EDUCATION | Driving tomorrow’s achievements
11 April 2008
What is a Large, Private Research University
Private universities generally enjoy greater financial flexibility
By James W. Wagner
James W. Wagner, president of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, says that private research universities enjoy greater financial flexibility than their public counterparts. Thus, private institutions are more able to create distinctive programs.
One of the strengths of the American system of higher education is its great variety. From small colleges with only several hundred students to large state-supported universities with tens of thousands of students, and from two-year community colleges with vocational programs to privately funded research universities, American higher education meets a wide variety of needs. For students, the right choice has much to do with possible career paths, financial constraints, and geography. In other words, it has to do with what they feel called to do and to study, how much they can afford, and whether or not they want to leave home. What matters most in the end is the appropriateness of the school to the aspirations of the student.
In the United States, 92 of the 100 largest universities are public or "state-supported" (i.e., supported by one of the 50 individual states, not the federal government), and 77 percent of the nation's college students receive their education at public institutions. Still, the major private universities occupy all but three or four of the top 25 slots in most rankings. Thus, the private research university appears to be held in especially high regard in the United States and around the world.
But what do we mean when we speak of a "private research university," and what makes this type of institution so attractive?
Private research universities offer professional training (for instance, in law, medicine, and engineering), as well as education leading to the Ph.D. degree. Besides teaching, the faculty members spend a great deal of their time in research. In fact, in these institutions, the quality of faculty, scholarship, and research is as important in determining compensation and promotion as is the quality of teaching. But public universities also offer professional training, Ph.D. education, and an emphasis on scholarship and research. So what makes private universities different?
For one thing, private universities generally enjoy greater financial flexibility. They do not depend on state legislatures for funding, but draw their resources from alumni, philanthropic foundations, and scientific and other professional organizations, all of which support the universities by funding programs, scholarships, buildings, and professorships. These sources of funding, although increasing at public universities as well, now provide private universities with the ability to be more nimble and more able to step off in bold new directions of inquiry, creating specialized centers of study and distinctive programs. For students, this flexibility often translates into opportunity to stay in fields where they might otherwise expect to find little encouragement.
Similarly, private universities' independence from public coffers has made them more able to establish "points of presence" in other countries. The citizens of Georgia, for instance, are unlikely to approve the use of their tax dollars to establish a study center in London. But they probably would welcome the establishment of such a center by privately controlled Emory University. In general, private universities can more easily open international portals for research, service, and teaching. Emory University, for example, has programs in global health throughout Africa, in the Caucasus region, and in Asia. It has business programs throughout Europe and Asia. Such activities provide opportunities for American students and professors to engage, whether in the United States or abroad, with the best minds and talent from other countries.
Finally, most research universities are somewhat smaller than their public counterparts, offering a favorable mixture of rich resources and human scale. While the potential for learning and research is great at any of our nation's fine universities, public or private, the smaller scale of private campuses makes possible the easy interaction of scholars across disciplines, since the schools and departments generally are at most a short walk across campus. In a world where the most important discoveries are being made through collaboration across boundaries, the capacity of the private university to foster and intensify collaborations both within the confines of the campus and beyond, to the far reaches of the globe, may be the private university's greatest attraction.
The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. government.
