Salem State College is already a university in all but official title offering more than enough degree programs and post graduate degree programs.
Salem State graduates and even more thousands of Salem State Master’s Degree graduates are the foundation of the North Shore business, academic and institutional community.
In addition to the graduates who populate our business, academic, government and non-profit world, there is also the enormous positive economic, academic and cultural impact the Salem State has on the entire North Shore. This will only improve with University status.
Salem State Business School in particular is an economic engine driving the North Shore business community. University status will allow it to continue its tremendous growth and thus expand the enormous talent pool that provides to the North Shore business community.
More than 80 percent of Salem State graduates stay in this region and in Massachusetts. This means they are vested here and that they will continue to provide the talent necessary for companies to grow and prosper.
University status opens up private resources and investments in academic research programs and doctoral degree programs, adding to the rich academic and cultural fabric that already exists.
University status will improve the image of the Massachusetts public higher education system as it competes nationally and globally.
Let’s help them get it! To affirm your support for H 4560 simply contact your state representative and senator TODAY and be supportive of their YES vote on H4560.
why MA is best served if each of the six institutions listed are granted University status. To go through each of your six bullets…
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p>1. So call it Salem U. Makes sense to me.
2. Why would “this” improve with U status (in name, since it already is a U in a technical sense)?
3. How is not having MA U status hindering it, given that Salem College has already expanded it’s programs to the point where it meets the criteria to be called a U?
4. Entirely irrelevant to whether Salem should be SU or SC.
5. Why would MA be better served with SU adding research instead of UMass-A, UM-B, etc.?
6. I’m sure Salem C is a fine school, but I don’t understand how Salem C becoming Salem U has any impact at all on the image of the MA public higher ed w.r.t. national or international observers, anymore than people think of Fayetteville State and Elizabeth City State University instead of University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill or NC State.
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p>To be clear, I do think that the lege should put more money into public higher ed. It’s just not clear to me that the system should improve in the way this bill suggests, instead of (for example) using the money to lower tuition to the UMass system, or forming a public law school in the state.
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p>To be pedantic, I guess we’re discussing the lege allowing these colleges to take the steps necessary to become universities, but I think my question is clear enough…
A university offers more than a college. A university has multiple “colleges” within its institution. Depends on the breadth of offerings. Harvard at one time was just Harvard College…plain an simple, but as it grew and the course and programs offered expanded, it became Harvard University.
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p>Salem State College for all intents and purposes is a university given it’s degree programs and offerings. By calling it what it really is: Salem State University, we would be not only more accurate, but would be allowing the institution to reap the benefits and advantages of university status in the way of increased research grants and funding opportunities.
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p>This bill is not about increased state funding, or tuitions, or bailing out failed law schools with tax dollars and slapping on a UMass label, it is about giving Salem State its due…they have worked hard to earn it.
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p>It’s not a competition issue with UMass. Given the economy and the skyrocketing pvt. college tuitions, each and every state college and university could fill every seat many times over as students rush for admittance.
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p>My question would be: why would anyone be opposed to it? it takes nothing away from other institutions. The bill will allow the state colleges to pursue university status, some may not chose to do so because they are not ready to do so, but the ones who are and have been ready for some time will finally get the designation.
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p>In policy debate, it’s customary to put forth an argument to change the status quo. In law, it’s the same thing: the prosecution has the burden of proving that someone should be punished.
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p>There has to be a reason for offering university status, either alleviating a harm or introducing an advantage. What’s the reason? To make Salem State feel good? Confer more status? Make the colleges more marketable? Or for the same reason the chickadee is our state bird?
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p>One reason “why not” is we don’t know enough about the issue. No one is apt to support something they know nothing about.
but
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p>Marketing is important. You seem to be making it out as a silly or irrelevant point, but it’s important for every college and university to make sure it has not only enough bodies to fill the seats, but talented ones, to boot. So, even if this was purely about marketing (and it doesn’t seem to be BTW), who cares? Why stop Salem State from making itself marketable?
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p>Salem State is the lifeblood of the entire city of Salem and a huge institution across the entire North Shore. It’s made huge strides over the past few decades to become a really great state school. There is no reason on earth to stop it from making this sort of decision for itself, other than to keep those plebeians who attend it and our entire region down.
acceptable as a reason for arguing for university status. What was lacking was a reason for the change. That was the purpose of my comment. You cherry picked my quote–one sentence out of one paragraph and made assumptions actually expressed by others.
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p>I was trying to demonstrate the many reasons people could assume for the Salem State wanting the change. My objection to HLPeary’s post was the lack of reason to support the bill. That’s all. “Why not?” is not much of a reason to change a policy.
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p>I don’t have anything against Salem State or plebians, of which, like you, I’m one. Aside from UMass-Amherst, I graduated from community college. Maybe that even beats your UMass-Dartmouth plebian street cred?
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will do little to help the students of Salem State College, which is not a part of the UMASS system.
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p>As for wondering why any potential research shouldn’t be done in Amherst instead of Salem… well, believe it or not, there are actually some things our other state colleges do better than Amherst, and there’s something major to be gained in terms of economics and opportunity in making sure that we have competitive public universities that do at least some kind of major research (even if its niche) in every region of the state. I get and fully support the idea of UMASS Amherst being a “flagship,” but that shouldn’t be to the detriment of every other university in the state. Not all of our residents who want to go to public school can afford to go to UMASS Amherst. Some of them have to commute. They shouldn’t be denied the chance of having not only a decent public higher education, but a great one.
