Overcrowding/Overenrollment Issues at top tier schools
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Anonymous
No one cares what happened in 1987, half the people posting here weren’t even born, |
Anonymous
It’s still a public school so there’s that issue that’s not going away. |
Anonymous
You say “still a public school” like you expect others to understand your apparent insinuation that it’s a place for the unwashed masses. |
Anonymous
What the 2 to 3 in a room tells me to is that in some years 2 students get to live in a room the fire codes say are big enough for 3. That it would vary between 2 and 3 for some rooms isn’t surprising since yields vary a bit too. The hotel might’ve similarly happened because of an unexpectedly high yield or simply a renovation project that put a dorm offline some year. That’s not a big deal, and kind of expected to happen in limited amounts on occasion. No one said that smaller schools having less of a crowding issue means they always have everything the way they ideally want. The just have fewer, less impactful issues. Wesleyan wouldn’t require four years of on-campus if they had a recurring, serious capacity issue. https://www.wesleyan.edu/reslife/ugrad_housin...ime%20at%20Wesleyan. As for courses, 97% have under 40 students at Wesleyan. https://www.wesleyan.edu/ir/data-sets/CDS_2022-2023.pdf Everyone agrees all colleges have problems. But an undergraduate-focused, residential LAC like Wesleyan will have fewer overcrowding issues than a larger university. My kid doesn’t go there but to a peer LAC with the same attributes. That said, there are different things the larger schools will be more likely to excel at. |
Anonymous
Boston University and Northeastern University both had to use hotels a couple of years ago because they were overbooked. Not sure if they resolved the problem. |
Anonymous
DD is a current student at BU. I don't see any housing issues currently, unless I'm unaware of them. There are some old buildings, but there are plans to remodel them soon. For me, I'm really happy about the 4-year housing guarantee, so I don't have the pressure of having to find an off-campus apartment. |
Anonymous
Northeastern had a big increase in yield rate 3-4 years ago. My kid was in a forced triple for the first year, but then had a nice air-conditioned single room for the past two years. They leased dorms from WIT which is literally right next to each other and also adding new new buildings. https://huntnewsnu.com/76391/campus/administr...-on-columbus-avenue/ |
Anonymous
| Tulane is now requiring incoming students to live on campus for 3 years. They have built a ton of new dorms in the last few year and are currently building more. They are tearing down the old ones and replacing them with modern dorms. It is pretty impressive. |
Anonymous
2017. But good point, Purdue has almost certainly replaced all 26% of classes taught by TAs as the primary instructor with tenure track faculty as the primary instructor since 2017. Same with every single one of the other schools listed. |
Anonymous
The article was written in 2017 but the data is all from 2015. “Below are the 10 National Universities with the highest percentage of graduate TAs listed as primary instructors for undergraduate courses in fall 2015.” |
Anonymous
Or perhaps the percentage of classes taught by TAs has grown to more than 26%. Considering the Purdue student to faculty ratio has grown from 12:1 (2014-15 CDS) to 14:1 (2021-22), I think it’s more likely to have grown than shrank. |
Anonymous
Yes - UCs are still public schools. The issues you cite as issues with public schools are the same issues at private schools. Loads of cited examples were provided. You have a biased against public schools, fine. You pay your $400K. My kids have the option picking from publics or privates. 2 out of 2 so far have picked OOS publics. We’ve had great experiences so far and none of the issues. My kids are not at UCs so can’t speak to them, but at other states. |
Anonymous
The PP said TAs don't teach classes. They article shows TAs at least did at a point in time, and in considerable numbers. |
Anonymous
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I went to a public R1, my wife to an LAC. We sent both our kids to an LAC. We felt the in classroom experience is better when classes are small; at our LAC, classes are capped at 35. We also think the out of classroom student-faculty experiences are more meaningful when there aren’t grad students or post docs to compete with. We felt research exposure was important but wanted it to prioritize undergrad involvement, which is the case at an LAC. Both our students have had far more interaction outside of class with profs than we think would’ve occurred at a university, even a private university, for academic research and other career-building opportunities. We also think college represents an important social networking opportunity and appreciated the requirement to live on campus all four years. In both their cases their social experiences picked up significantly in later years, so we're glad they were not limited to one or two years of on-campus housing.
That said, there are obvious name recognition and breadth of offering advantages at universities. There are also of course financial advantages for in-state publics. We would not have hesitated to send our kids to one of any number of amazing public universities if attending the LAC meant incurring significant debt. In the end, this is a decision that comes down to a student’s specific situation and interests. In some cases a large public will make more sense, other times a private university, and other times an LAC. I think it’s fine for people to want to learn more about the pros/cons of each category or specific school as they research colleges. One need not take personally the fact that in some situations what was best for their family won’t be best for others. |
Anonymous
Yea so private R1 university is the best. |