As to your claim that a similar % of funding for Columbus comes from the rest of the state' date=' you have already admitted you have no proof for that.  I don't take suppositions as proof[/quote']

 

I said funding for the payroll of state employees.  If you want to claim that a giant portion of state employees, particularly the higher-salaried ones, don't work in Columbus, then fine. You live in fantasy land and I'm tired of repeating this statement.

 

....Going even further, the number of state jobs within Columbus represents less than 7% of the total non-farm jobs in the metro area.  That means more than 90% of all jobs there are not under state payrolls.  Simply put, you're wrong from every conceivable angle.

 

If your 7% number is accurate, then take the number of jobs in Columbus MSA and take 7% of it. THAT is the number I'm exactly talking about. I'm not saying Cleveland is subsidizing Columbus Chipotle workers or Cincinnati is subsidizing Columbus McDonalds employees. And please, before you write again, do some reading on the state budget and learn where its funding comes from. As I've said many times now, excluding any federal funds, Ohio-sourced funds comes from ALL of the state, not just Columbus.

 

But that's not what I'm saying. Smaller towns already didn't have much going on in them already. Maybe people from out of town just like the school or are seeking the networking opportunities available in the city.

 

Other cities don't have schools people in small towns like?  Only OSU?

As to your claim that a similar % of funding for Columbus comes from the rest of the state' date=' you have already admitted you have no proof for that.  I don't take suppositions as proof[/quote']

 

I said funding for the payroll of state employees.  If you want to claim that a giant portion of state employees, particularly the higher-salaried ones, don't work in Columbus, then fine. You live in fantasy land and I'm tired of repeating this statement.

 

....Going even further, the number of state jobs within Columbus represents less than 7% of the total non-farm jobs in the metro area.  That means more than 90% of all jobs there are not under state payrolls.  Simply put, you're wrong from every conceivable angle.

 

If your 7% number is accurate, then take the number of jobs in Columbus MSA and take 7% of it. THAT is the number I'm exactly talking about. I'm not saying Cleveland is subsidizing Columbus Chipotle workers or Cincinnati is subsidizing Columbus McDonalds employees. And please, before you write again, do some reading on the state budget and learn where its funding comes from. As I've said many times now, excluding any federal funds, Ohio-sourced funds comes from ALL of the state, not just Columbus.

 

Like so many people on this issue, you made a bunch of claims you can't prove, and as evidence is presented to the contrary, you slightly tweak your argument to something else.  You don't have any information for your payroll claim either.  How could you possibly even figure out where any state employee's personal paycheck dollars are even coming from to any specific location?  Columbus citizens pay taxes too, do they not?  State tax money collected isn't divided into city of origin.  It doesn't work that way.  Do you truly believe that all that money paid by Columbus residents stays there?  Please.  This selective thinking that dollars only flow one way, or that Columbus and its residents are nothing but moochers off poor Cleveland or wherever has and will always be BS.  We have enough lies coming from our leaders these days, let's try to be a little better.  I've shown evidence for my case.  Any time you want to show some for yours, we can continue the conversation.  Until then, I'm done.

 

 

Pugu, why do you look at it as though the state is 'subsidizing' Columbus? Those funds are necessary to provide services that serve the entire state. You'll never hear anyone in Columbus complain about Cleveland getting a Federal Reserve, the non-profit Cleveland Clinic getting hundreds of millions of dollars in research funding each year, Cleveland having a ridiculous CDC industrial complex and countless other examples I could name. I would love to see a ranking of cities with non-profits per capita or state and federal public funding combined per capita. I bet Cleveland would be at the #1-5 spot.

 

I'm sure Columbus is the biggest beneficiary of state funding (by a small margin) but there's no doubt in my mind that Cleveland is a MUCH bigger beneficiary of federal funding.

 

 

 

Cincinnati: $132.010

Columbus: $130.758

Cleveland: $129.440

Dayton: $40.572

Akron: $37.300

Toledo: $33.158

Youngstown: $19.966

 

And % of total state GDP

Cincinnati: 21.07%

Columbus: 20.87%

Cleveland: 20.66%

Dayton: 6.47%

Akron: 5.95%

Toledo: 5.29%

Youngstown: 3.19%

Total of the major metros: 83.5%

 

Is that MSA?

^^Columbus does have some 50,000 more government jobs than Cleveland.  This is why many industries consider state capitols "recession proof" when compared to non-government centers. 