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p>Why on earth should we allow the legislature to make these kinds of decisions, or holding institutions back from making them. While public schools should remain public, they should be given a very large degree of latitude to make what’s in the best interest of their institution and students. We shouldn’t allow Beacon Hill to play politics with our public schools. It’s bad enough that they fund them second worst per capita in the entire country.
We need more institutional focus on cost effective educational excellence. How would granting university status to additional institutions move us in this direction?
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p>The cynic in me sees this as more of a ploy by educational administration to cash in on the education boom and further feather their nests.
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p>If Massachusetts as a state were really serious about bringing cost effective higher education opportunities to all of its citizenry, it should instead work on getting our higher educational costs more in line with other states rather than prioritizing institutional prestige.
What other states are you talking about? New Hampshire? Alabama? Please explain.
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p>Because Massachusetts has been blessed with an abundance of top ranked private universities and colleges for centuries, the state public higher ed. system has long been a pretty low priority for the state….an after thought at best.
Massachusetts ranks at or near the bottom for funding higher education on a per-capita basis. Student costs are consistently the highest in the nation.
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p>If funding isn’t likely to improve, the real challenge is making higher education more affordable. Institutions pursuing prestige inflation isn’t something that’s likely to help.
without more state or federal funding. Stopping them from attaining any prestige will make it much less likely that they’d ever get that funding.
The problem is they don’t have the correct incentives to do so. I think this unwarranted status seeking is a prime example of grossly misplaced priorities. Massachusetts public higher education ranks dead last in terms of productivity and value. Until we make some progress on these fundamental efficiency problems, the last thing we should be doing is rewarding institutions with additional prestige, higher priced administration, and additional tenured faculty positions (or increased funding).
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p>Also, at the undergraduate level, educationally oriented colleges are a demonstrably better value for students than research oriented universities. So why take an action that’s only likely to drive up the cost of public higher education even further?
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p>2. Under what metric are educationally oriented colleges a demonstrably better value for students than research universities? Had I not gone to a research university for undergrad, I wouldn’t have been exposed to high quality equipment and research professors, and might very well not have ended up getting a Ph D myself. There’s more to a 4 year degree than the delivery of lecture notes, which I’ll certainly agree are, on average, better at a college than a university.
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p>There’s certainly room for undergraduate education at both colleges and at universities.
1) I think the value rankings of Massachusetts public higher education demonstrate this quite well (i.e. we consistently do very poorly). In reviewing http://www.centerforcollegeaff… we it’s pretty shameful that not even one Massachusetts institution even made the list.
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p>2) I’m not saying there’s not a place for a research oriented public institution. I’m saying it’s counterproductive to insist that every (or almost every) higher educational institution become research oriented. An undergraduate or degree (or terminal masters) is the terminal degree for a pretty huge majority of the higher education market.
Please explain to me, without additional new funding from the state or feds, how the state’s public colleges and universities can become significantly more affordable in anyway possible, without impacting the quality of education for students.
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p>There’s not many places to cut. Most professors don’t earn very much, and even the few who are tenured don’t have gigantic salaries. I could see a case where there could be efficiencies made in the administration of these facilities, but to be honest, having gone to UMASS Dartmouth, the services and support coming to students isn’t over doing it. I’m not saying they were bad, but definitely struggling to service the needs of their students in the economic climate of that day — I can only imagine what it’s been like in few years since I was there.
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p>You better back that up with some serious evidence, otherwise, as a product of that education, I’ll have some not-so-nice things to say about how very wrong you are.
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p>If it’s so demonstrably better, prove it. While I’ve read plenty of articles and data to suggest that an undergrad degree isn’t usually worth the cost of a private school education, I’ve never seen anything to suggest that a research-university education would put people at a disadvantage, private or public. That’s just absurd.
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p>Furthermore, if you’re talking about a degree like bio, chem or engineering, your statement is laughable. Even if you’re talking about a program like English, Business, having a school where research or practical experience is being done and professors are publishing or practicing their work is going to be better for students. Quite frankly, there are some majors that can’t even exist without being a part of a research institution. I could actually list several examples of programs that exist at UMASS Dartmouth alone that could not possibly exist if it weren’t a University — and that’s only marginally a research university (or a budding one, as I like to think of it).
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p>As with anything else, put the proper incentives in place (or at least work on eliminating the perverse incentives). Over time, the situation will improve.
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p>Agreed. There’s a very competitive market for teaching faculty. Additional tenured faculty would only increase costs, all the more reason not to rush into creating new research oriented institutions.
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p>See: http://www.centerforcollegeaff… no Massachusetts public institution even made the list last year.
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p>I’m not saying it’s a disadvantage, I’m saying it can be a lessor value. In general, universities operate with much higher overhead.
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p>Though not that common, there are colleges that offer excellent programs in sciences and engineering. Again, not every higher educational institution needs to offer every possible program.
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p>At the undergraduate level, I have my doubts (and I’ve attended both colleges and universities). My experience is that teaching facility are better for undergraduate students.
