(10-14-2015 12:28 PM)JesseTU Wrote:  

(10-13-2015 02:17 PM)MercerCo_BearCat Wrote:  

(10-13-2015 02:16 PM)HoustonRocks Wrote:  Some other AAC schools may be in the AAU someday. Some will never be.

Curious, who have the chance? and who has no chance? I'm a little ignorant on the AAU.

Academic geek warning...

Research budgets will dictate this. There is something to setting academic standard for admissions, graduation rate, etc. (undergrad academic standing). They care about membership in various other organizations, how many PhDs your staff have. How many doctorates you issue. How many awards your faculty gets. Publications (and citations to them). All that fun stuff... But the real kicked for AAU membership is the research budget a school has. And its weighted to National Science Grants (Ag grants count about 50 cent on the dollar).

Tulane's medical school keeps them in the loop. But barely. The big boys of the AAU spend more on research than Tulane has in their entire budget (Tulane $500mil budget, Johns Hopikin's research budget is north of $2 Billion). Tulane pulls in research grants just north of $150mil. Oregon is dead last in the AAU for research dollars, at $110mil.

Nebraska and Syracuse were each asked to leave the AAU because they had less than $100mil in research grants (in Nebraska's defense, they got screwed on the ag grant issue AND their medical school is counted as a separate institution).

Cinci and South Florida both have large research budgets. Cinci with $430mil ($267 in Federal grants) USF with $433mil ($236 Fed). But most of those grants are not the competitive grants the AAU is looking for (National Science Foundation being the key ones). They also have other institutional issues trying to get AAU membership (PhDs granted standing in the academic community, publications, etc.)

UCONN was invited to apply to the AAU in 2013. They have less research dollars than Cinci or USF, but the dollars come from the right place. But at only $80mil in listed research grants, the outcome seems doubtful (unless other research grants aren't including in their budget).

Dartmouth. Georgia. A ton of other schools are trying to get in. Nebraska is trying to get back in (they hope to triple their "acceptable" grants soon). I don't see any other AAC schools with a chance.

Temple isn't a top 100 school and University, isn't selective, and fatally - doesn't have strong graduate programs and a has a tiny research budget ($17mil).

Tulsa and SMU are academically good schools. But Tulsa's total budget is $250mil (with a $1 Bil endowment though!), a disproportional research budget for the size of the school - but not nearly enough to matter. Also, while it is selective, it isn't hyper selective or a world renowned name (maybe in petroleum engineering circles, but...). Ivy league, Rice and Cal Institute of Tech are the only small school members (less than 15k kids) and have all been members for generations.

SMU suffers from the same problems. Not a major research institution.

Navy presents an unusual prospect, but I don't think they give a rats ass about joining the AAU and their goals don't align with each other anyway. Just a different animal.

I don't think any other AAC teams even think of themselves as prospective AAU members. Let alone getting the attention of the AAU itself.

Fun fact: The Big Ten board of presidents said they would not have invited Nebraska if they were not an AAU member. All Big Ten Members, but Nebraska, are AAU members (including non-sports member U Chicago). So in all the "expansion" talk, add "AAU" member to the Big Ten list.

Cuse's new Chancellor is getting this fixed...problem with SU is the medical school and Environmental/Forestry Schools are SUNY's and don't count. This might take a decade to fix though...to fix what the last Chancellor did with her social agenda.

(10-14-2015 01:14 PM)MercerCo_BearCat Wrote:  What you are saying here, is of the 12 AAC schools, Cincinnati, South Florida, and UCONN have the best chance of the conference on getting AAU membership?

Yes, that's the short version. The recent trend has been to shrink membership and a new member is only added once or twice a decade... makes it a tough club to join.

(10-13-2015 11:29 AM)wavefan12 Wrote:  

(10-13-2015 11:22 AM)billybobby777 Wrote:  Yeah but Tulane fans on here like to point out that they have a rich school with a huge endowment that can put $ into their athletics department. Surely that same reasoning can apply here too right? Cheers!

