I have studied and taught at Rutgers (New Jersey), Purdue (Indiana) and UC-Irvine (California).
No local right-wing pressure group would ever publish a “study” attacking one of those flagship state universities for daring to raise its standards. But exactly this happened when the Pioneer Institute of Boston (PIB) accused the University of Massachusetts of raising its standards, its income and its diversity by attracting out-of-state students.
While the University of Michigan is widely praised for using this approach to become “The Harvard of the Midwest,” it seems that competing with other state universities is a negative here.
Trying to understand this, one might note that state universities are appreciated less in the Northeast. Their strength in the Midwest was the subject of a Harvard study which found a correlation between state university weakness and the early establishment of major private universities.
Thus, Rutgers should be in the shadow of Princeton, and the University of Connecticut in the shadow of Yale, but both have made significant strides with widespread support within their states.
Many other public universities, notably City University of New York, also discovered that when standards go up, enrollment does also. In addition to raising standards, UMass has developed synergy with biotech companies leading to infrastructure development.
Why would this too be viewed negatively in the PIB report? The PIB is “committed to individual freedom and responsibility, limited and accountable government, and the application of free market principles to state and local policy.”
PIB is a member of the “state policy network” with deep connections to ALEC supported by the Koch brothers (“The Pioneer Institute: Privatizing the Common Wealth,” Dunphy and Perkins 2002). So it’s not surprising if UMass finds itself in the PIB’s crosshairs, it’s just that the flagship state university would be a less easy target elsewhere.
Paul Dubin
Amherst