(05-04-2016 06:47 PM)IHAVETRIED Wrote:  

(05-04-2016 06:31 PM)nzmorange Wrote:  

(05-04-2016 06:12 PM)ULdave Wrote:  

(05-04-2016 05:47 PM)nzmorange Wrote:  UL wasn't ever private. It was city-owned until the state took over.

https://louisville.edu/ur/ucomm/mags/fal...hives.html

I was always told it was private, this link appears to back that up.

"They won a partial victory in 1846, when the Kentucky legislature created the University of Louisville proper, combining the medical school, the college, and a newly created law school. Although there was now a common board of trustees, each division retained financial autonomy, and the college did not survive."

...

"Perhaps the most dramatic development of the postwar period was the movement of tax-paying citizens from the city to the suburbs. Because the University of Louisville was municipally funded, this caused a damaging drain on the school's revenue. As early as 1965, a governor's task force suggested the possibility of the university's joining the state system of higher education, which it did in 1970."

...

"It is well positioned to fulfill the mission assigned to it by the state legislature: to become 'a premier, nationally-recognized metropolitan research university.'" (admittedly, this last quote doesn't prove anything other than it's public right now)

http://louisville.edu/about/history

"It was a municipally supported public institution for many decades prior to joining the university system in 1970."

http://louisville.edu/about/

FWIW, Wikipedia also agrees with the louisville.edu pages.

[EDIT: It's weird that both sources are from U of L and directly contradict. But, I think that mine are right for 3 reasons: 1) I think that web pages are more scrutinized more than they were in the late 90's and for me to be wrong, two sections of the UL web site would have to be either completely wrong/misleading or just completely wrong. 2) Wikipedia seems to agree with my interpretation (I didn't link/post quotes, but I can). 3) My story makes more sense to me. Reasonably minds can obviously differ on point #3. I think that the older web page might have erroneously misused the term "private" to mean "not state government supported," as opposed to "not government supported."]

This is something I actually know. UofL was 100% funded by City of Louisville and Private Donations, until 1968/1969. State of Kentucky began its funding in 1969. When I started there, it was City/Private, when I graduated, it had become State.

From that article, it sounds like it was a private university that received subsidies from the city amounting to 10% of the budget.

The distinction is probably negligible because money talks. If the city wanted something badly enough, they always could have withheld funds.

FWIW, I think (not certain) that Cincinnati had the same setup before facing the same issues that Louisville did (taxpayers moving to the suburbs and freeriding on the services provided by a big public research institution).

(05-04-2016 06:52 PM)ULdave Wrote:  At the end of the day, the old alumni will tell you that UofL of was private when they went there.

Agreed, and what puzzles me is that it's been my experience that if you talk to them long enough, they say something like this:

(05-04-2016 06:47 PM)IHAVETRIED Wrote:  This is something I actually know. UofL was 100% funded by City of Louisville and Private Donations, until 1968/1969. State of Kentucky began its funding in 1969. When I started there, it was City/Private, when I graduated, it had become State.

If it was getting city funding, it wasn't private. Public schools often get private funding (i.e. alumni donations, tuition, gifts from local businesses, etc.), but, to the best of my knowledge, private schools almost never get appreciable levels of public funding (for obvious reasons).

I think that the school just misused "private" to mean "not funded by the state government," even though that's not a correct use of the term. I'm guessing that most people don't care, and the term differentiated them from UK, which was what they were really trying to do.

(05-04-2016 07:01 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  

(05-04-2016 06:31 PM)nzmorange Wrote:  "It was a municipally supported public institution for many decades prior to joining the university system in 1970."

http://louisville.edu/about/

From that article, it sounds like it was a private university that received subsidies from the city amounting to 10% of the budget.

I'm not sure which article you're citing, but this line came from the UL website.

(05-04-2016 07:03 PM)nzmorange Wrote:  

(05-04-2016 06:52 PM)ULdave Wrote:  At the end of the day, the old alumni will tell you that UofL of was private when they went there.

Agreed, and what puzzles me is that it's been my experience that if you talk to them long enough, they say something like this:

(05-04-2016 06:47 PM)IHAVETRIED Wrote:  This is something I actually know. UofL was 100% funded by City of Louisville and Private Donations, until 1968/1969. State of Kentucky began its funding in 1969. When I started there, it was City/Private, when I graduated, it had become State.

If it was getting city funding, it wasn't private. Public schools often get private funding (i.e. alumni donations, tuition, gifts from local businesses, etc.), but, to the best of my knowledge, private schools almost never get appreciable levels of public funding (for obvious reasons).

