SERVING THE ON-LINE RPI COMMUNITY SINCE 1994 SEARCH ARCHIVES Current Issue: Volume 130, Number 1 July 14, 2009 News Institute rankings offer in-depth view Posted 01-25-2002 at 5:49PM Terrence Brown Senior Investigative Reporter President Jackson painted a positive view of the current trends at the Institute in the Town Meeting held last Wednesday afternoon. Her remarks at the meeting mirrored those given during the summer in her State of the Institute speech. “We have the momentum. We have the wind at our backs. The road is rising beneath our feet. We are poised to take our place among the handful of research universities that will shape the 21st century,” Jackson said in her address. When considering the recently released US News and World Report and Princeton Review rankings in some aspects Jackson’s assessment is quite accurate. The importance of U.S. News and Princeton Review ranking indexes lies in their independent evaluations of universities across the nation on a single scale. RPI’s overall ranking jumped one spot from 48 to 47 in the previous year. The Institute went from a two-way tie at 48 to a four-way tie at 47 and, like last year, RPI is still tied with Pepperdine University. Over the past three years, RPI has climbed from the second tier of national doctoral-granting universities with a ranking of 51 to the top tier with its present ranking. According to U.S. News, 249 universities are included in the national doctoral university category and 16 are judged on “indicators of academic quality.” In its assessment, U.S. News weighs letters of recommendation from other university presidents and applicant rejection rates among other criteria. In the past, personnel in the Enrollment Management Office have suggested other universities manipulate this data by purposely seeking students they will later reject, and thereby improving their rankings. The ranking of the School of Engineering, which enrolls over 60 percent of the student body at RPI, also jumped two spots from 17 to 15. Since the rankings of the last academic year the School of Engineering has permanently filled the dean position and implemented its school-wide performance plan. Even with all this positive feedback, the U.S. News and Princeton Review rankings also give cause for concern in several areas. The Institute is ranked third highest with an average debt of $25,100 for graduating students who incurred a debt. According to U.S. News, 76 percent of graduates left the Institute carrying a debt. Last year RPI was unranked, but if it were ranked it would have placed sixth with an average of $23,300. While RPI improved in U.S. News’ “great schools at great price” category from 42 last year, to 34 this year, last year’s rank represented its lowest mark in the past five years. Over the five year period the Institute averaged a ranking of 31. The category evaluates the amount of scholarships students receive based on need, the average cost after grants, and debt load. The average cost for a student to attend RPI in 2001 after receiving aid was $20,361, up slightly from $20,209 the previous years. Over that period tuition was increased 5.5 percent. When evaluating institutions similar to the Institute, the Administration uses the catch-all phrase “peer and aspirant group.” This term is often used interchangeably with “market basket.” “The group varies from the type of students—graduate or undergraduate—it’s different for each of the five schools and changes from department to department in those schools. And finally its different for each Administrative division,” said Provost Bud Peterson. Peterson went on to say it’s an important evaluating tool for the Student Life division especially in Financial Aid and Enrollment Management. In his February 14, 2001, Top Hat column, former Grand Marshal Joe Greco revealed to the RPI community the concept of “prestige pricing,” which is the practice of intentionally raising tuition to lift the perceived value of an RPI education so that it is equal to its “peer and aspirant” group. According to Greco, the policy began in 1995 when the Institute, conducted a study on applicants financial backgrounds. “It turns out that many parents in the upper socioeconomic bracket were turned off to RPI by its comparatively low cost,” stated Greco. “The ’Tute thus began a pricing policy that increased tuition to a level ‘more attractive’ to the well-off, while maintaining it would hold true to its diversity initiatives,” concluded Greco. “End result: tuition goes up and the average amount of financial aid shrinks annually ... RPI maintains its aggressive policy to ensure those in need get the aid they qualify for, but will this policy inadvertently create a loophole so that Rensselaer could accept more (potentially) full-paying students than aid-needing applicants regardless of academic credentials? I would hope not,” concluded Greco. Last year, when asked about how the concept of how prestige pricing influence rankings, Jack Mahoney, director of enrollment and institute research, “tuition is fairly competitive to the market-basket and is driven by a number of constraints; internal factors, and the president and board of trustees make the final decision.” The Senate’s Academic Affairs Committee, chaired by then graduate senator Ayala Cnaan, formed a subcommittee devoted to looking into the effects of prestige pricing. They met with various departments including financial aid, but the committee found it difficult to obtain definitive answers. The board of trustees announced a 6.37 percent increase for tuition this year, .87 percent higher than in previous years, following its winter meeting in Florida. After the announcement, Institute spokesman Bruce Adams revealed, “If a student’s financial need rises as a result of a tuition increase, the amount of their RPI scholarship stays at the same level. Students will have to make up the funds.” The Provost pointed to a number of initiatives and said, “The tuition increase [for the 2002-2003 academic year] reflects the growing costs of providing a world-class technological education.” In her presentation to the Senate last Monday Jackson was asked about RPI’s high dissatisfaction ranking in The Princeton Review by the 2005 senator Antonio Dorset. The Princeton Review ranked RPI fifth in least happy students in the quality of life category, third in least politically active, and 16th in the academic’s category of professors suck all life from materials. RPI also received positive ranks, coming in sixth in the social scene category, with more things to do on campus. Posted 01-25-2002 at 5:49PM Copyright 2000-2006 The Polytechnic Comments, questions? E-mail the Webmaster. Site design by Jason Golieb.