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p>You’re missing the point. I’m not advocating that Massachusetts eliminate its existing public research institution. I’m saying we just need to maintain (if not expand) the value proposition of educationally oriented colleges as the top priority.
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p>What are they, then? If you’re going to make me believe that funding our system the second worst in the country per capita isn’t the primary reason why students are going to our state colleges and coming out of them with small mortgages, then what are the “proper incentives” that lower costs? Please be specific and show examples of how they’d have a significant result. Then, I’ll address your other points.
First, eliminate the apparent mission creep and prestige seeking that seems to be the current priority at the state colleges.
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p>Second, ensure the accreditation process prioritizes continuous improvement in efficiency and student value. If you’re not improving, your accreditation is at risk.
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p>Third, the accreditation process must end obstruction to cost effective distance education (and end other forms of cartel sanctioned, institutional rent seeking). Other countries (and even regions of the US) are eating our lunch on this.
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p>Massachusetts could potentially wield a lot of leverage over the NEASC to implement solid accreditation reforms given so many of the member institutions are located in Massachusetts. If applicable Massachusetts member institutions don’t play along (those chartered post 1943), then the MDOHE should put their degree granting status in jeopardy. An act of the legislature would likely be needed to put the charters of older institutions in play if leverage there becomes needed. Face it, we need to make some bold moves here to turn the situation around.
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p>Lastly, we’ll just have to disagree that increased funding should be the first priority. I’ve seen some pretty convincing arguments that increasing subsidies to education does little to improve value to the student (i.e. increased funding is typically captured in even further reductions in productivity rather than improvement in student value).
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p>Actually, I could see increased funding being a distant possibility, but only when controls/incentives are in place such that students and the taxpayers reap the vast majority of the gains and not the institutions.
but not ideas that prove how you can seriously address cost without providing the system with more state aid. I need numbers and facts, not blanket statements which may or may not do anything to address cost without hurting quality.
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p>Now that’s actually an easy problem to solve. Take the pot of money we’d create for new state support at our public colleges and put it toward reducing the costs of fees, or providing additional scholarships. Anyone who averages a B or higher in a Georgian public high school can go to state schools for free. It’s not a perfect system (I think it should mix socioeconomic factors with merit-based ones), but it’s an idea of something the state could do to dramatically reduce the cost of a college education at our public schools, and make them much more competitive in terms of attracting our best and brightest Massachusetts-based students graduating from high school. The state could easily fund this program by reevaluating the $1.5 billion we spend a year on tax credits, and getting rid of the worst of the lot, like the money we flush down the toilet to beg Hollywood studios to bring Tom Cruise to Massachusetts so they can film a mediocre movie.
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p>That’s the beauty of policy changes, they don’t necessarily have to cost beaucoup bucks to make a significant difference over time. So yea, I’m serious–I just don’t believe for a minute that opening the wallet should always be priority #1.
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p>What’s a “Georgian public high school”? Is this code for hating on the home schooled or something? Why limit it to those who attended public schools? If anything, parents who sacrificed earlier and paid for private secondary education should get rewarded not penalized as their actions saved significant taxpayers money in earlier years.
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p>I would counter that there’s an awful lot of students who didn’t do well in high school (quite often through no fault of their own) or are older/restarting/adding to their education (especially in this economy). Given that additional education is of benefit to the state, all of the citizenry should see the benefits of improved educational access and not just those of so called “merit”. Frankly, I’m not keen on considering socioeconomic factors either (but that’s another whole issue).
The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of students entering 4-year public institutions in Georgia are coming directly from public high schools. This was true before the HOPE scholarship was created in 1993, and it’s true now. It’s an incredibly efficient set of criteria:
* 3.0 GPA in high school
* 3.0 GPA in college
* Lived in GA 1+ years
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p>All three of those things are remarkably easy to measure. Including other groups of students is far more complex, requires much more auditing, etc.
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p>Are there problems? Sure. Home schooled/non-tradit students may not be eligible. It leads to grade inflation for students near the cut-off threshold. It’s incredibly regressive (poor people buy disproportionately more lotto tickets whereas rich people attend college disproportionately more frequently). That it’s not ideal for 100% of the students is no reason to argue against it, given that every GA student could go to public school and thus be eligible.
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p>Huh? You said there are ways to save money and I asked you to back them up and show your numbers. You then go to say that “they don’t necessarily have to cost… bucks to make a significant difference,” but you’re completely ignoring what I’ve asked: for you to prove it. If there’s all these wonderful ways to save a significant enough amount of money at public schools to make them affordable for students, prove it. And I don’t mean $10 a semester, I mean $100 or $1000. You said there’s ways to significantly save money… prove it.
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p>I would completely agree with you — but the fact of the matter is that’s not what’s ever happening with state government re: public higher education. What actually happens is every year there’s a budget deficit and nearly every year public education is disproportionally cut. Two things result: 1) most of the costs of a quality education get pushed off toward the students and 2) the schools know they can’t push all those costs to students, so they make cuts to things that effect educational quality and quality of life. I could provide an entire diary worth of examples from my own days at UMASS Dartmouth, which had a huge impact on the quality of education and my happiness there as a student — and that’s to say nothing of the huge cost increases that got pushed on me as a student between my freshman and senior year.
