Northeast Schools Losing Competitive Edge

Twenty years ago the ivy-covered walls of New England colleges and universities had a stranglehold on academic prestige, selectivity and, presumptively, on the quality of education. The northeastern brain trust was unchallenged in prowess. But now New England institutions of higher learning are struggling to compete, according to a Feb. 15 article in the Chronicle of Higher Education entitled, "New England Loses its Edge in Higher Education."

The Yales, Harvards and Williamses aren't hurting, but regional schools that rank below the top 20 are struggling to attract both students and dollars. The article spouts convincing statistics: in 1989 6.2 percent of college students studied in New England, whereas today it's just over five percent. Of the last four higher learning institutions to go belly up, three were small private New England colleges: New Hampshire's Notre Dame College, Bradford College in Mass. -- three years shy of its 200th anniversary and Trinity College in Vermont. A bevy of southern and western schools are giving the Old Guard a run for their money -- or mutual funds, so it is.

What's causing the powerhouses to perish? For one thing, the population is shifting south and west. Second and third-tier schools draw a majority of their students from regional pools. As the northeastern pool gets smaller, so do the freshman classes.

The economy is also an influential force. With the death of industry and the growth of technology and service sectors, economies down yonder are flourishing relative to the Northeast. Local companies pump money into local universities, and in return they spawn a productive workforce. The newer southern and western colleges' curriculums focus on skills applicable on the job, as opposed to small New England schools that often specialize in obscure and arguably archaic liberal arts studies. Students flock to schools with money and programs that they think will lead to career success.

But the Northeast's problems go further back than the creation of the computer chip. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that in colonial times and into the 19th century, our country's leaders were suspicious of state-run educational institutions. The result: an emphasis on private colleges and a neglect to establish public universities in New England.

Today New England students pay the price, literally. The biggest stab to private colleges is cost. A refined New England education is, on average, the priciest in the country -- 3,000 dollars per year above the national average for private colleges. And when compared to the University of California-Berkeley and the University of Virginia, students wonder where their buck goes.

The cost of education has become a far more influential factor in college attendance decisions nowadays, making Wake Forest, the University of Virginia, the University of California-Los Angeles and the University of Arizona extremely attractive to top students. Our generation demands value and rejects the idea that the Northeast is the only acceptable place to get a diploma. If New England liberal arts schools want to retain a competitive edge, they need to direct more money into scholarships and financial aid. This strategy also applies to Ivy League institutions, which are competing more and more with top-notch public universities for students and research dollars. Over a dozen southern states are successfully attracting larger and more qualified student populations, following the creation of a large-scale merit-based scholarship program in the early 1990s, piloted at the University of Georgia.

In reality, tuition money is only a fraction of what it takes to put a student through college. Tuition, high as it is, covers only two-thirds of what it costs to educate a student at Cornell -- the rest comes from alumni giving and, in state schools, government funding. According to a "Cornell Facts" brochure, 29 percent of our funding comes from federal and state sources. When costs are subsidized by the government, public schools can afford to charge lower tuition. Thus, the dearth of prominent public schools in the Northeast pushes financially-minded students south.

But scholarship money has to come from somewhere. If a college focuses more money on scholarships, then research, building construction, staff salaries and institutional support budgets are cut. Shiny new buildings and Nobel Prize-winning professors have come to be expected of Ivy League schools; they can't be skimped in favor of scholarship.

Even more formidable is the dwindling number of private schools that conduct admissions on a need-blind basis. Cornell is amongst the scarce 20 colleges and universities in the nation that reviews admissions applications entirely separate from financial aid applications. This democratic admissions policy demands an even higher level of scholarship commitment from schools -- a commitment that an increasing number of private institutions are unwilling to make.

Scholarship is pivotal to the future of our University, as well as to the continuation of admissions policies that do not discriminate against those in financial need. And, as we all know, it's not difficult to need financial assistance when the pricetag on many private colleges is $30,000 a year. As students and soon-to-be alumni, we should keep this idea in mind. Though the job market is down and we just shelled out a pretty penny to Cornell, it's important for the future of higher education, not to mention social equality in our country, that we give back to our alma mater.

Archived article by Andrea Forker