Four weeks into the fall 2010 semester at Brown, the group of new students specially invited to President Simmons's August 29 welcome speech seemed to be gradually adjusting to the new community. Among this new student group is not only Brown's freshmen, but also the University's newly-admitted transfer students.
It is not surprising that a significant part of the transfer population each year comes from those colleges with administrative operations that model the management of large corporations. Some of those schools might enjoy similar national standing and scale to Brown, but their intimacy with their trustees' pockets unfortunately gears their concern away from their students' education and welfare.
While those who came to Brown as freshmen are used to the University's attentive and caring atmosphere, students who transferred from schools like New York University or the University of Pennsylvania might feel more strongly about this student-centered feature under the sharp contrast between their old and new schools' administrative focus.
As a junior transfer from Northwestern University, I have for the past two years seen the manifestations of the notorious "corporatization of higher education." On Northwestern's beautiful lakeside campus in Evanston, Ill., the school administration never allowed any scarcity of outdoor flowering plants every spring to fall. Under the school's special investment, the purple and white hyacinth blossoms, which match the school colors, never die. The Department of Economics takes pride in frequently inviting some of the nation's most absurdly priced speakers to this flower-clad campus.
At the same time, however, while the students consistently complained about the unreasonable pricing at Northwestern's dining facilities, President Morton Schapiro, along with NU's board of trustees, specifically commented that they do not consider students' dining as something worth spending more money on.
Clearly, instead of being an education and research institution, Northwestern University well demonstrates a "You pay, so I teach" business. Thus, oftentimes it results in an interesting phenomenon. While schools like Northwestern boast their national reputation of excellence represented in the U.S. News & World Report national college ranking, their students, who have paid to come for this "excellence," end up suffering from an "I can't even care less" attitude from their administration.
In comparison, at Brown one can be impressed by the level of attention from the school's executives for its students' benefit. On Brown's campus, one could hardly find a patch of blossoming flowers. Nor might Brown students enjoy the frequent company of VIPs who cost thousands of dollars. But the resources have been saved for projects like the newly opened Stephen Robert '62 Campus Center that hosts most student organizations, activities and events. The Perry and Marty Granoff Center for the Creative Arts will also be shortly completed, providing extra lab and studio space for multi-disciplinary work.
Even though "being attentive to student life" might sound like a qualitative assessment, even a quick look at the numbers in a student's tuition statement reveals Brown's investment in students versus something different at Northwestern.
For instance, Northwestern University's 2010-11 total estimated charge reaches more than $56,000, exceeding Brown's estimated total of $51,360 by nearly 10 percent. Given that extra money, Northwestern charges a student living on campus somewhere between $10 to $18 for a meal, while a guest would only pay from $6.50 to $10.50. In other words, students pay around 50 to 70 percent more than a non-student to eat.
At Brown, on the other hand, a meal for a student on meal plan averages somewhere between $7 to $13, versus $9.30 to $14.25 for guests.
Looks like even in the recession, we have some of the tuition raise back on our plates.
During the recession, one might expect the "corporate colleges" to live better, given their supposedly profit-focused management. But as seen in the meal plan sharking, students definitely get ripped off to make up for the deficit in the board members' deposit books.
Fortunately for Brownies, whether in boom or recession, Brown's attention to students is reflected not only in accounting but also in its academic support and extracurricular encouragement. Every day, the Brown Morning Mail puts together most campus extracurricular events and activities, showing the school's encouragement for student interests. We are privileged to have administrators who care about the lives and passions of students, rather than some thousand-dollar-worth speeches or purple hyacinths.
Among the administrations at corporate colleges, it is a common belief that the rankings, reputation and beautiful exteriors of the school would eventually trickle down to benefit the students. After all, people would say "wow" when they visit your school. But out of my own experience at NU, where I really got stuck with this four-year corporate business, the wows of others could never make up for what I missed, which I fortunately found at Brown.
Sissi Sun '12 is a theater and mathematical economics concentrator from Chicago. She can be reached at siqi_sun@brown.edu.
