Reply to Harvard vs. Williams (Tyng Scholarship) vs. Yale vs. Washington and Lee (Johnson Scholarship)

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

The Tyng Scholarship is appealing because that's 20K in funding that he won't have to work to get at H/Y. He has spoken to Williams people on the FB page and many of them do research at major U's at the summer to get both the liberal arts environment with world class research opportunities. There is a great alumni network there and at all the best graduate schools will constantly provide Williams students with opportunities. But he also knows that H and Y have funding for nearly everything, including some things Williams won't fund, like summer international experiences. He will inquire with students to see how easy it is to get opportunities, so there may not be a huge difference in what Williams guarantees  to offer and what H/Y offer on average to their students. [b]One thing that he found interesting is this website: http://collegecompletion.chronicle.com/ Williams spends a respectable $270,253 on educational spending for each degree, but Yale is spending a whopping $556,675 and Harvard $381,077, suggesting that the experience he may be getting at H and Y may be more valuable.[/b] [/quote]

No, no, no. Please carefully consider the source of that data:

http://collegecompletion.chronicle.com/about/

[i]Expenditure categories are slightly different depending on whether the institution is public, private non-profit, or private for-profit. The spending types considered to be educational in nature, either directly or indirectly, are: instruction, student services, academic support, institutional support, operations, and maintenance. Because separate spending figures are not available for only undergraduate students, the measure includes graduate degrees, post-master’s certificates, and all doctorates.[/i]

Harvard and Yale's spending per degree includes what they spend on grad students as well as undergrads. (Williams to my knowledge has no graduate programs, so their spending is for undergrads only.) And that amount of money includes what schools spend on institutional support, operations, and maintenance. Institutional support includes expenses for day-to-day operational support, including:

[i]general administrative services, central executive-level activities concerned with management and long range planning, legal and fiscal operations, space management, employee personnel and records, logistical services such as purchasing and printing, and public relations and development. Also includes information technology expenses related to institutional support activities. If an institution does not separately budget and expense information technology resources, the IT costs associated with student services and operation and maintenance of plant will also be applied to this function.[/i]

https://surveys.nces.ed.gov/ipeds/VisGlossaryPopup.aspx?idlink=325

Many of these things have absolutely nothing to do with the undergraduate experience. A lot of this spending is for research functions that most undergrads will never get close to. The spending includes what the schools spend on law students and MBA students and possibly even medical students. (Depends on how the med school is structured within the university.) And note, too, that the operational expenses in, say, Boston, will be higher than those in, say, Williamstown, MA. This statistic just isn't specific enough to tell you much. It is not a measure that you can use to distinguish between these 3 schools.

What you can know is that, among the almost 300 colleges included in these data, Yale, Harvard, and Williams are in the top 4% of spending per degree. Whatever they are spending and however they are doing it, it dwarfs what most colleges are spending. Wherever this student goes, he can be assured he is getting a lot for his money.[/quote]

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