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p>The notion you push that State Government is throwing money at our public colleges is patently absurd. Argue based on facts, or not at all. Nothing else will fly in this reality-based community.
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p>I’d imagine it’s something like a Massachusetts public high school, but in Georgia. Did I really need to answer that question?
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p>ROFL.
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p>Honestly, I only assumed that it did. For all I know, it includes private schools, too. However, if it does, I would think that a bad idea. Why? You don’t know what you’re getting with the private school. They are not at all held to the same standards, or any standards at all. If a private school teaches kids that humans and dinosaurs walked on the Earth together, I’m not so sure those private schools should be eligible, because that’s not “teaching” students facts, it’s teaching them mythology that flies in the face of facts.
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p>That’s actually a very large assumption. I’ll give you my high school graduating class, for example. The differences between the number of people in my class when I graduated from high school and when I was a senior was actually quite large. I ‘moved on’ to high school with 220 students in the 8th grade. I graduated from high school with around 165. I’d say roughly half of them went to local techs or aggies, and half of them went to private school, with a few here and there who moved in or out, stayed back or dropped out.
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p>The half who went to techs and aggies cost our district big bucks, similar to what charters do. The 20 or so students who chose to go to a private school didn’t really save the district anything, because that’s not enough students to trigger less staff. It just means instead of having a classroom with 28 kids, you get one with 26. The “savings” there is minimal, at best.
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p>In all actuality, in Massachusetts, you can lose money when there’s an influx of students who leave for private schools, because that means you lose state aid. I would imagine it’s similar in Georgia.
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p>Now, the notion that parents who pay for their kids to go to private high schools should get “cost savings” because of it, when they send their kids to public colleges is ludicrous. For starters, even if it did save secondary schools a substantial amount of money individually — a gigantic if — that never saved any of the public colleges any money. Why should public colleges be punished by having to offer those students discount rates? Secondly, it was their choice to send them to private schools and, presumably, if they could afford the private high school, they would be in better positions to afford a college education or their kids, too.
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p>I have no problem with giving additional opportunities to those who are looking to get new educational opportunities years after high school or a first-try at college. I threw out an example of how Massachusetts could create a program that would directly make a college education much more affordable to students, without just handing a load of cash to our schools and telling them to go to town with it.
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p>That’s not to say the Georgian model is the perfect one to follow, or the only one; I see no reason why not to push three or four different initiatives, or even more. A program I’d like to see, for example, would be for young parents who who had a kid and didn’t have the opportunity to attend or finish college: the state pays a for grants that help them afford college education and provide good-quality daycare for when the parent(s) are at class, and the family (and kid) ends up with lots more opportunity for decades to come because of it, instead of permanently less well off because they didn’t have the help and resources they needed at the time they needed it most.
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p>The point is, there’s lots of ideas the state could do to make our public colleges more accessible and more affordable for our residents, but the vast majority of them involve $$. You’re not going to find a lot of ways to save enough money at our public colleges to have a real impact on student tuition and fees. I’m not trying to suggest that we shouldn’t pursue every bit of savings possible that won’t diminish the quality of education or life for students, but I am suggesting that doing so is not an answer to address the cost issue. That answer can only come from Beacon Hill or the federal government stepping up and helping students pay for their college education so they don’t walk out of school as indentured servants.
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p>What exactly are the factors you’d like to consider? If it’s not based on ‘merit’ — grades — and it’s not based on the ability of people to afford it (socioeconomics), what should it be based on? Drawing out of a hat? Heads you get school grants, tails you don’t? If it’s not based on whether people can afford it or not, and it’s not based on attracting the brightest students you can to get at the school, there’s not much left to base it on.
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p>PS: The idea that you don’t like the notion that we provide aid to students who are at a socioeconomic disadvantage — ie, couldn’t afford to otherwise attend college — is downright frightening. Do you just hate public education? Maybe the world would be better if our mothers kept us at home to learn about God all day long?
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p>If you’d refer back to your original statement, you’d didn’t make it clear you were referring to another state’s policies (using the word “Georgia” instead of “Georgian” would have been far less confusing). Frankly, I was thinking you were referring to some educational model not a state.
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p>All the more reason to open up equal educational opportunities to them. I seriously doubt most privately educated students aren’t religious zealots or have an education that is sub-par to public education.
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p>Your in some pretty serious denial of some basic economic principals here.
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p>They certainly shouldn’t be penalized (which you were proposing). Personally, I believe incentives structured toward discouraging consumption of the public largess are good public policy. Limiting future public educational aid to attendance of a public high schools is exactly the opposite (though the MTA would certainly push for such a policy to further their own ambitions).
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p>How about successful progress? Every company I’ve worked for required successful completion of course to receive the aid. This would also provide far more short term incentive to students to progress in their studies.
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p>The educational aid process is already massively redistributive on a federal, state, and institutional level. I don’t feel it needs to be made any more so on the margin. In addition state expenditures on the whole are pretty massively redistributive, again on the margin I’m not in favor of any moves toward additional redistributive state spending.
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p>Do I hate public education? Not really, but I’m quite disturbed that it seemingly consumes every increasing percentages of GDP with no increase in value.
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p>Nice try, and a complete miss–I’m an fervent atheist.
