Public universities are starting to look increasingly like their private counterparts. Tuition is rising, as is selectivity, and private donors are increasingly footing the bill. These trends have led to many state universities’ recent rise to prominence, but according some experts quoted in a New York Times report from last week, they also signal a shift away from these universities’ public missions. The experts worry that as public universities accept more elite upper middle class students, they’ll do so at the expense of taking on students from lower on the socioeconomic scale.
“You can’t justify that subsidy for wealthier students,” says David E. Shulenburger, vice president for academic affairs at the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities.
But something public universities can now justify: holistic applications. Another story in The New York Times explains that as public universities have become more selective, they have begun to look closer at admissions essays, teacher recommendations and extracurriculars — qualifications that were once the domain of private institutions.
To see a list, charting the privatization of public universities, read after the jump.
From The New York Times