Cincinnati: $132.010

Columbus: $130.758

Cleveland: $129.440

Dayton: $40.572

Akron: $37.300

Toledo: $33.158

Youngstown: $19.966

 

And % of total state GDP

Cincinnati: 21.07%

Columbus: 20.87%

Cleveland: 20.66%

Dayton: 6.47%

Akron: 5.95%

Toledo: 5.29%

Youngstown: 3.19%

Total of the major metros: 83.5%

 

Is that MSA?

 

Yes.  The BLS does not calculate GDP at the city or county level currently.

^^Columbus does have some 50,000 more government jobs than Cleveland.  This is why many industries consider state capitols "recession proof" when compared to non-government centers. 

 

It's not that high. It is significant, though. Here's a breakdown of the numbers. http://www.cleveland.com/datacentral/index.ssf/2011/03/government_jobs_in_ohio_total.html

 

Cleveland at least got a good deal with federal gov't jobs.

 

Cuyahoga seems to have an excessive amount of local gov't jobs. I like the point that someone made in the comment section about how a lot of redundant local-government jobs in Cuyahoga Co. could be eliminated if municipalities merged/Cleveland annexed in the manner that Columbus has.

 

^^Columbus does have some 50,000 more government jobs than Cleveland.  This is why many industries consider state capitols "recession proof" when compared to non-government centers. 

 

Almost all of the "successful" Midwest urban economies are built on inelastic demand: education, medicine, and government. Some smaller cities are thriving around a single industry (Warsaw, IN; Findlay, OH) but these are exceedingly few. State capitals, flagship universities, and/or huge medical centers are the gold mines of the 21st century post-industrial economy. If your city's economy isn't built on one or more of these, chances are you are sinking.

 

Grand Rapids, Michigan is the only metro of size I can think of that is thriving without any of these, though it has a very strong corporate sector.

 

 

Oh, crap, I just realized that article is from 2011.

^^Columbus does have some 50,000 more government jobs than Cleveland.  This is why many industries consider state capitols "recession proof" when compared to non-government centers.

 

Its 10% unemployment rate at the height of the recession doesn't seem to indicate it's "recession proof".  Downturns may not last as long or be as severe in every case, but it goes through them just the same.

 

From what I understand, the state once tried to disperse state-level government jobs more equally across Ohio, but that it was found to be very inefficient to have them all spread out and actually cost the public more to support those jobs than having them centralized in Columbus. 

 

According to the city's website, here were all the jobs directly related to government in some way.

 

State of Ohio: 23,859

US Government: 13,800

City of Columbus: 8,500

Franklin County: 7,000

Columbus Public Schools: 6,488

US Postal Service: 3,360

Defense Logistics Agency: 2,600

Total: 65,607

 

And if you want to include 7% of OSU's employees (given the 7% funding OSU receives from the state), that would be an additional 2,167.

 

Not all of these jobs, of course, would include public funding from all of Ohio.  21,988 of these would be directly paid for by local area taxes.

That would leave 45,786.  Of those, 19,760 are paid at the federal level, which are paid for by federal-level taxes.  No doubt Ohio overall contributed to this pool of taxes, but so did 49 other states.  Not all states pay equally, but for simplicity's sake, let's give Ohio a 1/50th share.  That would be just 395 jobs that Ohio paid for. 

Add those 395 to the 23,859 State jobs and you arrive at a possible direct "subsidy" from the state of 24,254 jobs.  If we compared that to the 1,097,000 overall non-farm jobs in the Columbus metro, that is just 2.21% of the total metro jobs.  Of course, Columbus contributed to paying for at least some of those jobs through its own taxes. 

 

The point is... state government is an important employer in Columbus, to be sure.  But once one really examines the numbers, Ohio is not subsidizing its economy.  Even if we accept the entire 67,774 figure as being subsidized by the state in some way (which they're not), that's 6.12% of the metro economy, meaning 94% is not.  By any stretch of the imagination, 94% is FAR more important than 6% when talking about the makeup of an economy.  And this is for the actual city.

 

If we used the entire metro, and every government job within it (which again, would include a whole lot of locally-paid city and county jobs), government represents 16.3% of the metro's jobs.  Cleveland's would be 12.7%, Cincinnati's would be 11.9%.

 

Basically, I don't know what else to say.  People will no doubt continue to believe whatever they want.