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p>That’s just dense. I said Georgian public school. If that’s so confusing to you, maybe it’s time to pack it up and hop off the intellectual debates?
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p>Is it ironic you just wrote something that was the opposite of what you meant? In Georgia, of all places, BTW, I imagine there are a large number of religious schools which are actually very religious.
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p>As for the quality of public vs. private high schools… private is not better by any margin.
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p>Private schools only best public in one arena — a self-selecting bias. If you want your kids to grow up in a complete bubble, it’s the perfect place for them.
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p>First, I wasn’t proposing it. I was reporting what another state did as an example. Second, they’re not penalized. They choose to send their kids to private schools and accept the consequences. You can’t have your cake and eat it, too.
and stop making the personal slams?
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p>I’m hardly being obtuse. I’ve explained myself. Apparently you’ve never misunderstood anyone else’s awkwardly worded statement (at 1:30am). Intellectual? Really?
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p>No, just a typo.
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p>I think if the students can qualify on objective admission standards (SAT, etc) it shouldn’t matter if they gone to a public high school, private high school, home school, or have a GED. If they qualify for admission, they should be able to receive aid. Period.
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p>I question the need and motivation for a incentive/disincentive structured like that. Are you intentionally trying to steer kids toward public high school over alternatives? Why? Is it that important to you to control or interfere with individual family choices?
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p>Even worse is a state that would be nudging or forcing families people into public education with a regime of abusive economic manipulation. There’s way too much infringement upon individual freedoms already. This would do nothing to inspire confidence or respect in their government.
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p>Lastly, often children have little choice in educational decisions made by a parent. I imagine it’d be quite easy to end up disqualifying students based upon the actions of a parent when they were minors. I’m not comfortable with that.
With all your straw men, you shouldn’t be telling someone to “stick to the issues.” There was another one in your reply, too, but I’ll get to that in a minute.
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p>I’m sorry, but my statement
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p>is not an “awkwardly worded statement” deserving of confusion. I don’t blame you for misunderstanding something at 1:30, even something that’s as clear as day (it’s happened to me before, too, heaven knows)… but I wasn’t writing it in a way that was confusing.
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p>If batting away your very-out-there ideas is “personal slams” I guess I’m guilty. Honestly, though, I don’t see where I’ve personally attacked you. I’ve only personally attacked your ideas, and the way you’ve made your arguments. The only thing bordering on offensive is when I said you were being obtuse, and to stop it, but that’s not really a personal attack. A personal attack is telling someone they’re ugly, calling them the F word, etc. etc. etc. So stop suggesting I’ve been “slamming” you and not just your arguments. As for slamming arguments, that’s one of the things that’s done here. As the saying goes, “if you can’t handle the heat…”
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p>No. If parents want to send their kids to private schools, that’s their decision. However, they can’t send their kids to private schools and then cry about not getting the same benefits of sending their kids to public schools.
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p>That, sir, is a strawman. I guess it’s easier to make an argument against that notion, but, that’s never the argument that I’ve made. Simply put, public K-12s have to be a high caliber of learning that rivals or exceeds any private school in the area, because we here in America believe in the notion of equal opportunity for all. There can’t be equal opportunity for all if we don’t ensure our public schools are as good as anything out there. Saying that, however, is different than saying I want to “interfere” with parental decisions — people may very well choose private school education because it’s different, even if it’s not better. Parents may choose private schools based on values, based on available classes, focuses, methods of teaching, location and a whole host of issues — so stop putting words into my mouth.
I guess I find your style (copious use of the personal pronoun “you”) to be a bit much. Admittedly, my own demeanor hasn’t been what I’d like it to be as this thread progressed.
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p>Back to the aid issue…
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p>I just can’t see any compelling reason behind creating a new “benefit” to attending public schools. Why should the type of high school have anything to do with higher education aid eligibility for a qualified student? I’m highly suspicious of any aid eligibility requirement that would effectively nudge toward public education over private alternatives. In my opinion, public education needs more competitive pressures from alternatives, not additional protections or nudges.
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p>Though a nice sentiment, I seriously doubt this would be possible unless limits are placed upon the degree of private education that is permitted.
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p>More practically, Massachusetts K-12 public education is already ranked very highly (for those who graduate). At this point, I’d rather see the priority shift toward increasing the graduation rate and improving efficiency rather than attempting to compete against the best of the private alternatives.
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p>Ok, I’ll rephrase.
Is it important to formulate public higher education aid policy so as not to discriminate against, influence, or interfere with secondary educational choices? If not, why?
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p>Remember, earlier you stated:
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p>Why should there be “consequences” at all?
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p>If it’s what the Georgian people voted for (read: people of Georgia), then it’s what they voted for. What your or I think of it is rather moot, though I will say I don’t see it as a “benefit.” I see it as a reward, given to those who study hard enough to earn at least a B. Any parent can give their children the ability to achieve that reward, or they can choose not to do that, but the students must earn it — and that’s no easy feat for many students out there.
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p>We already know that it’s possible, because it already exists in this country today. As I’ve linked to elsewhere in this thread, private schools are statistically no better than public schools today as a general group. The problem is that not all public schools are of equal caliber , or at least equally able to make their student bases excel given different circumstances the schools are situated in. (Ditto private schools, but that doesn’t matter, because it’s a parents choice to send a kid there.) So the push to improve the public school system is largely a push to improve the ones that aren’t living up the standards each and every student deserves — one that truly gives them an equal opportunity to succeed.
