William & Mary, just curious

[MplsBison]

This might seem like an odd question, but why is WM a public school?

I mean, they only have 5k undergrad enrollment, right?


Isn't that kind of hypocritical for a school whose mission is to give as many of the kids of VA a chance at a postsecondary education?


So why aren't they private or why don't they increase enrollment?


Seems like a select few in VA are getting the private school experiance at a public school price at the expense of the VA taxpayers.

[th0m]

I think they don't increase enrollment to ensure the quality of their academics, something that can easily be lost with an increasing enrollment. As far as your last sentence, I don't see why public schools shouldn't be as competitive as private schools if they can and desire so.

[AppGuy04]

They may not have the facilities to increase enrollment, ie classrooms, dorms, etc.

[Dukie95]

As a Virginia taxpayer, it doesn't concern me. There are plenty of opportunities for kids in VA to get a public education, of varying quality.

Virginia has 15 public colleges and universities, two of which have enrollments over 20k - VT and George Mason.

[89Hen]

I mean, they only have 5k undergrad enrollment, right?

Isn't that kind of hypocritical for a school whose mission is to give as many of the kids of VA a chance at a postsecondary education?
Dukie95 has it right, there are plenty of other options. I think that W&M fills a need in a public school that feels more like a private school. Besides, you'd have to question UVA almost more. The Commonwealth of Virginia has a couple more million people than Maryland, but UM is 3x bigger than UVA. It is EXTREMELY difficult to get into UVA.

[rufus]

Virginia has six public schools with enrollments over 10k:

George Mason: 28,874
Virginia Commonwealth: 28,303
Virginia Tech: 27,619
Virginia: 23,341
Old Dominion: 20,595
James Madison: 16,546

If you want a smaller public school, you can go to Christopher Newport, William & Mary, Longwood, Norfolk State, Radford, UVa Wise, Mary Washington, VMI, or Virginia State. I don't think William & Mary should be singled out for their enrollment, when there are seven smaller public schools in the state. I appreciate the fact that the state of Virginia offers students a range of college experiences.

[89Hen]

Virginia: 23,341
UVA undergrad last year... 13,401

[Uncle Buck]

IMO, you get the best bang for your buck down there in VA. As a former taxpayer down there, i had no complaints either.

[Tribe4SF]

W&M, UVA and Va Tech are all looking at going "semi-private". They all have distinct missions, and it is thought that they can do even better without some of the constraints of full state affiliation. Similar in concept to the University of Delaware.

The diversity of opportunity for state residents is excellent. Despite its size, W&M is ranked highly as a national university, and remains the top ranked small public school. The state school which is growing rapidly (both in terms of size, and quality of education) is Christopher Newport University. Both CNU and ODU were once part of the W&M system. They have each taken on unique missions of their own.

[rufus]

With the "academic autonomy" legislation that was passed within the past year or so, I believe a number of Virginia schools are actually looking at that option now. I know JMU is in the process of hiring a consulting firm to take a look at how to implement the highest level of autonomy allowed. I imagine most other schools are doing the same.

[MplsBison]

I appriciate WM's commitment to academics.

I don't want them to increase their enrollment if that will cause the quality to go down.


Simply, IMO a public university should be a place that gives as many public high school students in the state an oppertunity to receive an undergraduate education without going into (too much) debt.

Obviously that is not WM's mission. Their mission is to give those few who are at the top of their class an extraordinary education.


To me, that is a mission of a private school.


I just think that if a school is only going to accept the best of the best from the state, it shouldn't be getting the full state funding that a school who takes in as many new undergrads as possible would.


I have heard that UVa is one of the toughest public schools to get into (along with UNC and a few others). Haven't heard that about VT, JMU, ODU, VCU, etc.


Also, I was refering to only DI schools. So CNU and the other small public schools I wasn't really referring to.

IE, if a school can afford a DI athletic department, it should be able to afford to enroll 10k+ undergrads.

I guess not.

[Tribe4SF]

Like many D-I public schools, W&M's athletic programs are funded to a significant degree by private dollars. The alumni base is small, but "mature", and very generous. Funding for facilities (Laycock Football Center...FieldTurf...lights...Kaplan Arena) and scholarships is all private at this point.

[Husky Alum]

Like many D-I public schools, W&M's athletic programs are funded to a significant degree by private dollars. The alumni base is small, but "mature", and very generous. Funding for facilities (Laycock Football Center...FieldTurf...lights...Kaplan Arena) and scholarships is all private at this point.