 

 

^johoh81, why the denial? Does acknowledging that getting a handout from Cleveland and Cincinnati to two major institutions in Columbus lessen the 'greatness' of Columbus? Get over it. No one else seems to care.

 

1. State employee salaries come from all corners of the state.

2. If OSU employees are state employees, then you're missing thousands in your numbers above. If they are state employees on OPERS then its an even bigger deal.

3. Re money OSU gets from Cleveland and Cincinnati---and columbus (but Columbus is only a small proportion [no more than 20%] of the full state), OSU gets $525M (2018) (https://www.osu.edu/osutoday/stuinfo.php). By comparison state funds (from all over the state) to Cleveland State Univ is only $74M (2018) (page 13 of https://www.csuohio.edu/sites/default/files/FY18%20Budget%20Book.pdf).

^^Columbus does have some 50,000 more government jobs than Cleveland.  This is why many industries consider state capitols "recession proof" when compared to non-government centers. 

 

Almost all of the "successful" Midwest urban economies are built on inelastic demand: education, medicine, and government. Some smaller cities are thriving around a single industry (Warsaw, IN; Findlay, OH) but these are exceedingly few. State capitals, flagship universities, and/or huge medical centers are the gold mines of the 21st century post-industrial economy. If your city's economy isn't built on one or more of these, chances are you are sinking.

 

Grand Rapids, Michigan is the only metro of size I can think of that is thriving without any of these, though it has a very strong corporate sector.

 

 

 

I visited Columbus this summer with a geography professor who said that the mix of industries in Columbus - strong government, flagship university, medical center, transportation, distributing, and insurance, make it one of the most well-rounded metros in the country. It is not a center of manufacturing, nor has it lost any of its historical modes of transportation (except for the Canal long ago, and unlike the Great Lakes Ports after St Lawrence Seaway opened).

 

Columbus has a very strong entrepreneurial sector, I would think in part from OSU. Really, no other state the size of Ohio (MI, PA, IL) concentrated its single Big Ten/Research I campus in its state capital, and for many years and many ways, OSU has fought to maintain that singular status. There was even a bill passed in the early 20th Century, and soon repealed, that limited all research at state universities to OSU; Miami and OU howled, as you might imagine.

 

Cuyahoga seems to have an excessive amount of local gov't jobs. I like the point that someone made in the comment section about how a lot of redundant local-government jobs in Cuyahoga Co. could be eliminated if municipalities merged/Cleveland annexed in the manner that Columbus has.

 

 

Ohio in general has an excess of government jobs (yes, Columbus, too), it's not just a Cleveland thing if that's what you're trying to get at.  Also, Cleveland could never annex like Columbus did because it had established suburbs long before the fields around Columbus became anything.  You could always do the Nashville and Louisville thing and do a county merger to boost your population numbers, and at least be on the same playing field, but Columbus-like annexation in any of the larger MSAs of Ohio is practically impossible.

Columbus has a very strong entrepreneurial sector, I would think in part from OSU. Really, no other state the size of Ohio (MI, PA, IL) concentrated its single Big Ten/Research I campus in its state capital, and for many years and many ways, OSU has fought to maintain that singular status. There was even a bill passed in the early 20th Century, and soon repealed, that limited all research at state universities to OSU; Miami and OU howled, as you might imagine.

 

 

Which is really a shame.  The Lansing area really benefits from having MSU, and Ann Arbor is booming.  State College is really doing well, and so are Bloomington, Champaign, Iowa City, etc.  Seems like the majority of other Midwestern and NE states have spread out their universities to benefit more corners of their states.

^For Ohio, at least, I don't think all research money should be at one school as it instantly compromising the quality of the other universities.  In Ohio, which of the schools is considered the best one (like UM in Michigan or Berkeley in the UC system)? I know its not Akron, CSU, or Youngstown. But other than those schools, I don't know much about the other universities.

^For Ohio, at least, I don't think all research money should be at one school as it instantly compromising the quality of the other universities.  In Ohio, which of the schools is considered the best one (like UM in Michigan or Berkeley in the UC system)? I know its not Akron, CSU, or Youngstown. But other than those schools, I don't know much about the other universities.

 

OSU is the Flagship of the Ohio University system, but UC and Kent both have some strong programs to back them up.

^johoh81, why the denial? Does acknowledging that getting a handout from Cleveland and Cincinnati to two major institutions in Columbus lessen the 'greatness' of Columbus? Get over it. No one else seems to care.