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p>It would be impossible to formulate public higher education aid policy in ways that doesn’t “discriminate against, influence or interfere” with secondary educational choices, that’s why they have to be made in ways that make sense for the student body at large. It’s rather difficult to cater to each and every individual need, which, honestly, is one of the major reasons why private schools of any variety often exist in the first place. A student who went to a private school with a great performance arts program is going to have a leg up when trying to get into (and getting a grant for) a Theater Arts program, for example, while a student who’s competing to get a full ride on an athletics scholarship will have a leg up if they did it from a big, Division 1 program, especially one with a coach who knows how to market his or her players to college recruiters. If you don’t think that’s fair, please refer to my following comment.
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p>There are always consequences, costs and opportunity costs. This shouldn’t be a surprise. As I’ve said, you can’t have your cake and eat it, too.
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p>Being a bit pedantic, I don’t think that looking at the aggregate makes your original goal any more possible (all it takes is one over achieving private school). That aside, on the state aggregate we are achieving great results compared to the nation.
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p>Yes, there are still some troubled schools that need to be made a priority. I also think that funding in many of these troubled districts has hit a point of diminishing returns. Once you hit a very high foundation funding level, quite a few perverse incentives seem to be coming into play. A very difficult problem indeed.
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p>Problem districts aside…
Given the state results on the aggregate are excellent, I think the taxpayers should begin to see a shift in focus on improving educational efficiency and away from further gains in aggregate educational improvement.
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p>I disagree. One could simply choose not to discriminate based upon the type of secondary education attended; That’s not an impossibility.
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p>In fact, since at least 1998, higher educational institutions are required under federal regulations not to consider the secondary educational path (public, private, certified home school, or tested (GED/SAT II)) when considering federal financial aid eligibility.
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p>I think there’s a misconception of what “equality opportunity for all,” it means giving people an equal chance to succeed in life, not providing a fencing team and a lush, open campus because that’s what the elite private school has. This is why you find that public schools do at least as well as private on the aggregate. Providing that equal opportunity for all is, now, honestly more about ensuring each district has a high-quality public school system, not that each district is as good as the private schools nearby when that’s already the case far more often than not. That said, this is neither here nor there… I’m really not interested in discussing this thing you have for private high schools.
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p>Reaching kids in these “troubled” districts isn’t just about funding, it’s about getting parental involvement and changing the way we think about how we run public schools. The idea that we can close shop at 2:30 to send kids to broken homes where they’re not going to get their homework done (and, thus, not learn what they’re supposed to), and then close it down the entire summer, so students forget much of what they did learn, just doesn’t work. We need to get more of the learning done in the classrooms, and we need to work on the issues surrounding the home life that may not have to do with schooling directly, but absolutely effect it. It’ll take a comprehensive approach to overcome these challenges, one that extends far beyond the public education issue.
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p>There should be riots on the street if such a thing were to happen. We may have achieved “aggregate” results that are excellent, but in no way, shape or form are those results consistent. It’s not enough that just the suburbs do well in our state, thankyouverymuch. When New Bedford graduates at least 90% of its students on time instead of half of them in a good year, get back to me. Sheesh.
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p>/snore
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p>If you have a problem with it, go move to Georgia and take it up with them. I’m sure there are others there who feel the same way. I just don’t care. I am sooooo done talking about this topic that doesn’t even concern us.
Is that a pun that I don’t understand? Something about school administrators who are good at saving money?
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p>I believe the word you were looking for is “principles”, and you are the one who doesn’t understand them. Learn the difference between fixed and variable costs, because until then you are not qualified to have a serious discussion on this subject.
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p>P.S. on the way Georgia schools do it: everybody’s missing an obvious solution to adjust for socio-economic factors easily (not completely, perhaps, but it makes a big difference). Give scholarships to anyone who is in the top x % of their class, rather than basing it on absolute GPA. Then the smartest kids at poor high schools have the same chance as the smartest kids at rich ones. This also prevents grade inflation from being a factor.
that really improves quality here. Keep up the good work! I’ll assume you’ll be providing that same service for all the other posters too.
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p>Ryan’s anecdotal point about a particular scenario seemed to fall more into the realm of quantization rather than fixed/variable costs. The fact remains, less aggregate demand will drive down aggregate expenditure over time (particularly, as resources are reapportioned in response to other changes in demand).
Ignoring public magnet schools, in general there are lots of kids in some school district who have earned high marks. Because they go to a school with lots of other achievers, they should be left out? Furthermore, kids are smart — they know who’s near “the line”. So now it’s senior year, and the kids near “the line” go psycho. Maybe they go psycho by avoiding tough classes to drive up their GPA. Maybe they go psycho by cheating. Maybe they go psycho by studying “too” hard. All of these problems exist now with the “B average” line, but the difference is in the number. With the Mendoza Line method, the kids who are above that line don’t need to worry about being “passed”. They know exactly what their target is. By using the top x%, the line moves — and that makes things far more complex and results in far more kids having to worry about finding themselves below the line because the line moved… resulting in far more kids behaving strangely (see above). Then there’s the teachers — they know the numbers too. When two kids are both near the % line, each teacher can help one student by harming another. That’s a bad place to be. With the current system, the incentives teachers face don’t overtly harm any students, unless you consider giving a kid a B+ instead of a B because he’s so close to 3.000 GPA overt harm.
