC Davis, UC Irvine are top 100. UC Santa Cruz is pretty strong too. You've got 8 AAU members and 7 schools behind Berkeley that are stronger academically that all but a handful of Land Grant State U.s in the country. Just off the top of my head, Texas, Michigan, Indiana, Iowa and New York are the only states with more than 1 public AAU member besides California. Each has only 2.

(05-11-2020 10:02 AM)bullet Wrote:  

(05-11-2020 08:55 AM)Kit-Cat Wrote:  

(05-11-2020 12:56 AM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(05-07-2020 08:39 PM)chargeradio Wrote:  Could Akron be reasonably merged with Kent State, Youngstown State, or Cleveland State? The State of Ohio might be able to convince the MAC to offer YSU the replacement spot in the MAC to limit the carnage

I just don't know how much money it will save.

Cutting down duplication in admin personnel by cutting down the number of colleges is likely to be a lot more effective at cutting costs.

You start merging schools and you open up an opportunity for the cancer of administrative staff expansion to grow along lines of the "campus" this and the "campus" that and then the "University" this and that to oversee the campus positions.

Akron is facing the ongoing decline of the local technology-based industries that it developed a focus in serving. Certainly it would have been better if they had cut out some of the admin fat sooner and plowed the money saved into upgrading their standing as an engineering / technology school, but barring a time machine, there's no way to go back now and retrieve the money squandered on administrative staff empire building.

It's just hard to fight the ever growing share of University revenue going into administrative staffing and the resulting shrinking share going into education.

Here is my idea for a NE Ohio clean up plan:

1) Merge Youngstown St with Kent St. Youngstown is not a big enough city to need their own independent 4 year institution. That would save administration costs.

2) Give Akron the Ohio Poly brand and become a smaller 13k-15k STEM school for Northeast Ohio. That way it would become more desirable yet still stay big enough for MAC sports.

3) The above would make it less competitive regionally for Cleveland St as they wouldn't be competing directly against Akron (moving up) and Youngstown St (moving down).

Youngstown could be a 2 year college. Kent has several of those. Ohio has already combined some of those 2 year branches where Kent, Miami and Ohio St. were competing.

Those branches are not 2 years. They offer 4 year degrees albeit more limited than the main campus.

Youngstown St would be more like a SIU-Edwardsville where they could keep Division 1 athletics and be the star branch campus of the KSU system. They have an endowment of $285 million which is about what the average SBC/CUSA school has.

Combined with Kent it take the system wide endowment to over $400 million, add another 10,000 students to the system and give Kent and option to have an engineering campus since they don't have an engineering school.