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I still think that privitization will be an issue. Mainly I do believe that it stems from what is becoming the whole privitization of American society. Our public schools are under attack; those on the right would like to see them replaced with a voucher system. Public universities cannot be too far behind.
Things go in trends. The last half of the 20th century was about formerly private universities becoming public. In Pennsylvania, that certainly would be true of Pitt and Temple.
Today we see a reverse trend, particularly in Pennsylvania. The status of three public universities....the always public Penn State and the formerly private Temple and Pitt...are now termed "state related universities", making them virtually independent in their actions. They represent the top tier of universities associated with the state itself, providing slots for admission for Pennsylvania students with state subsidized tuition. The rest of the public schools are termed "state universities" and are easier to get into and charge less in tuition than PSU, Pitt, & Temple.
As noted before, schools like U-M are minimally funded by their state. U-M receives pittance from the troubled state of Michigan, is hugely endowed, and has always throughout its history had loads of autonomy. I'll stick with what I said before: I really do believe that the University of Michigan could end up, some day, as private as the University of Pennsylvania is. Who knows, the same may end up being true for schools like Cal and UCLA and UVa which are powerhouses and could easily survive on their own merits.
Indeed if Cal, the nation's #1 public university, ever became private, Cal and Stanford would go neck and neck in being considered the Bay Area's top university; today, private Stanford easily holds that lead over public Cal.
I can hardly wait until my cable company takes over the state university and runs it for profit. Or Bank of America, or the Disney Corporation, or Pizza Hut. Somehow, I just don't trust the private sector to run EVERYthing.
Indeed if Cal, the nation's #1 public university, ever became private, Cal and Stanford would go neck and neck in being considered the Bay Area's top university; today, private Stanford easily holds that lead over public Cal.
Definitely agree Cal is the #1 public university, followed by Michigan. UNC, W&M, and UVA get a lot of attention as strong undergraduate colleges with some respectable grad programs, but in terms of overall strength as research universities, they are nowhere near the same level. In fact, public universities such as Wisconsin, Texas, Illinois, and Washington that are often not seen as strong at the undergrad level due to their size and selectivity are actually much stronger than UVA/UNC/W&M in terms of faculty quality, research, and ranked academic departments.
In terms of future privatization, I do think the Cal schools would have a tough road to climb to maintain their status. As undeniably strong as Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, etc. are, the major reason is because they were funded so well at an earlier time and were able to build the faculty and departments that led to their lofty reputations today. Unfortunately for them, they do not possess particularly strong endowments relative to even other publics to offset increased erosion of state support. Michigan had the "advantage" of being in a depressed region so it saw the writing on the wall years ago and worked to increase its endowment through private support. In fact, over the last 20 years, Michigan has been one of the very top performers in terms of overall endowment growth. Conversely, the UC schools enjoyed the benefits of California's economic prosperity and didn't look for private support as aggressively.
As good as the Cal schools are, I'm not sure they are as well prepared to deal with the funding shocks that are happening now. Not to mention, there are more of them that would be competing with each other for private funds and they exist in a high cost of living and business state.
Of all the publics, I think UT-Austin (and perhaps Texas A&M) could actually be the most successful as a privatized entity. The UT investment management company, which manages the UT and A&M system's $20 Billion endowment fund, is already the largest endowment by far of any public university, and 2nd largest academic endowment in the world after Harvard. Even though the endowment isn't as large as smaller privates on a per capita basis, economies of scale are much more important. Also, since UT/A&M are publics, they still receive some measure of state funds that would translate into additional $billions that a private university would have to match in order to have the same effective endowment.
UT-Austin's share of the system endowment and its own private endowments is already second only to Michigan at ~$6B... and UT-Austin's endowment doesn't have to support a medical university like Michigan's does since the UT System medical schools are separate from the academic institutions. As with most other public universities, UT has had to learn to make due with less and less state funding. (State support is currently somewhere less than 10% of the budget.) However, UT already has the benefit of a very large exisiting endowment in which to build private support upon.
Public schools may not receive much or any of their operating budget from the state and may be government autonomously with a board of trustee (however most of political appointments or elected posts) with little interference from the state. But as public schools and political subdivisions of the state government, all of the property owned by the university are state assets.