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p>The system has problems, to be sure. Personally, I think the right answer is to simply use the money to fund in-state tuition, making it even lower for every in state student than it is now. Let the colleges pick their kids, and let the students pay the lower rate. For those with financial need, it’s now substantially lower, if they got a 3.1 or a 2.9. For the poor 4.0 kids, they’ll get scholarships/funding and go for free anyway. Keep in mind that the average student getting into UGA or GT has a GPA well above 3.0.
http://www.insidehighered.com/…
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p>An interesting article discussing the roles of “prestige maximization” and accreditation bodies in driving the higher education cost spiral.
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I read it the exact opposite… it sounds like unnecessary busy work. There are too many big issues to worry about this now.
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p>What makes you think it is coming up next week? Source?
1) They’ve been trying to do this for 10 or more years, so it’s not just like they decided yesterday, “hey, I want to become Salem State University,” and demanded the state act now. As the good King said, justice delayed is justice denied. Salem’s waiting for a very long time and it does not take that much time for the state to pass this bill, if the leadership will actually allow it a floor vote.
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p>2) Believe it or not, with the tens of thousands of public employees employed in this state, and the very many workers who do maintenance at our universities, they can manage to change the signs and all that “busy work,” even in this time of “many big issues,” just fine. They can also chew gum and walk at the same time.
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p>3) Just because you think it’s “unnecessary” work, doesn’t mean the fine folks at Salem State agree. Why should you and those who agree with you be able to determine the inner-workings of what’s going on at Salem State? It knows what’s best for it better than you do, by a wide margin.
TruBluLu…Come to the bill signing Wed July 28 at 1 PM Grand Staircase…not a “big issue” to you perhaps, but big enough…Salem State University, bridgewater State University…not to be confused with UMass at AnyPlace…Bravo, Senator Berry!
that got a new President who decided that the “college” should be called a “university” for no apparent reason other than image/posterity. The institution sent out an email to the alumni soliciting a response to the proposed change. I responded that although the institution did grant some advanced degrees, that approximately 90% of the institution’s resources were dedicated to undergraduate education and that the institution had a reputation as a small liberal arts community that should continue to be called a college. Plus my degree and all my t-shirtsand hats all said “college” on them. Apparently the overwhelming response from my fellow alumni was similar to mine, very few wanted their small liberal arts college to be changed to a “university” for no good reason other than image/posterity. The institution acknowledged the alumni response, but changed it’s name anyway. I was a little annoyed, both that the name change happened, and because the institution ignored an ovverwhelming response from it’s alumni. I went to the online bookstore and bought a hat that said “college” on it right before the official change. But I haven’t donated money the last few times they’ve called.
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p>The experience with my alma mater has me predisposed to not support changing a name from “college” to “university” and I don’t really see a good argument in this post to reverse my predisposition. Do the alumni support the change? Is there any better reason for the change other than image/posterity?
aren’t really relevant. Salem State is not a small liberal arts college, it has roughly 10,000 students, and a fairly diverse set of programs. It also has plenty of advanced degrees necessary for the rank. Furthermore, this has been something the area and region (and, presumably, the alumni) have been pushing for some time now. Different circumstances. I haven’t heard from a single, solitary alumni who’s deeply opposed to Salem State becoming Salem State University.
Do you really want me saying I graduated from good ole FU? It’s just a prestige thing. My daughter graduated from Heard Street Discovery Academy. Prep School? Not hardly. Juat one of the 40 plus k-6 schools in Worcester.
…unless the goal is to fully integrate them with the existing state university system such that all of these campuses become “University of Massachusetts at…” Name changes carry a lot of costs that people often don’t think about at first such as the cost to change all letterhead, signage, and other materials. I don’t think that Dartmouth COLLEGE or the COLLEGE of William and Mary suffer in reputation from not being called “University”. After all, a rose by any other name…
presumably, that money and opportunity at stake is greater than the money it would cost to change the letterhead and signage, which can be phased in over a number of years anyway, quite possibly at the same pace it would have happened anyway, given all the construction and refurbishment that’s been going on at the state’s colleges and universities.
although I do think the opportunity to generate financial resources for Salem State through corporate partnerships, research grants, etc. is certainly enhanced by giving Salem the university status it deserves. And the North Shore business community points out that university status of the largest North Shore higher ed. institution makes it more attractive as an economic engine and source of quality employees for the private sector in any number of fields.
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p>The state put up considerable tax dollars to save a failed law school and make it part of UMass Dartmouth…although there is no shortage of lawyers in the state…perhaps expanding the Nursing Degree Programs at Salem State would have filled a more pressing need.
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p>Of all states, only Alabama (21.9%) surpassed Massachusetts (19.9%) in the percentage of CUTS made to public higher education between 2008-2010.
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p>He can do better.
Which seems more prestigous: Amherst College, or Lesley University? Boston College, or Bentley University? I think it’s kind of silly to think that changing a school’s name from “college” to “university” is going to increase its prestige. But if we are going to worry about prestige, I don’t see any evidence that calling a school a university rather than a college has much if anything to do with it.
