Money doesn’t always equal more staff in NY Uni’s
by Benjamin on August 13, 2009
Where the financial world was six months ago, university finances seem to lie every day of the year: On the brink of bancrupcy. Universities appear to be relying more and more on adjunct teaching, avoiding tenure contracts and cutting back on costs to maximize profits. But are staff-student ratios really so bad? Are the finances of the NY private universities in free-fall. And are the two related? I’ve done a quick survey of 30 private NY universities which suggest the schools can’t rely on just the interest payments from their endowments, but few, if any of them, are as poor as they’d like us to think – and that might not matter too much for the staff to graduate student ratios anyway…
Cornell: Lots of money but poor staff to student ratio... All Quill and Daggers?
A good 7 universities in the state have more than a Billion dollars in their endowment (topped by Columbia at $5.7bn), and another 6 have more than half a billion. Of course the endowment is only as good as its return, and while many a cunning money manager can get 10% and more from a university fund, lets make the crude assumption that the universities withdraw an average 5% per year (5.4% in 1999 apparently). While the top 4 (Rockefeller U., NYU, Cornel & Columbia) withdraw more than $100m each, the bottom 4 (Nazareth C., Manhattan C., St. Bonaventure & Marist C.) cannot even make $10m together, while the New School collects $12.5m, placing 19 out of 30.
New School of little money and good staff ratios...
What really matters is how much money the school can withdraw per student thougg: Lets assume that we are only interested in graduate students, as undergrads tend to pay their way: Then the picture takes a serious twist. Hamilton College (10th in endowments) come out top with an average return of $212,842 per staff and graduate student ! Colgate is second with $96,000 followed by Union C., Skidmore C., and Rockefeller U. all earning more than $50,000 per year per staff & graduate student. Rockefeller is the only top endowment school to remain in the top, with Columbia is pushed into 14th ($14,450), Cornell is sitting pretty at 8th ($25,856) and NYU is relegated to the bottom half of the table, in 17th place with only $4,855 per student and graduate student. The New School finds itself languishing around 22nd with just above $2,000.
Does money and average earnings translate into more staff members per graduate student then? For the top three ratios: Yes. The highest Academic-Staff-to-Graduate-Student ratio are found at Skidmore C. with 4.22 staff members for every graduate student, and Skidmore is 5th on the withdrawals per staff & graduate student. 2nd and 3rd are Rockefeller U. (2.45) and St. Lawrence U. (1.42) who were 4th and 6th in withdrawing money per staff-student, but then the picture gets a bit weird (possibly because the 1-3 in the withdrawal category had incomplete data on staff-student ratios). Cornell, with all its money and pay-outs is third from the bottom of the list, with a paltry 0.22 staff members per graduate student. Columbia is 19th (0.23), and NYU is found on 10th (0.36) just one spot below The New School with 0.51 staff per graduate student… So the extreme earners - I’d say $100,000 per annum per staff & student is extreme - have the highest staff-student ratio’s. But Cornell, Columbia and Renselar Poly Tech, earning between $14k-$25k thus ranking high in money have plummeted to the bottom six of the staff-student ratio table? In return, the bottom earners, and lowest endowment holders, Marist C. have joined Long Island U., The New School, St. Bonaventure and Yeshiva in climbing right up the ranking to high staff-student ratios… Money isn’t everything in the New York University system it seems – But I’m sure it helps.
Summary tables of my survey outcomes and a link to the full data-set is below if you click and Continue Reading…