Whomever says that doesn't understand how the endowment works. You can't just take out $50mm whenever you please both because we have a contractual obligation to the hedge fund managers and many investments are long term.

What I think many have said is that we have some rich donors/graduates that can fund athletics.

As far as college cost centers, admin costs have exploded and made universities bloated. I argue the cheap debt is a big reason why.

A lot of colleges and universities have exploited the cheap cost of money in recent years by issuing debt to either expand/renovate or retire old debt. The latter is a good thing.

(10-14-2015 07:14 AM)blunderbuss Wrote:  What's tuition at Tulane? $50K or so? How do you run a deficit with an outrageous tuition like that. It's honestly beyond my comprehension how people can afford to go to school there.

Further, if I'm hiring I don't really consider a 25K+ degree (SMU, Rice, Tulane, TCU) that far above our AAC 'city' schools (USF, UCF, Houston, Cinci, etc.). These are very good schools also, just not as expensive.

Degree earned, GPA, extracurricular involvement, employment history/experience, and the interview itself matter more then WHERE you got your degree. At least to me...

Not a knock on Tulane, etc., which are great schools... I'm just a practical guy and I like value (and avoiding debt). But a small school with huge tuition running a deficit this big is serious mismanagement somewhere...

The reason Nebraska's Ag grants didn't count is that they were federal political pork. They were not peer revied through any of the national endowments, so it makes sense the AAU wouldn't count them.

Nor does the AAU count the budget of medical centers. You see UAB with a huge hospital budget, but much of that is for teaching. The AAU doesn't count the amount a university spends on teaching. It is purely medical research that counts.

(10-14-2015 12:37 PM)DrBox Wrote:  

(10-14-2015 07:45 AM)Zipfanatik Wrote:  It's a national trend to bring in a CEO/business type as president to provide fiscal management, rather than an accomplished PhD education administrator for academic cred. Especially with the public schools which are receiving less support from squeezed state budgets; rising costs of course affect all schools.

U of Iowa picked a non-academic..COO of Boston Market I believe. Iowa Faculty immediate delivered a no-confidence vote to its BOT. Faculty don't like it, but it's the trend.

Tulane's provost was finalist for that job; but now I believe he's out at Tulane via the housecleaning.

Academics don't like being held to corporate standards and productivity. Weird world imho.

Sent from my XT1030 using Tapatalk

(10-14-2015 01:04 PM)rabidTU2 Wrote:  Tulane has a slightly larger endowment than us (ours is just over $1 billion), but we made a strategic design decision a couple of decades ago to further residentialize the campus. Now about 75% of the students live on campus. And one of our donors built a lot of the housing pretty much at a bargain rate. That basically means we receive the resident room and board funds wo much cost to the school. Also, with a smaller enrollment, our endowment seems to be able to take an occasional "hit" and recover nicely. We also are expandable - the campus - since we aren't locked into a downtown historic area or neighborhoods that are financially entrenched. Our campus is roughly the same size as SMU's, but about twice the size as Tulane's. We will probably keep expanding little by little.

Does Tulane have a master plan?

I'm sure we do.
Tulane's main campus is landlocked, surrounded by an upscale/real upscale neighborhoods on most of 3 sides ( Loyola U covers part of the east side). And the North side (where the stadiums reside) is bounded by a major thoroughfare.
We're already going to move the tennis courts, track and hopefully IPF for football to some land about a mile from campus on the Jefferson Parish line.
We've bought some other uptown properties (a shopping center, e.g.), but there just isn't much commercial space, and none abutting campus. Probably could have been more aggressive in the aftermath of Katrina, but we didn't really know where we stood then.

Re AAU, AAU schools also have to have some reasonable level of selectivity.
And those research dollars are also measured on a per capita basis.