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p>TedF
this is becoming a meme…
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p>What makes you think you know better than the faculty and administration of Salem State? What makes you think this is just about “prestige.” The latter is a straw man, the former is something the critics need to get stuck in their head.
If it’s not about prestige, what is it about? We’re talking about changing the name from “college” to “university”–right? There was some suggestion earlier in the thread that there was money at stake, but nothing really concrete to back that up. Is it, in fact, the case that the school will receive more money because it is a “university” than it does because it is a “college”, and if so, why? Is there some law or regulation on this? Or is it just that grant-making bodies are more likely to want to give money to a “university” than to a “college” (which sounds an awful lot like “prestige” to me).
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p>Just to be clear, I’m not opposed to this legislation. The fine people of Salem State should rejoice in the name that they like best. I just don’t see the point of it, if it’s not about prestige. But I’d be happy to be educated.
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p>TedF
it’s not about the name, it’s about the reality of the situation…according to Salem State’s administrative office, SSC currently offers 33 Master’s Degree programs in addition to the undergraduate offerings. University status would open the door to private resources and investment in academic programs and expand doctoral program offerings. Considering that the state has cut public higher ed. every year, anything that would increase an institution’s ability to generate private funding seems like a very practical idea. it’s not in the “university” name, it’s the “university” title opportunities that are worth supporting.
This issue has nothing to do with any substantive change at Salem
State College right? Is it your contention that there substantial amounts of “private resources and investment” that are available only to institutions that have “university” in their name, regardless of what the institution actually does? Can you name some specific sources of these “resources and investment”?
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p>Why not just change the name to AAAASalem State College. Appearing first in every alphabetical listing might have some advantage, right?
Boston College suffers because it’s not Boston the-other-University?
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p>If Salem College is considered a university by the accreditationistas, then who cares what it’s name is?
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p>Seems to me the entire conversation needs to back up. What is the definition of a university, from the perspective of
– the state
– accreditors
– grant givers
– the general academic community?
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p>For which of those categories is Salem State already a university? For which of those categories would this legislation change that status? For whom does it matter?
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p>Then, we can start to ask questions like:
* Does this impact the amount of state money SC gets? Why?
* Does this impact the amount of fed money SC gets? Why?
* Does this impact the amount of private money SC gets? Why?
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p>There’s clearly been a migration of a long list of non-Tier-I institutions from “College” to “University”. Why? Is it because part-time masters programs are cash cows? Is it because “U” just sounds more prestigious than “C”? Is it because these smaller schools have just the right situation to do awesome research in some niche field, thereby contributing to some field of research in a way that a more renowned, more well established, more well funded institution just can’t seem to do?
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p>For those of us with no affiliation with Salem College and no particular affinity for Salem College, it’s awfully hard to understand just what the motivation is in the first place… and there’s been a few meandering attempts at an explanation, but I’m still not understanding just what’s at stake here either.
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p>Um… Salem State? (And presumably the people in the area as well as those who attend(ed) it?)
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p>And, more to the point, isn’t that enough?
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p>I’m sorry, Stomv, but you — who admittedly has “no affinity” for Salem State — shouldn’t have a place in deciding whether it should or shouldn’t be called Salem State University. I’m sorry, but I find it terribly worrisome when Beacon Hill and the public at large like to play politics with our public higher education system. I’ve yet to see such a situation work in the favor of these institutions or students — and it’s downright emblematic of a legislature and elite in this state which has almost always sneered at public higher education, treating it like an ugly step sister at best. I guess that’s understandable, given that most of the legislature and elite didn’t graduate from one of our fine public colleges or universities, but that doesn’t make it right.
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p>So I leave you and any other people who are skeptical of this decision with this: It doesn’t effect you. Let them do whatever the heck they want and think is in the best interest of their school.
Does the fact that casino developers want three casinos in the state mean the rest of us should just mind our own business?
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p>Unless it does, your argument is wrong. If this is about wasting the legislature’s time on prestige seeking, the rest of us have a right to know that it’s just a distraction from real issues and to ask our legislators not to support special interest politics. Which is exactly what this is unless you can make the case that it’s about more than making SSC students and graduates feel good about themselves.
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p>Stomv’s asking what should be easy questions. All of them could be answered with some fairly simple research. You might want to do the research yourself because you have the burden of proof as the person suggesting a change. And because if I have to do it I bet I can dig up a lot more sources that are disfavorable to your position.
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It appears from this document that the Board of Higher Education can administratively change the name of a college to a university if the school meets the university criteria. Why is legislation necessary in this case? Is it because Bently College University is a private school, whereas Salem State is a public school?
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p>TedF
What is the evidence that Massachusetts public higher education ranks dead last in terms of productivity and value? These kind of incindiery claims demand a high level of proof. What I really like are the fourth tier private colleges that try to give the impression to parents tht they are somehow classy and then leave students with close to $100 k in debt.
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p>Does that Frobes sponsored study prove that it ranks last in productivity?
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p>On a very pragmatic level very similar institutions in other states are increasingly calling themsleves Universitities (Central Connecticutt e.g.) so it does place peer institutions in Massachusetts at a disadvantage.