Tribe, please correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Mr. Kaplan make a very large gift to W&M which endows about (based on my math) 7-9 basketball scholarships.

I believe that W&M football also is "like an Ivy" in that many of its coaching slots and football scholarships are endowed by generous alumni.

At Yale, the football coach hold the title of the "Joel Smilow Endowed Chair for Football" or something like that. Smilow is a very successful financier and Yale grad who has effectively paid for the head coaching job at Yale through a large endowed gift. I think Harvard has a similar title for its football coach.

[Tribe4SF]

Tribe, please correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Mr. Kaplan make a very large gift to W&M which endows about (based on my math) 7-9 basketball scholarships.

I believe that W&M football also is "like an Ivy" in that many of its coaching slots and football scholarships are endowed by generous alumni.

At Yale, the football coach hold the title of the "Joel Smilow Endowed Chair for Football" or something like that. Smilow is a very successful financier and Yale grad who has effectively paid for the head coaching job at Yale through a large endowed gift. I think Harvard has a similar title for its football coach.

Correct about Jim Kaplan. $7 million which I believe covers about 15 a year for both men's and women's teams. We also have many endowed football scholarships, and annual giving to the Tribe Club is significant.

[Husky Alum]

Correct about Jim Kaplan. $7 million which I believe covers about 15 a year for both men's and women's teams. We also have many endowed football scholarships, and annual giving to the Tribe Club is significant.

Tribe, thanks for the clarification.

Btw, UNH Alum was our guest at the tailgate for homecoming this year. He had better weather than you did last year, but the spread was as equally decadent.

As much as we'd have liked to gift wrap a game for the Wildcats in the same manner we did the Tribe last homecoming - we were able to hold on.

See you at Kaplan for the Tribe-Huskies hoop game.

[rufus]

Simply, IMO a public university should be a place that gives as many public high school students in the state an oppertunity to receive an undergraduate education without going into (too much) debt.
I think that's really the purpose of a state university system rather than an individual state university. Virginia has a broad range public college options. Here's my unscientific academic ranking of Virginia Division I schools:

UVa
W&M
JMU
VT
Mary Washington
George Mason
Longwood
Virginia Commonwealth
Old Dominion
Radford
Norfolk State

I don't rank VMI, because they're just VMI. You could also probably flip UVa/W&M or JMU/VT, but this list gives you the general idea. There's a place for nearly everyone somewhere in this spectrum of universities. To suggest that a college should throw out its standards and accept anyone who wants an education seems absurd.

[MplsBison]

I think that's really the purpose of a state university system rather than an individual state university.

Here is where I would disagree with you.

The same problem exists in the North Dakota "system".

There are the big schools and then a number of small schools who fight and a lot of the time get near equal funding of the big schools without doing as much to earn it.


Maybe in the VA system the smaller schools don't get equal funding.


I'm saying that a school like WM deserves less state funding than a school like George Mason or VT since they do less (much lower undergrad enrollment).


To suggest that a college should throw out its standards and accept anyone who wants an education seems absurd.

It is absurd. Like I said, I don't want that to happen.

[TheTribeHasSpoken]

Tribe, thanks for the clarification.

Btw, UNH Alum was our guest at the tailgate for homecoming this year. He had better weather than you did last year, but the spread was as equally decadent.

As much as we'd have liked to gift wrap a game for the Wildcats in the same manner we did the Tribe last homecoming - we were able to hold on.

See you at Kaplan for the Tribe-Huskies hoop game.Watch out for the Kaplan Krazies:nod: :nod: :nod: :nod: :nod: :nod:

[Wmbgskip]

It's pretty pointless to try and compare systems of higher ed across states, because the funding sources, priorities, and basic governance structures can vary greatly.

Virginia's public higher education system is best described as a loose federation of essentially autonomous schools. Unlike, for instance, North Carolina (which only has one Board of Visitors/trustees for all public institutions), each school has its own Board, and thus has its own mission and own interpretation thereof.

William and Mary's case is somewhat unique even for Virginia-- the Board and administration have long been committed to maintaining the small-college environment, and have resisted attempts by the state to force more students in. The City of Williamsburg doesn't want the College getting any bigger, either. And, since we're nationally recognized for our quality, and predate the state itself by roughly 100 years, the state government accepts it.

The Charter Initiative, which was just passed in the last year, originally started out as a proposal for W&M, UVA, and Tech to become semi-private schools: in return for greater autonomy from state regulations, those three schools offered to accept less money from the state each year. After the various negotiations and such, what actually happened was that a three-tier system of state control was set up.