I think that the school just misused "private" to mean "not funded by the state government," even though that's not a correct use of the term. I'm guessing that most people don't care, and the term differentiated them from UK, which was what they were really trying to do.

Not entirely true. Duke receives about $500 million a year from the federal government and $30 million from the state for research. They're hardly an abberration. Stanford gets $600 million federal and $25 million state, and Cornell gets $450 million federal and $65 million state.

Those funds are targeted towards research, but in actuality they're also used to fund offices, labs, office staff, and pretty much all the graduate school expenses in most non-professional disciplines. Considering that graduate schools are over half the students at Duke & Stanford, I'd say the bulk of their students are funded by the government.

(05-04-2016 07:21 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  

(05-04-2016 07:03 PM)nzmorange Wrote:  

(05-04-2016 06:52 PM)ULdave Wrote:  At the end of the day, the old alumni will tell you that UofL of was private when they went there.

Agreed, and what puzzles me is that it's been my experience that if you talk to them long enough, they say something like this:

(05-04-2016 06:47 PM)IHAVETRIED Wrote:  This is something I actually know. UofL was 100% funded by City of Louisville and Private Donations, until 1968/1969. State of Kentucky began its funding in 1969. When I started there, it was City/Private, when I graduated, it had become State.

If it was getting city funding, it wasn't private. Public schools often get private funding (i.e. alumni donations, tuition, gifts from local businesses, etc.), but, to the best of my knowledge, private schools almost never get appreciable levels of public funding (for obvious reasons).

I think that the school just misused "private" to mean "not funded by the state government," even though that's not a correct use of the term. I'm guessing that most people don't care, and the term differentiated them from UK, which was what they were really trying to do.

Not entirely true. Duke receives about $500 million a year from the federal government and $30 million from the state for research. They're hardly an abberration. Stanford gets $600 million federal and $25 million state, and Cornell gets $450 million federal and $65 million state.

Those funds are targeted towards research, but in actuality they're also used to fund offices, labs, office staff, and pretty much all the graduate school expenses in most non-professional disciplines. Considering that graduate schools are over half the students at Duke & Stanford, I'd say the bulk of their students are funded by the government.

Graduate students are cash cows.

Wow .... thanks for all the updates on the history of the University of Louisville ...

I did not know much of that. So thanks.

One thing I think many people don't know, including most U of L supporters, is that U of L traces it roots to 1798 ... 67 years before the University of Kentucky was founded. Not being part of the statewide system for such a long time, or being one of the two land grant universities in the state, U of L folks have always had a feeling of second class citizenship, and that usually comes with an assumption of inferiority in age to it's counterparts.

Is Cornell a public or private institution? I know that it is a member of the Ivy League, but I also know it has an ag department too that was established as a result of the Morrill Act (the congressional bill that created land grant universities). I'm also surprised that the New York State legislature hasn't tried to take over or buy out Syracuse University in recent times or in the past.

(05-04-2016 07:03 PM)nzmorange Wrote:  If it was getting city funding, it wasn't private. Public schools often get private funding (i.e. alumni donations, tuition, gifts from local businesses, etc.), but, to the best of my knowledge, private schools almost never get appreciable levels of public funding (for obvious reasons).

But for a long time, that would in part because the federal Land Grant funding was primarily directed toward state Universities (one reason Cornell has some private colleges and some public colleges) ... so once a state has designated a school as the Land Grant, they have less incentive to subsidize a competing private.

A city-funded school wouldn't face the same competition, so it seems more likely that if we have had any publicly-subsidized private schools, they would be more likely to be city Universities than state Universities.

Auburn University used to be a private school until it was bought out by the state of Alabama and turned into Alabama's land grant institution.

(05-04-2016 07:01 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  

(05-04-2016 06:47 PM)IHAVETRIED Wrote:  

(05-04-2016 06:31 PM)nzmorange Wrote:  

(05-04-2016 06:12 PM)ULdave Wrote:  

(05-04-2016 05:47 PM)nzmorange Wrote:  UL wasn't ever private. It was city-owned until the state took over.

https://louisville.edu/ur/ucomm/mags/fal...hives.html

I was always told it was private, this link appears to back that up.

"They won a partial victory in 1846, when the Kentucky legislature created the University of Louisville proper, combining the medical school, the college, and a newly created law school. Although there was now a common board of trustees, each division retained financial autonomy, and the college did not survive."

...

"Perhaps the most dramatic development of the postwar period was the movement of tax-paying citizens from the city to the suburbs. Because the University of Louisville was municipally funded, this caused a damaging drain on the school's revenue. As early as 1965, a governor's task force suggested the possibility of the university's joining the state system of higher education, which it did in 1970."