SMU was fortunate that we were able to buy quite a bit of commercial property east of campus (east of 75) where we have moved admin jobs, facilities engineers and other jobs not directly needed on campus.

(10-14-2015 08:01 PM)Pony94 Wrote:  SMU was fortunate that we were able to buy quite a bit of commercial property east of campus (east of 75) where we have moved admin jobs, facilities engineers and other jobs not directly needed on campus.

That's the way to do it.

AAC is a pretty great academic/research conference.

(10-14-2015 06:48 PM)DrBox Wrote:  

(10-14-2015 01:04 PM)rabidTU2 Wrote:  Does Tulane have a master plan?

I'm sure we do.

I don't know if it made the final cut because there were many objections, but the proposed new New Orleans Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance required all colleges and universities in the city to submit a master plan for "pre-approval" of proposed future construction, demolition, etc.

AAU is really just a ranking of research dollars. It does not correlate to academic quality. That said, SMU will be over 50 million within 2 years, which is very solid per capita for a 7k undergrad student body. Student quality is the best indicator of academic quality at whatever university you are examining. That is why the IVY's are considered the best places to learn in the country - their average students are brilliant, and everyone there benefits from that. To say a 45k tuition school (SMU/Tulane) where you are surrounded by 1300 plus SAT kids who really want to learn (and are bright) is not worth it, does not acknowledge the benefit of contextual learning.

Also - very few play full retail. Well less than 40% in the case of SMU.

(10-14-2015 11:44 AM)blunderbuss Wrote:  

(10-14-2015 11:25 AM)OUGwave Wrote:  

(10-14-2015 07:14 AM)blunderbuss Wrote:  What's tuition at Tulane? $50K or so? How do you run a deficit with an outrageous tuition like that. It's honestly beyond my comprehension how people can afford to go to school there.

They are generous with financial aid. Ever hear the saying "Nobody pays retail?" Applies here.

I did not qualify for need-based aid, but I got a 15k a year scholarship. My parents generously picked up 15 or 20k a year. I put the rest on very low-interest loans. It's doable.

$35K/year is doable? For MOST families, no. Consider yourself VERY fortunate that your folks were willing to spend that kind of $$$. You got a HUGE leg up on most kids coming out of HS. That's enough to cover multiple years of public school in NC. Not realistic AT ALL.

I gave you MY situation. As someone who did not qualify for financial aid, but still had some discount from Tulane.

Everyone's situation is going to vary, hence "doable."

For instance, if one does qualify for need-based financial aid, they'll obviously get a much bigger discount.

Not that hard to understand. The point is that yes, it's expensive -- but even for someone like me where my parents could have theoretically paid full price, we did not have to. Get it? Hardly anyone is paying full price, so you can't just look at the $50k sticker price.

I paid less to go to SMU than I would have to go to UT

(10-14-2015 10:30 PM)gostangs Wrote:  AAU is really just a ranking of research dollars. It does not correlate to academic quality. That said, SMU will be over 50 million within 2 years, which is very solid per capita for a 7k undergrad student body. Student quality is the best indicator of academic quality at whatever university you are examining. That is why the IVY's are considered the best places to learn in the country - their average students are brilliant, and everyone there benefits from that. To say a 45k tuition school (SMU/Tulane) where you are surrounded by 1300 plus SAT kids who really want to learn (and are bright) is not worth it, does not acknowledge the benefit of contextual learning.

Also - very few play full retail. Well less than 40% in the case of SMU.

This is not true in the least. It doesn't rank by research dollars. To be in the AAU, they are looking at a variety of factors. First off, they require breadth. Across the disciplines. This hurts certain schools, like let's say Virginia Tech. When schools start shearing off programs to plow money into research, the AAU takes note and warns against this.

There are also very well regarded schools inside the AAU and outside who don't have the average SATs but are considered higher quality institutions because of their programming, faculty, etc. Schools have different missions. A state school like Illinois, for example, may be considered a top 50 in the eyes of many, and much better than a school with students with higher scores: U Miami, to give one example.