 

1. State employee salaries come from all corners of the state.

2. If OSU employees are state employees, then you're missing thousands in your numbers above. If they are state employees on OPERS then its an even bigger deal.

3. Re money OSU gets from Cleveland and Cincinnati---and columbus (but Columbus is only a small proportion [no more than 20%] of the full state), OSU gets $525M (2018) (https://www.osu.edu/osutoday/stuinfo.php). By comparison state funds (from all over the state) to Cleveland State Univ is only $74M (2018) (page 13 of https://www.csuohio.edu/sites/default/files/FY18%20Budget%20Book.pdf).

 

Denial about what?  I'm not arguing Columbus doesn't get state tax money, I'm arguing- factually- that the amount it gets is nowhere near the perception.  You seem to care a lot about perpetuating that myth.  I wonder why.

 

As to your points...

1. Yes, any state employees would have their pay come from public tax dollars from across the state.  Breaking news.  That would include any state jobs in other cities outside of Columbus, and at least some of the money paying for the state jobs in Columbus- would come from Columbus taxpayers.

2. OSU employees are NOT state employees.  Even if you could somehow prove that the money that OSU receives from the state all goes to pay for employee salaries (which you can't), the listed salary expenditure is 3x the amount that OSU receives from the state. 

3. You keep on with this ridiculous point about Columbus being only 20% of the state... of what?  Again, are you referring to GDP?  That has nothing to do with the allocation of public tax dollars.  I have no idea where you're getting this from.  Furthermore, the $525 million that OSU gets is about 7.39% of its annual budget, pretty much EXACTLY what I already said it receives.  Still not 80% as you stated, is it.  And that $74 million for Cleveland State was more than 30% of its own budget.  And let's be honest, this is an apples to oranges comparison.  OSU's budget is 24x that of CSU's.  OSU gives out almost $100 million more just in financial aid than CSU spends on its entire annual budget.  They're not even on the same planet of scale.  What's interesting is that even though OSU has a budget 24x larger than CSU, it only receives 7x the state aid that CSU does.  And CSU receives 4x as much of its budget than OSU from state-allocated funds. 

 

 

 

I would have said OU and Miami are the next "best" to OSU though it depends on what exactly we are evaluating... OU and MU prioritize their undergraduate programs over research output. OSU is the opposite, they are a national research powerhouse but their undergraduate program has become an assembly line with sophomores teaching freshmen at Friday afternoon "recitation" sessions.

I think undergraduates often have a better experience at a Four Corners (OU, MU, BGSU, KSU) than at OSU unless they are already stellar students. For graduate school, OSU generally beats any other for the breadth and quality of their programs, with obvious exceptions with particular programs at the regional and city universities (UT and UA). UCincy could become Ohio's second large public research university, but OSU blocks it. Cincinnati, Cleveland and Columbus should each have an OSU, or at least Ohio should have two, like almost every other state in the Midwest. CWRU is outstanding but small.

^"UCincy could become Ohio's second large public research university, but OSU blocks it."

 

How does OSU block it?

 

 

^"UCincy could become Ohio's second large public research university, but OSU blocks it."

 

How does OSU block it?

 

 

 

Whatever it is now called, the higher education commission in Columbus oversees state universities, and to change UC's status to an R1, research intensive university in the eyes of the state, would take action from that commission. The funding structures differ depending on research intensity, and while OSU doesn't get much of its budget from the state - no state university does any more, OSU is eligible for higher reimbursements on select research-intensive programs because of its status as THE primary research university in Ohio.

 

In other states, their public research universities are structured:

 

IU, PurdueU in Indiana

UM, MSU (and Wayne State) in Michigan

PSU, Pitt in Pennsylvania

UIUC in Illinois (though UIC and SIU have close secondary status)

UW-Madison in Wisconsin (UW-Milwaukee has some research programs)

UI and ISU in Iowa

*UMTC in Minnesota

 

 

 

^Interesting. Sounds like a way for Columbus-based Ohio education commission to allow only a Columbus-based school to be the one-and-only highest ranking research university to ensure prestige and recognition only goes back to Columbus, and with government backing to maintain that......sounds kindof corrupt, or at least self-serving.....though jonoh81 will probably say it should be that way for whatever reason!