...

"It is well positioned to fulfill the mission assigned to it by the state legislature: to become 'a premier, nationally-recognized metropolitan research university.'" (admittedly, this last quote doesn't prove anything other than it's public right now)

http://louisville.edu/about/history

"It was a municipally supported public institution for many decades prior to joining the university system in 1970."

http://louisville.edu/about/

FWIW, Wikipedia also agrees with the louisville.edu pages.

[EDIT: It's weird that both sources are from U of L and directly contradict. But, I think that mine are right for 3 reasons: 1) I think that web pages are more scrutinized more than they were in the late 90's and for me to be wrong, two sections of the UL web site would have to be either completely wrong/misleading or just completely wrong. 2) Wikipedia seems to agree with my interpretation (I didn't link/post quotes, but I can). 3) My story makes more sense to me. Reasonably minds can obviously differ on point #3. I think that the older web page might have erroneously misused the term "private" to mean "not state government supported," as opposed to "not government supported."]

This is something I actually know. UofL was 100% funded by City of Louisville and Private Donations, until 1968/1969. State of Kentucky began its funding in 1969. When I started there, it was City/Private, when I graduated, it had become State.

From that article, it sounds like it was a private university that received subsidies from the city amounting to 10% of the budget.

The distinction is probably negligible because money talks. If the city wanted something badly enough, they always could have withheld funds.

FWIW, I think (not certain) that Cincinnati had the same setup before facing the same issues that Louisville did (taxpayers moving to the suburbs and freeriding on the services provided by a big public research institution).

Yeah UC started out as private. What is today UC started out in 1819 as two schools, Cincinnati College and Medical College of Ohio. It was founded and funded by Dr. Daniel Drake. The school shut down after six years but re-opened in 1835 funded again by Dr. Drake. They also opened the law school that year. In 1858 Charles McMicken died and left a significant amount of money to the city to expand and run the university. At one point the school was renamed McMicken College.

UC's Ohio charter was intentionally stalled by the Ohio legislature until 1870. The reason for the delay was reportedly due to concerns over the school's lack of agricultural and manufacturing emphasis. That same year the school was renamed the University of Cincinnati.

In 1968 UC formally became municipally owned, state affiliated. In 1977 it became a state university.

(05-04-2016 07:03 PM)nzmorange Wrote:  

(05-04-2016 06:52 PM)ULdave Wrote:  At the end of the day, the old alumni will tell you that UofL of was private when they went there.

Agreed, and what puzzles me is that it's been my experience that if you talk to them long enough, they say something like this:

(05-04-2016 06:47 PM)IHAVETRIED Wrote:  This is something I actually know. UofL was 100% funded by City of Louisville and Private Donations, until 1968/1969. State of Kentucky began its funding in 1969. When I started there, it was City/Private, when I graduated, it had become State.

If it was getting city funding, it wasn't private. Public schools often get private funding (i.e. alumni donations, tuition, gifts from local businesses, etc.), but, to the best of my knowledge, private schools almost never get appreciable levels of public funding (for obvious reasons).

I think that the school just misused "private" to mean "not funded by the state government," even though that's not a correct use of the term. I'm guessing that most people don't care, and the term differentiated them from UK, which was what they were really trying to do.

I certainly look at it the way you interpret it. There were 4 funding source classes: City of Louisville, Private Donations, Grants from Various Sources, and Student Tuition. It was a small liberal arts "city commuter" school, but also with respected medical and law and engineering programs.

(05-05-2016 12:04 AM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(05-04-2016 07:03 PM)nzmorange Wrote:  If it was getting city funding, it wasn't private. Public schools often get private funding (i.e. alumni donations, tuition, gifts from local businesses, etc.), but, to the best of my knowledge, private schools almost never get appreciable levels of public funding (for obvious reasons).

But for a long time, that would in part because the federal Land Grant funding was primarily directed toward state Universities (one reason Cornell has some private colleges and some public colleges) ... so once a state has designated a school as the Land Grant, they have less incentive to subsidize a competing private.

A city-funded school wouldn't face the same competition, so it seems more likely that if we have had any publicly-subsidized private schools, they would be more likely to be city Universities than state Universities.

I agree on this general point, Bruce.

William & Mary was a private school.

Virginia Commonwealth University may claim they were a private school at one time under their former names.

(05-04-2016 12:07 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  I ran across this quote in the book "Freedomnomics" (note - not "Freakonomics"):

"In fact, state universities have acquired many formerly private universities after driving, or threatening to drive, the private schools into bankruptcy. Examples include George Mason University School of Law, University of Buffalo, University of Houston, and University of Pittsburgh. In the case of the University of Buffalo, the State University of New York reportedly threatened to open up a public university across the street unless the University of Buffalo joined the state system."