(10-14-2015 04:10 PM)blunderbuss Wrote:  

(10-14-2015 12:37 PM)DrBox Wrote:  

(10-14-2015 07:45 AM)Zipfanatik Wrote:  It's a national trend to bring in a CEO/business type as president to provide fiscal management, rather than an accomplished PhD education administrator for academic cred. Especially with the public schools which are receiving less support from squeezed state budgets; rising costs of course affect all schools.

U of Iowa picked a non-academic..COO of Boston Market I believe. Iowa Faculty immediate delivered a no-confidence vote to its BOT. Faculty don't like it, but it's the trend.

Tulane's provost was finalist for that job; but now I believe he's out at Tulane via the housecleaning.

Academics don't like being held to corporate standards and productivity. Weird world imho.

Sent from my XT1030 using Tapatalk

Probably because the guy doesn't now WTF he's doing.

Selling chicken is different from research.

(10-15-2015 08:30 AM)upstater1 Wrote:  

(10-14-2015 10:30 PM)gostangs Wrote:  AAU is really just a ranking of research dollars. It does not correlate to academic quality. That said, SMU will be over 50 million within 2 years, which is very solid per capita for a 7k undergrad student body. Student quality is the best indicator of academic quality at whatever university you are examining. That is why the IVY's are considered the best places to learn in the country - their average students are brilliant, and everyone there benefits from that. To say a 45k tuition school (SMU/Tulane) where you are surrounded by 1300 plus SAT kids who really want to learn (and are bright) is not worth it, does not acknowledge the benefit of contextual learning.

Also - very few play full retail. Well less than 40% in the case of SMU.

This is not true in the least. It doesn't rank by research dollars. To be in the AAU, they are looking at a variety of factors. First off, they require breadth. Across the disciplines. This hurts certain schools, like let's say Virginia Tech. When schools start shearing off programs to plow money into research, the AAU takes note and warns against this.

There are also very well regarded schools inside the AAU and outside who don't have the average SATs but are considered higher quality institutions because of their programming, faculty, etc. Schools have different missions. A state school like Illinois, for example, may be considered a top 50 in the eyes of many, and much better than a school with students with higher scores: U Miami, to give one example.

This. Otherwise schools like UAB, Cincinnati, Oklahoma and NC State would have been invited a few years ago (they garner more research funding than 1/3 of the members and in some cases triple the $$$).

The AAU will either increase in number of membership or purge members. Its members want to stay small in number.

As nonmember schools increase research in dollars and quality they will surpass current members. Several AAC members have some AAU metrics exceeding those of current AAU members. Normalizing research dollars by enrollment helps small AAU members but at some point that methodology becomes not credible. Are they really going to deny membership to a school with 5 times the amount of research dollars of some existing members?

The AAC has some fine academic and research institutions. Schools , such as Cincinnati and South Florida, are well positioned to pursue AAU membership.

UH has set AAU membership as a goal and it is vigorously being pursued. UH is taking steps to increase each of the metrics used by the AAU. It publishes an annual report card on the metrics. It costs a lot of money but UH has purchased a 70 acre research park and is spending money to increase the number of researchers, National Academic members, and award winning faculty. UH will surpass some existing AAU members in every metric within a few years. It currently exceeds 6 of 9 minimums of existing members.

(10-15-2015 08:32 AM)upstater1 Wrote:  

(10-14-2015 04:10 PM)blunderbuss Wrote:  

(10-14-2015 12:37 PM)DrBox Wrote:  

(10-14-2015 07:45 AM)Zipfanatik Wrote:  It's a national trend to bring in a CEO/business type as president to provide fiscal management, rather than an accomplished PhD education administrator for academic cred. Especially with the public schools which are receiving less support from squeezed state budgets; rising costs of course affect all schools.

U of Iowa picked a non-academic..COO of Boston Market I believe. Iowa Faculty immediate delivered a no-confidence vote to its BOT. Faculty don't like it, but it's the trend.