^Interesting. Sounds like a way for Columbus-based Ohio education commission to allow only a Columbus-based school to be the one-and-only highest ranking research university to ensure prestige and recognition only goes back to Columbus, and with government backing to maintain that......sounds kindof corrupt, or at least self-serving.....though jonoh81 will probably say it should be that way for whatever reason!

 

I don't know details - perhaps the representation of regional campuses means that OSU has clout that other campuses don't. Based on recent fed data, OSU ($800m) has about double the research spending of Cincy ($400m), and then it drops off quickly. I'm surprised at CSU's 77m.

 

OSU: 818m

Cincinnati: 430m

Case (private): 405m

Univ of Dayton (private): 116m

Cleveland State: 77m

Ohio: 59m

Akron: 58m

UToledo: 50m

Kent State: 34m

Miami: 16m

BGSU: 14m

 

For comparison:

UM-Ann Arbor: 1.436Billion (2nd highest in US after Johns Hopkins)

UW-Madison: 1.57B

Pitt: 889m

Michigan State: 613m

Purdue: 606m

IU-B 508m

Wayne State: 221m

 

https://ncsesdata.nsf.gov/profiles/site?method=rankingBySource&ds=herd

 

 

 

^Interesting. Surprised OSU ranks so highly---above NYU and UC Berkeley. Also surprised (and disappointed) how low CSU ranks on the list--161st.

. Also surprised (and disappointed) how low CSU ranks on the list--161st.

 

CSU is a young school building its academic reputation from zero.  I think they are doing a good job so far.

^Interesting. Surprised OSU ranks so highly---above NYU and UC Berkeley. Also surprised (and disappointed) how low CSU ranks on the list--161st.

 

Check out that trend line, though: a few years ago, OSU was 15th and NYU was in the 50s.  Case also seems to be dropping lower and lower. Just another symptom of relative decline, I suppose.

Wow, thank you for this list.  I don't know if anyone can ever determine the exact net gain in employment or investment from research dollars, but there is a definite link.  And perhaps instead of chasing after shiny objects (e.g. Amazon), Ohio should be putting more money into R&D and growing our own businesses.

^"UCincy could become Ohio's second large public research university, but OSU blocks it."

 

How does OSU block it?

 

 

 

Whatever it is now called, the higher education commission in Columbus oversees state universities, and to change UC's status to an R1, research intensive university in the eyes of the state, would take action from that commission. The funding structures differ depending on research intensity, and while OSU doesn't get much of its budget from the state - no state university does any more, OSU is eligible for higher reimbursements on select research-intensive programs because of its status as THE primary research university in Ohio.

 

In other states, their public research universities are structured:

 

IU, PurdueU in Indiana

UM, MSU (and Wayne State) in Michigan

PSU, Pitt in Pennsylvania

UIUC in Illinois (though UIC and SIU have close secondary status)

UW-Madison in Wisconsin (UW-Milwaukee has some research programs)

UI and ISU in Iowa

*UMTC in Minnesota

 

 

 

 

Cincinnati leaders should be screaming bloody murder to change UC to “R1” then. This growth-limiting policy really doesn’t do the state as a whole any favors either.

Cleveland and Cincinnati are both large enough to need and perhaps support a significant research university, even if it were in the larger CSAs. These are incredible drivers of innovation, and fonts of 'intangible' capitals - social, cultural, symbolic, human. I don't think any major metro can thrive without at least one in the 21st Century, and Columbus has the only world-class institution in Ohio; I was also surprised at how low CWRU ranked, but pleasantly surprised that UC had as much money coming in as it does.

 

I am going to guess that a very significant portion of those research dollars are either in medical or applied science research. The universities that have both, like OSU, UM and MSU, Pitt, Indiana (med) and Purdue (applied) and UMTC (that I know of) are going to drive the economies of Columbus, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis and the Twin Cities much faster than the metros without these institutions. Cincinnati is doing pretty well with UC, and Cleveland with Case, but both are large enough to need more, and will struggle without an R1. Cleveland's universities are too distributed among CSU, KSU, and UA; same with Toledo and UT/BGSU; it would perhaps be in the long term interests for those universities to merge for the good of those metros. Imagine another OSU in downtown Cleveland or Toledo, what that would do to both cities. Ohio could support another major public research university on par with OSU (and perhaps reducing its size slightly), and I'd think that Cleveland would be the better site for it.

OSU also acts to keep UC out of a major sports conference.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_research_universities_in_the_United_States

 

I thought OSU, Case and UC were the 3 R1 Schools in Ohio. What status is being held back by the state pertaining to UC?

