
Public Colleges Get a Surge of Bargain-Hunting Applicants  - peter123
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/02/nyregion/02suny.html
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endtime
I'd like to see the other side of the equation - which schools are losing
students? Small liberal arts colleges? Large research universities?

I'm at a medium-sized private research university and I got an email last week
saying that undergraduate admissions were up 20% over last year, and set a new
record. While I think the financial aid packages here are pretty generous,
it's otherwise not cheap to attend...

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omnivore
I work in higher ed and I can tell you that schools are doing pretty much
anything they can to stop the bleeding. Some are lowering tuition, others are
freezing and the majority are raising it in small amounts.

But given there's no where else to hide and the lenders love giving away the
student loans, I think you're going to see kids going someplace. The community
colleges might seem even more swelling, but...I don't think tons of kids are
going to fall from the school rolls, as much as kids whose parents make too
much for them to qualify for aid, will be less able to go to their first
choice school where mommy and daddy have to foot the bill.

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endtime
Thanks for your insight. I think my question is still unanswered, however. If
more kids go to SUNY, less kids are going somewhere else (unless there were
just a lot more kids born 18 years ago than 19). So where are less kids going?

Alternatively, if there are less jobs out there, perhaps people are going to
college rather than work right out of high school. Anyone know? I'm genuinely
curious.

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omnivore
If more kids go to SUNY, fewer kids are going to pricey liberal arts colleges
like Ithaca, Hobart & William Smith or out of state public schools in Jersey
or Connecticut. They probably didn't get offered any academic aid at those
private schools, they just might have been accepted and that's it.

Pretty much everyone who was going to school before, still does. It's not a
spike in the number of undergraduates, it's a shift in where they'll go.