So any argument for privatization would require a state legislature and governor to approve transferring billions of dollars of state assets to a third party association. Good luck with that.
Just on a sidenote, as a non American, I'm blown away by the sheer number of universities in the United States. How the heck do they all find find a critical mass of students to stay open?
I don't think public universities will ever become privatized. They would fight it tooth and nail, they wouldn't want to willing give up a source of funding. Even though there are far more important things for the state to be spending tax money on then a school. The only way I see it happening is that the states are so broke they won't have money to spend on higher education, even if they wanted to. That could happen in a lot of states, many states are insolvent as it is, and its going to get far worse.
The reluctancy of the schools to do so, is too bad because many public universities would actually find they would be far better off as a separate independent organization. Public universities wouldn't be sold to the private sector necessarily (at least not the flagship schools anyway), but rather spun off as a new non profit entity.
This is why "privatization" would be a good idea for "public" universities.
The biggest thing is far more independence from the state government, mostly concerning academic freedom. When you take public tax money, strings come attached. There is no way to separate it completely. Politics become the only concern of far too many schools (I think the main reason most public U's lag behind private schools). Most schools are blinded by the money from government and don't spend it well (because they think there is more where that came from) and do not care what the public may think (or think too much of it). A very bad attitude in my book. You don't bite the hand that feeds you, and many public schools do that on a regular basis.
For example, when a professor is doing something unpopular (or something downright stupid) that makes the general public angry, its hard to defend that prof because the general public is paying (via tax dollars) for it. When its "my" money I have a right to be angry about it, and the professor needs to stop doing what he is doing. If it isn't "my" money, I am not going to care so much. I will joke about it and move on. Granted they still have to satisfy the people giving them money but at least the general taxpaying public doesn't have to pay for idioticy.
I don't think giving up public tax money would be as big of a deal as they would make it out to be. Most of the flagship schools have plenty of alumni and supporters and have endowments anyway. There would be short term things that wouldn't be fun, but most public universities have plenty of fat that need to be cut anyway. So even that would be good for long term. The priority of universities has to move back to students.
I think it would be good for students as well. Some non-flagship public universities aren't very good academically. For example Northeastern Illinois University, which isn't nearly as good as the University of Illinois, and likely has a higher % of the total budget from the state then the bigger school. If it didn't get public money, it would have to be better to get students to replace the income from the state. Either that or it goes away because it isn't serving the interests of its students.
There is no reason why any school couldn't live on without public money. Every private school manages to do so. Most people don't go to college but yet pay for public colleges they will never go to. Why should a guy who drives a truck for a living pay for someones else's college education when that other person is likely going to make a better living then him?
I think it would be good for students as well. Some non-flagship public universities aren't very good academically. For example Northeastern Illinois University, which isn't nearly as good as the University of Illinois, and likely has a higher % of the total budget from the state then the bigger school. If it didn't get public money, it would have to be better to get students to replace the income from the state. Either that or it goes away because it isn't serving the interests of its students.
I'd agree that NEIU is at the low end of public universities in Illinois and would never make it on its own.
but truthfully, even some of the better public universities in the state....UIC, ISU, SIU, NIU.....would have great difficulty making it on their own. Only UIUC has the status that brings in enough not governmental funding and endowment to have a chance to pull off being independent in the state.
And in your state, I would imagine that only IU and Purdue have that ability among the state universities.
Just on a sidenote, as a non American, I'm blown away by the sheer number of universities in the United States. How the heck do they all find find a critical mass of students to stay open?
1) There are over 300 million people living here.
2) Because the land mass of the U.S. is so large, we need more universities scattered throughout to serve people for whom it is not practical to pick up and move 2,000 miles or more to the east coast to attend college.
3) Whereas in many countries there is a single university system run by a national government, here we have 50 states that each run their own university system, and each state runs multiple universities.
4) Our society places perhaps an inordinate emphasis on the need for a college education.
5) Our universities also attract a lot of foreign students, particularly for graduate programs.
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do you think public universities will be privitized?