Tulane's provost was finalist for that job; but now I believe he's out at Tulane via the housecleaning.

Academics don't like being held to corporate standards and productivity. Weird world imho.

Sent from my XT1030 using Tapatalk

Probably because the guy doesn't now WTF he's doing.

Selling chicken is different from research.

His name is Michael Bernstein and I was his grad TA for a class. He earns his pay and works his a$$ off.

(10-15-2015 07:45 AM)OUGwave Wrote:  

(10-14-2015 11:44 AM)blunderbuss Wrote:  

(10-14-2015 11:25 AM)OUGwave Wrote:  

(10-14-2015 07:14 AM)blunderbuss Wrote:  What's tuition at Tulane? $50K or so? How do you run a deficit with an outrageous tuition like that. It's honestly beyond my comprehension how people can afford to go to school there.

They are generous with financial aid. Ever hear the saying "Nobody pays retail?" Applies here.

I did not qualify for need-based aid, but I got a 15k a year scholarship. My parents generously picked up 15 or 20k a year. I put the rest on very low-interest loans. It's doable.

$35K/year is doable? For MOST families, no. Consider yourself VERY fortunate that your folks were willing to spend that kind of $$$. You got a HUGE leg up on most kids coming out of HS. That's enough to cover multiple years of public school in NC. Not realistic AT ALL.

I gave you MY situation. As someone who did not qualify for financial aid, but still had some discount from Tulane.

Everyone's situation is going to vary, hence "doable."

For instance, if one does qualify for need-based financial aid, they'll obviously get a much bigger discount.

Not that hard to understand. The point is that yes, it's expensive -- but even for someone like me where my parents could have theoretically paid full price, we did not have to. Get it? Hardly anyone is paying full price, so you can't just look at the $50k sticker price.

So why the huge sticker price if most are getting aid? It just seems like a lot of colleges (public schools included) are gaming the system.

(10-15-2015 09:19 AM)blunderbuss Wrote:  

(10-15-2015 07:45 AM)OUGwave Wrote:  

(10-14-2015 11:44 AM)blunderbuss Wrote:  

(10-14-2015 11:25 AM)OUGwave Wrote:  

(10-14-2015 07:14 AM)blunderbuss Wrote:  What's tuition at Tulane? $50K or so? How do you run a deficit with an outrageous tuition like that. It's honestly beyond my comprehension how people can afford to go to school there.

They are generous with financial aid. Ever hear the saying "Nobody pays retail?" Applies here.

I did not qualify for need-based aid, but I got a 15k a year scholarship. My parents generously picked up 15 or 20k a year. I put the rest on very low-interest loans. It's doable.

$35K/year is doable? For MOST families, no. Consider yourself VERY fortunate that your folks were willing to spend that kind of $$$. You got a HUGE leg up on most kids coming out of HS. That's enough to cover multiple years of public school in NC. Not realistic AT ALL.

I gave you MY situation. As someone who did not qualify for financial aid, but still had some discount from Tulane.

Everyone's situation is going to vary, hence "doable."

For instance, if one does qualify for need-based financial aid, they'll obviously get a much bigger discount.

Not that hard to understand. The point is that yes, it's expensive -- but even for someone like me where my parents could have theoretically paid full price, we did not have to. Get it? Hardly anyone is paying full price, so you can't just look at the $50k sticker price.

So why the huge sticker price if most are getting aid? It just seems like a lot of colleges (public schools included) are gaming the system.

It makes people feel like they are getting a bargain when they see a $20k scholarship. It also allows them to charge full price from the rich so they can move that cash to the better students who can't afford to pay anywhere close to the full sticker price. To some degree, it also is a branding effort, meaning people see the huge cost and think it is a statement of the quality of the education you receive.

I think over 75% of TU students receive aid. I went to grad school at TU and didn't have to pay a dime in tuition.