A footnote says that this comes from a conversation with an economics professor at Buffalo.

This made me wonder about the whole process that turned private schools into public schools nationwide. Was it usually threats? Or was it initiated by the private universities themselves?

I've heard in the case of Buffalo it was a little bit of both. I suspect more arm twisting fear and UB admission.

1 - Before UB joined SUNY it was rapidly growing. It had started to outgrow it's campus and there was some concern about how to keep growing.

2 - I've heard that SUNY basically told UB... We are putting a state university and research center in Buffalo. If it's not you then we will put someone else in.

The net effect was to destroy the alumni donations base for a generation. People like Robert E. Rich who were *HUGE* money people in Buffalo who also had played UB football and the like distanced themselves from the now Public University.

It's part of the reason why a very successful UB program through the late 50's and early 60's fell downhill so fast in the late 60's and early 70's.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henderson_...University

Henderson State University was Arkadelphia Methodist College back in 1890 and then was gonna merge with Hendrix College with the name change to Henderson-Brown but there was a backlash against the merger where the state took control over the schools and became Henderson State in 1929.

Notable alumnus

Bobby Bones
Ken Duke pro golfer
Roy Green former NFL player
Gus Malzahn
Charlie Strong Texas Longhorn's head football coach
Robert Thomas former Dallas Cowboy's player
Billy Bob Thornton (attended)

It is neat history on who went to these smaller schools.

(05-06-2016 12:31 AM)Bull_In_Exile Wrote:  

(05-04-2016 12:07 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  I ran across this quote in the book "Freedomnomics" (note - not "Freakonomics"):

"In fact, state universities have acquired many formerly private universities after driving, or threatening to drive, the private schools into bankruptcy. Examples include George Mason University School of Law, University of Buffalo, University of Houston, and University of Pittsburgh. In the case of the University of Buffalo, the State University of New York reportedly threatened to open up a public university across the street unless the University of Buffalo joined the state system."

A footnote says that this comes from a conversation with an economics professor at Buffalo.

This made me wonder about the whole process that turned private schools into public schools nationwide. Was it usually threats? Or was it initiated by the private universities themselves?

I've heard in the case of Buffalo it was a little bit of both. I suspect more arm twisting fear and UB admission.

1 - Before UB joined SUNY it was rapidly growing. It had started to outgrow it's campus and there was some concern about how to keep growing.

2 - I've heard that SUNY basically told UB... We are putting a state university and research center in Buffalo. If it's not you then we will put someone else in.

The net effect was to destroy the alumni donations base for a generation. People like Robert E. Rich who were *HUGE* money people in Buffalo who also had played UB football and the like distanced themselves from the now Public University.

It's part of the reason why a very successful UB program through the late 50's and early 60's fell downhill so fast in the late 60's and early 70's.

UB's best years in many ways were the 1970s. They poured a ton of money into that school and brought in the best faculty. It was a great place to be. If people look at how a small private school became a state school and then 25 years later they joined the AAU, it probably has everything to do with how much emphasis was placed on the school around 1970.

Arkansas-Little Rock a non-football member of the Sun Belt (and first round NCAA winner this year) began as a juco owned by the Little Rock School District. The shut-down of the Little Rock schools coupled with a desire to offer bachelor's degrees resulted in the college being spun-off as a private college. It operated as a private college for just shy of two decades and then during the student enrollment bust post-boomer was about to go bust. The state took it over and made it part of the UA System.

(05-05-2016 12:00 AM)DawgNBama Wrote:  Is Cornell a public or private institution? I know that it is a member of the Ivy League, but I also know it has an ag department too that was established as a result of the Morrill Act (the congressional bill that created land grant universities). I'm also surprised that the New York State legislature hasn't tried to take over or buy out Syracuse University in recent times or in the past.

It is both but the public parts of the university are less numerous than the private areas (I believe certain schools or collages are publicly owned and the rest is private).

By and large most would say the school is private even with the public areas.

(05-07-2016 10:33 PM)Sultan of Euphonistan Wrote:  By and large most would say the school is private even with the public areas.

That is the perception ... and of course Cornell does not fight to change that perception.

Part of how Cornell is part-public and part-private is that there is substantially more autonomy at the college level at Cornell than at other Universities of similar size and prominence. They reduce the (inevitable) conflicts between the public sections and the private sections by having fewer issues decided at the University level, so there is less for them to fight about.

Buchtel College (not to be confused with Bucknell)