(06-17-2017 10:03 AM)Stpetebeachrocketfan Wrote: (06-17-2017 05:59 AM)SylvaniaRocket Wrote: http://www.bcsn.tv/news_article/show/804..._id=878183
Dr Gaber has been the best President UT has had in a long time. She is making a lot of great things happen through team work, fresh ideas, new revenue avenues, and cuts that are fair and make sense. I am not surprised that her peers picked her.
What are some of those? YOUR top five?
I recently was looking at some data (my real interest being operating costs of Columbus St relative to similar state flagships and its effects on the former Municipal universities like UT, Akron... for another project and there are some alarms. The original intent (I thought) of incorporation of the municipals was a state university system with revenue sharing like NY and California, while maintaining community identity but it seems to have failed to the political will and growth of Columbus, all the while not really getting the return on investment. Columbus St's rankings have soared since mid 90s but their revenue reliance on government monies seems to have also increased at the least, proportionally.
MAC schools in general but NW Ohio specifically has some of the highest student load defaults in the country and virtually no patents or start-up generation (an indicator of independence of government and tuition funding). UT and BG, both top 20 in default rates in the article I read, had defaults in the mid to high teens. Terra and Owens running around 30%. Extremely behind the times in revenue generation, almost the entire operating budget on tuition and government resources. I haven't yet found a breakdown.
A thing I learned, when evaluating, it's important to separate default rates for students that have finished their degree programs from those that haven't, but it's not been the easiest data to find. I don't know how UT's compares.
I read, in general state monies to Universities are falling while federal (pell) are rising. This is not counting research funding, which I believe is also. I'm not sure what piece of that pie UT has positioned themselves to get. Columbus St would not be functional without those gains. They're really sucking at the tit and not exactly turning that into patents or incubation, relative to other similarly mandated land-grant universities. Penn/Pittsburgh are really on the money grab. As are Whisky and Michigan but they are turning that into patents and spin-offs as are the Indiana schools, both of whom are doing it without being high on the government funded lists.
In the extreme, the goal should be government independence. I took a bit of board flack for my position on the 10 year plan investing in student entertainment and maintenance expensive fields, particularly at the Dorr-Secor-Byrne area but IMO, that area should be used for incubators to support Professor research to market. As should Scott Park. This potential will draw not only a better candidate for open positions but add to the overall university operating budget. It's what the big boys are doing.
The other major source I found for government independence, for long term operating expenses are endowments that go either to tuition or directly to operation. Sports are terrific, nice stadiums are great, IF THEY GET BUTTS IN THE SEATs, get a GROWING proportion of the community supportive but very few Universities have been able to succeed in that model, even break even. Someone comes to the boss with a Million for the GB, I'm going to politely hope the boss would ask if they'd be willing to split it also to academics and operation.
I think the CEO's attention to these things, government independent revenue sources are what would draw my attention. Columbus St has so cornered that market, politically I wonder if there's much left for the old Municipals?