OSU has done a great deal to lobby the state to prioritize support for them over UC. Former President Gordon Gee in particular made no bones about this. They have long aggressively and successfully asserted their flagship status around the state. UC operates at a number of relative disadvantages, not the least of them being that they are not located in the state capital, but rather in one of its far-flung regions, and in a border city at that.

 

UC probably should be on a competitive level on par with OSU, or at least the University of Pittsburgh, but as long as they are within Ohio, OSU will ensure that they never manage to achieve it.

Cleveland and Cincinnati are both large enough to need and perhaps support a significant research university, even if it were in the larger CSAs. These are incredible drivers of innovation, and fonts of 'intangible' capitals - social, cultural, symbolic, human. I don't think any major metro can thrive without at least one in the 21st Century, and Columbus has the only world-class institution in Ohio; I was also surprised at how low CWRU ranked, but pleasantly surprised that UC had as much money coming in as it does.

 

I am going to guess that a very significant portion of those research dollars are either in medical or applied science research. The universities that have both, like OSU, UM and MSU, Pitt, Indiana (med) and Purdue (applied) and UMTC (that I know of) are going to drive the economies of Columbus, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis and the Twin Cities much faster than the metros without these institutions. Cincinnati is doing pretty well with UC, and Cleveland with Case, but both are large enough to need more, and will struggle without an R1. Cleveland's universities are too distributed among CSU, KSU, and UA; same with Toledo and UT/BGSU; it would perhaps be in the long term interests for those universities to merge for the good of those metros. Imagine another OSU in downtown Cleveland or Toledo, what that would do to both cities. Ohio could support another major public research university on par with OSU (and perhaps reducing its size slightly), and I'd think that Cleveland would be the better site for it.

 

I'm not sure you realize how large UC is. It's already over 2/3 the size of OSU, by enrollment. (Though apparently it receives only half the research funding from the state.)

OSU has done a great deal to lobby the state to prioritize support for them over UC. Former President Gordon Gee in particular made no bones about this. They have long aggressively and successfully asserted their flagship status around the state. UC operates at a number of relative disadvantages, not the least of them being that they are not located in the state capital, but rather in one of its far-flung regions, and in a border city at that.

 

UC probably should be on a competitive level on par with OSU, or at least the University of Pittsburgh, but as long as they are within Ohio, OSU will ensure that they never manage to achieve it.

 

People still think UC is a city school instead of a state school even though Ohio hasn't had city schools in over 40 years.

The New York Times recently ran an article describing how some state universities with declining government funding have raised their national profile and paid the bills by have focusing on merit aid to out of state students. ("How the University of Alabama Became a National Player"). The article focuses on Alabama's spectacular improvement (In the past decade: 58% enrollment increase, 4 point ACT increase, 0.25 GPA increase), but also mentions Miami and South Carolina.

 

Miami University of Ohio got on board for fall 2010, announcing a scholarship “guarantee” with an ACT of 26 and a 3.7 G.P.A. The university had fallen “several hundred” short of the freshman goal, said Susan K. Schaurer, assistant vice president for enrollment management and director of admission. “Our mantra had been to accomplish, but do so humbly and quietly,” she said. “When you are thrust into an incredibly competitive higher education landscape, you have to shift that thinking.”

 

Over the next 18 months, Miami hired two national recruiters and bought contact information from the College Board and ACT for students around the country instead of tapping the usual feeder schools. With its classical arches, tranquil courtyards and liberal arts curriculum, it is often mistaken for a private college, which it is capitalizing on, reaching out to families “seeking that private school experience,” Ms. Schaurer said. Applications are up 62 percent since 2010; two-thirds now come from out of state. Last year, for example, 41 students applied from Greenwich High School in Connecticut and 33 from Mira Costa High School in California.

 

With its success in drawing more students, Miami has walked back on merit aid; there are still scholarships, but the guarantee is gone and, as of this fall, the qualifying ACT score is higher. These days, Ms. Schaurer said, “a student with a 26 ACT is really below average.” Miami now has seven recruiters.

 

This approach hurts local students ("Alabamians are now just 43 percent of the student body."), but allows Miami to somewhat bypass Columbus' control. If the other state schools are going to reach the levels being talked about here, they'll need to get better at this game. Each year over 16,000 Illinois freshmen leave their state for college. Miami has historically been great at attracting these students; perhaps the other state universities could follow their lead.