Every school starts at Tier 1, which is essentially status quo. State funding and control goes down with each higher tier, in return for the schools filing what are essentially six-year business plans with the state. At the moment, I believe the Big Three (W&M, Tech, UVA) are the only tier 3 schools, with most of the other Division I schools at tier 2 and the rest at 3.

----

To get back to what I think was your original question, MplsBison, the service W&M provides to the state is not education of as many undergrads as possible (a need filled by GMU, VCU, ODU, and VT). It's actually the education of teachers for the state public schools, through the School of Education.

Out of state families actually shoulder the brunt of the cost for educating the in-state students at W&M, through tuition and fees which are between two and three times as much as in-state rates. The per-student allocation from the state is actually somewhat lower than the other state schools.

To be perfectly honest with you, any student affairs professional will tell you that it doesn't matter particularly where you go to college, but what you do when there.

--Skip

[MplsBison]

You pretty much answered everything I wanted to know. Thanks skip.


William and Mary's case is somewhat unique even for Virginia-- the Board and administration have long been committed to maintaining the small-college environment, and have resisted attempts by the state to force more students in. The City of Williamsburg doesn't want the College getting any bigger, either. And, since we're nationally recognized for our quality, and predate the state itself by roughly 100 years, the state government accepts it.

Fine, good, great.

Nothing wrong with a school doing this.

Simply, IMO, a school doing this should get less state money than a school that does let mroe students in.


And obviously as the rest of your post goes on to point out, this is exactly what's happening.


The higher ups controling North Dakota's public universities should get a system like this.

[JMU2K_DukeDawg]

Very well said Skip.

I'll only add what I know from first hand experience. I went to JMU 96-00. My sister started there in '93.

What I'll say is that JMU has always had what seems like a unique system for admission. A lot of "nerds" would never get into JMU, while many "average" students would. Why? For one, JMU figured a lot of the bookworms would prefer Ivy League, UVA, or W&M for the pure academics. JMU has never been about pure academics IMO. JMU always seemed to accept the creative, social, very involved students who tend to sacrifice grades for lifestyle. My sister was certainly not the smartest, and she'll be the first to admit that I was always ahead of her in grades. However, she was a superb writer and has worked in the PR / Marketing /Communications field with great success, winning State Awards in VA for Communications with Style Magazine in Richmond and working with the Richmond City Police in their Communications Dept.

I was accepted at JMU and W&M and waitlisted at UVA. Never stuck around for UVA to accept me later as they did not offer what I wanted, other than a good business school. I chose JMU due to the variety of programs that suited me. I minored in Multimedia - SoundDesign, and double majored in Russian and International Business. These combinations of courses were not really available at UVA or W&M. UVA has slavic languages and linguistics, but no Russian program. Also, I wanted to be a part of the MRDs, and toured Europe with them as well as played in the '96 Presidential Inaugural Parade.

The point is not to put down other schools. What VA has is an enviable plethora of schools that focus on different faculties, making an incredible breadth of opportunities for all types of students. Unfortunately, since JMU was a teacher's college for so many years, we have nowhere near the endowments that W&M through its government, economics, and law schools get, or UVA through its Medical, Law and Business Schools get, or Tech through its Ag and Engineering programs. Thus, we remain and will remain for a Loooonnnnggg time to come a Tier 2 school in the system Skip mentioned. But JMU offers a lot of unique and high tech / cutting edge majors that distinguish it from the bunch as well.

Back to football - we can beat all but Virginia Tech this year IMO. Although we did score more on Northeastern than they did... :D

[Maroon&White]

I know this has nothing to do with the subject but, what does MRD stand for?

[JMU-MRD-DAD]

I know this has nothing to do with the subject but, what does MRD stand for?
Marching Royal Dukes...................best band in the world......I'm somewhat bias.......my son plays bass trombone!!!!

[*****]

Nice thread MplsBison!

[89Hen]

Just Missed University... sorry, that's for the smack board in two weeks. :smiley_wi

[*****]

...:nono: :nono: :nono:

[Maroon&White]

Marching Royal Dukes...................best band in the world......I'm somewhat bias.......my son plays bass trombone!!!!

Thanks! I knew it was the band, but had no idea what it stood for. From what I can remember they are pretty good :D

[Tribe4SF]

The MRDs are more than pretty good. They are the best.:bow: