Northeastern University, a business model for change
It is a common trope that university faculty don’t understand or live in “the real world.” This always tickled me. The unemployment rate for college grads has always been lower than for those without a degree, I guess university faculty do know a thing or two about the real world, since they can train students who are prepared for it. Yes, I know about Bill Gates, but you have to get into Harvard before you can drop out from it.
Yesterday, I wrote about the imperative for colleges to evolve. One evolutionary success story is Northeastern University, in Boston. Once a commuter school that admitted most applicants, it eventually found itself losing market share. But then:
“In the space of one generation, Northeastern University has undergone a complete metamorphosis. The former commuter school that used to admit nearly everyone — 88 percent of applicants in 1990 — is now as hard to get into as Amherst or Bowdoin College. Demographic declines in college-age students and crushing financial pressures have forced dozens of higher education institutions to close in recent years, and many more are on the brink, but Northeastern has been gobbling up struggling schools and expanding its holdings, across the country and around the world. The total cost of attending, before financial aid, has ballooned from less than $16,000 in 1990 to more than $90,000 this year, but that hasn’t slowed demand for spots: the applicant pool has grown tenfold over that period.”
Thirty-three years ago, the university faced a budget gap of $17 million. To reach a more sustainable model, the administration decided to move from the local commuter school business model to an international model, competing with top-tier schools with a career-focused curriculum and single-digit acceptance rates. Along the way, a former president made a major investment in co-op programs, to give students “real-world” experiences and position Northeastern graduates as attractive employees. Did it work?
“Ten years after graduating, Northeastern alums today earn an average of $92,538 a year, compared to the median earnings of four-year college graduates of $53,617, according to the US government’s college scorecard.”
It may be fairly objected that the purpose of a college education isn’t simply job training. And the St. John’s College great books curriculum has remained viable. But a shuttered university trains nobody, so although there are many paths to success, they must be financially sustainable. In the words of Richard D’Amore, a Northeastern alum and current chair of Northeastern’s board, “Universities are going to evolve and meet the needs of their customers or fail.”
Northeastern University reinvented itself
I’m a fan of Northeastern and its co-op program. But I suspect you might be overattributing causality in your piece here. To say “The unemployment rate for college grads has always been lower than for those without a degree” is evidence that faculty know a thing or two about the real world is to ignore numerous other factors. Chief among them are the kids getting into college tend to be more academically focused than the rest. Academic focus is the ‘ante’ into higher paying jobs that deal in more abstract thinking. There is massive selection bias between the populations. It’s not just magic faculty.
Also, the statement, “Ten years after graduating, Northeastern alums today earn an average of $92,538 a year, compared to the median earnings of four-year college graduates of $53,617” might tell us something.. or not. Perhaps one should compare Northeastern premium/discount to other colleges 20 years ago with that premium today? And you’d have to adjust for shifting composition of majors. If NE graduates 50% business and engineering students, NE’s numbers will compare favorably to average US college that might graduate (guessing) 20% business and engineering.
Your conclusions are right, IMO, but the support is squishy. I’d give you a C and tell you to go back and support your arguments better. 🙂
@bob,
“It’s not just magic faculty.”
Never said it was. But ignoring the faculty is a fallacy. The faculty *are* the university, sine qua non.
The alum salary figures were a quote from the Boston Globe. You can take it up with them. The real problem with the comparison is that it’s an experiment without a control. If the same Northeastern students had gone to a state university, would they have significantly different earnings? I’ve been following this topic for 30 years, and from what I can see, the earnings premium of a private university is about 5%, not enough to justify the difference in tuition.
Of course, all your comments miss the point of my post, which was a case study in how a university that was swirling the drain reinvented itself as an elite institution. I’d give you a C and tell you to go back and write something that is on topic.🙂
How is this even close to being a honest comparison? Averages vs Median and Alums vs four year college graduates?
“Ten years after graduating, Northeastern alums today earn an average of $92,538 a year, compared to the median earnings of four-year college graduates of $53,617, according to the US government’s college scorecard.”
Links . . .
@Bill,
Four-year college grads are alums, by definition. That statistic includes Northeastern alums, since Northeastern grads are four-year college alums. The word “average” is used colloquially to refer to either mean or median, and if the population is distributed normally, the mean and the median are the same.
So that sentence appears to be close to an honest comparison. You’ll have to bring evidence to convince me otherwise.
Pretty sure graduate students are considered Alums. Also a better comaparison would be against similar fields of study. Northeastern has a lot of Engineering degrees plus a Nursing program. Wouldn’t be fare to compare to a Liberal Arts College. Not sure how accurate this is but if you scan to the bottom you will see the wide range of starting salaries from NE based of degree.
From: https://www.collegesimply.com/colleges/massachusetts/northeastern-university/salaries/
@Bill,
Where did you get the idea that the Northeastern alums cited in the Globe article were graduate students? Where did you get the idea that the comparator is exclusively liberal arts colleges?
I have no doubt that salaries of Northeastern and other college grads vary by degree. Thus has it always been.
But to refresh your memory, the point of my post was how Northeastern transformed itself successfully. None of your comments undermine that point.
No problem with the article in general. Glad NE is figuring it out. Just thought that was an unfair comparison. Apparently the figures came from here:
https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/school/?167358-Northeastern-University
They are literally comparing the salaries of NE students who started at NE 10yrs ago to 4yr schools. I retired from a University known for Engineering which didn’t even crack the top 75 US news rankings (NE is 38th) but salaries on the same website at my university were 15% higher than NE. The point is the comparison in the article is not realy apples to apples.
@Bill,
“They are literally comparing the salaries of NE students who started at NE 10yrs ago to 4yr schools.”
Yep, that’s how I read it when I posted the quote. You obviously still don’t understand the point. The actual point is to show how much NE has progressed from 30 years ago, when it was just a commuter college. For the purposes of making that point, the comparison between NE alums and 4-year college alums is valid.