I understand those students are a big income source to the Universities. Buy I don't need to spend tax money to educate people from all over the Earth. We have plenty of problems educating the locals.
ISU's academic rankings decline continues
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I understand those students are a big income source to the Universities. Buy I don't need to spend tax money to educate people from all over the Earth. We have plenty of problems educating the locals.
Given covid-19 (among many other forces that have been building for years) will likely force many of these smaller LACs and universities to close in the coming years, do you think this will be a net benefit for ISU?
exactly. Kansas City never received "best place to live" awards until Royals won World Series. Then every national writer was knocking themselves out about what a wonderful place KC was.
You aren't spending tax money here, the opposite. The foreign students are funding local students, lowering your tax burden to suppor the same number of in-staters.
At least that's how it works in my R1/state Uni (not in Iowa anymore), but I doubt it's that different other places.
Which criteria does funding effect? The student-faculty ratio a little but that was only 2.5% if I remember. There isn't much difference between hiring masters as opposed to PhD's, they don't really get paid that much more. So those numbers aren't effected.
The whole PhD push began when I was there. One of the main reason's I got one is they made it a lot easier. I really only wanted/needed a master's. It probably hurt more than it helped. But, this isn't about the students, this is about the institution.
But I bet your great grandmother could never program a VCR or connect a wireless printer. Take that big words!
I agree in that they are most likely a large net gain rather than a loss. They don't really bother me much. But there is no way they should effect the institutional rankings in this manner. It's really nothing more than a political diversity statement.
It affects every single criteria on the list indirectly... That should be perfectly clear.
And THE is measuring doctorates because they are out there producing research for the university, securing grants and funding, and raising the institution's reputation with peers. Another example of how one metric has an effect on others.
This is a good example of my point about the medium of communications having a strong influence on the content of the communications and, by extension, the thought processes of author and audience.
When a medium naturally lends itself to thoughtful and careful responses, demands that you maximize the quality of your ideas and the power of your writing, and gives author and audience time to think things through...
Guess what, you end up with a more thriving literary and intellectual culture.
When everything is short and punctuated... guess what, everything kind of boils down to playground insults.
People dedicate entire careers and write long books about complex topics, oftentimes only reaching the most threadbare conclusions because of so many complexities, that Twitter limits to 280 characters.
Major Ballou was certainly exceptional in his final letter. He never comes out and says it with certainty, but you can tell it was a man writing his goodbye to his wife and children before his death in battle.
But, if you read Civil War correspondence, he is a standout but not a outlier.
I do not want to make this political, but reading the remarks of men like Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt and comparing their words to modern presidents... ones since TV came along... is almost painful.
I would think so, yes. If Simpson, Central, Clarke, and Iowa Wesleyan closed (Just random examples, btw) I would think of portion of each student body would then be attracted to the large state school. I worked recruitment at a small liberal arts college here in Iowa for years. We were always competing with perhaps one other private school and all three state schools. Of course some of the remaining private schools would benefit too. Let's be honest we have too many colleges in this state. When I began working admissions in the late 1990s the VP of Enrollment said then "in ten years one-half of the Iowa private schools will close." Since then I think we've had maybe five close. The others are still hanging on.
Just a couple observations over the recent past that seem to be possible contributors.
About ten years ago the cut backs to our public schools here in Iowa really started to escalate. Many districts offered early retirement packages to curb spending very likely at the expense of our future.
As we like to boast out student body is largely instate where TOE has a strong migration from Illinois from which i assume is largely rich suburbs and not Chicago proper where we hear issues.
About ten years ago the cut backs to our public schools here in Iowa really started to escalate. Many districts offered early retirement packages to curb spending very likely at the expense of our future.
As we like to boast out student body is largely instate where TOE has a strong migration from Illinois from which i assume is largely rich suburbs and not Chicago proper where we hear issues.
I see the Male to Female ratio is still brutal at ISU...Think it was 70-30 when i was there..Male.
And schools allow kids to keep retaking tests to get the grade they want, so you don't really have to try to get stuff right the first time knowing there is a second and third time to try. I am just sure they are doing that over in Asia. And I have been shocked at the lack of homework from schools as compared to 30 years ago. Amazing.
We look at Nebraska with contempt for being dropped from the AAU, but it looks like we are not far from suffering the same humiliation. A big question is what would it do to ISU if we were dropped from the AAU and then Nebraska was accepted back into it?
I attended ISU in the early 70's. It was not uncommon back then for Freshman students to be on academic probation. It they were unable to maintain grade point requirements they were ultimately expeled. This practice was tough on many students. However, as I recall, ISU would accept any Iowa high school senior graduating in the top half of their class. There were certainly many students, fulfilling this requirement, that were not well prepared or motivated for college. I don't know if ISU currenlty has the same admissions policy?
At the time I thought this admissions policy was correct. Most people who wanted the opportunity to attend ISU were given the chance. However, they had to perform or they were out. I still believe that this is the best policy for a state supported school. If lower graduation rates is a major reason for the poor academic ratings then, reluctantly, I will accept the lower ratings.
Note, there wasn't much grade inflation at ISU in the seventies. I don't know if that has changed? Many of the Ivy league schools reportedly have so much grade inflation that it would be impractical to expel students based on grades. If allowing poor-performing students to graduate produces high ratings then the schools that do this will get higher ratings. However, in the longer run, their reputations will suffer.
All the states you mentioned have one thing in common, they all underfunded their pension plans for state workers by diverting it into other areas. Frontline on PBS did a great story about it last year, the story looked at the problems in Kentucky, and how for over 20 years they had underfunded the plan, and then wanted to the public employees to switch over from a defined benefits program into a more state friendly 401 K plan.
Just like the Feds did with SS, they collected the money, and then chose to spend it on other things instead of saving it to pay the pensions that those people earned.