 

Attracting better and more undergrads doesn't have a direct impact on graduate research, but it does raise the profile of the university and helps balance the budget. It could also help the economy and local culture if some of the out of state students could be convinced to stay in Ohio after graduation.

Not to knock what Bama and S. Carolina are doing, but when your local public school systems absolutely suck, you need to farm outside your state to find talent to bolster your reputation since you cant develop it homegrown.

Ohio State has also done this more or less. I am sure their percentage of Ohioan students has dropped drastically. While I am happy to see the increase in prestige for both OSU and Miami, I worry what happens to Ohio students when they are unwanted by their own state schools.

The smaller state schools that are still hungry like Akron and SSU want them.

Cleveland and Cincinnati are both large enough to need and perhaps support a significant research university, even if it were in the larger CSAs. These are incredible drivers of innovation, and fonts of 'intangible' capitals - social, cultural, symbolic, human. I don't think any major metro can thrive without at least one in the 21st Century, and Columbus has the only world-class institution in Ohio; I was also surprised at how low CWRU ranked, but pleasantly surprised that UC had as much money coming in as it does.

 

I am going to guess that a very significant portion of those research dollars are either in medical or applied science research. The universities that have both, like OSU, UM and MSU, Pitt, Indiana (med) and Purdue (applied) and UMTC (that I know of) are going to drive the economies of Columbus, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis and the Twin Cities much faster than the metros without these institutions. Cincinnati is doing pretty well with UC, and Cleveland with Case, but both are large enough to need more, and will struggle without an R1. Cleveland's universities are too distributed among CSU, KSU, and UA; same with Toledo and UT/BGSU; it would perhaps be in the long term interests for those universities to merge for the good of those metros. Imagine another OSU in downtown Cleveland or Toledo, what that would do to both cities. Ohio could support another major public research university on par with OSU (and perhaps reducing its size slightly), and I'd think that Cleveland would be the better site for it.

 

I'm not sure you realize how large UC is. It's already over 2/3 the size of OSU, by enrollment. (Though apparently it receives only half the research funding from the state.)

 

The state isn't the source of those research dollars; those mostly come from the feds and foundations.

 

Case does have the highest research status by its membership in the Association of American Universities, which has baseline research expectations for membership. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln recently left the AAU because, lacking a medical school, it could not attract the research dollars necessary for membership. Case and OSU are both members of the AAU, but the state of Ohio really only supports one major research university - OSU, unlike nearly all surrounding states. That's why Im confident that the state could support another, if OSU weren't interfering, as others have mentioned.

Not to knock what Bama and S. Carolina are doing, but when your local public school systems absolutely suck, you need to farm outside your state to find talent to bolster your reputation since you cant develop it homegrown.

 

This really has nothing to do with local talent, and everything to do with dwindling state $$ support and stagnant populations in the Midwest. The high school age cohorts are shrinking in numbers all over the Midwest, as families have fewer children and immigration remains stagnant. Several flagship state universities are essentially private (Pitt, UMich, MSU, OSU) because they get single digit percentage support from the state. The tradeoff is that they were released from state mandated caps on out-of-state and international students in exchange for giving up most of their state funding. The big flagships can handle this, but we might see in a few years that second-tier regionals (Four corners, and the former city universities) go this route in the absence of state funding. BGSU, for example, only gets about 17% of its budget from the state now, and a few years of cost-cutting and rising tuition could make up for that. Pop some popcorn to watch the continuing public disinvestment in public education.

Cleveland and Cincinnati are both large enough to need and perhaps support a significant research university, even if it were in the larger CSAs. These are incredible drivers of innovation, and fonts of 'intangible' capitals - social, cultural, symbolic, human. I don't think any major metro can thrive without at least one in the 21st Century, and Columbus has the only world-class institution in Ohio; I was also surprised at how low CWRU ranked, but pleasantly surprised that UC had as much money coming in as it does.

 

I am going to guess that a very significant portion of those research dollars are either in medical or applied science research. The universities that have both, like OSU, UM and MSU, Pitt, Indiana (med) and Purdue (applied) and UMTC (that I know of) are going to drive the economies of Columbus, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis and the Twin Cities much faster than the metros without these institutions. Cincinnati is doing pretty well with UC, and Cleveland with Case, but both are large enough to need more, and will struggle without an R1. Cleveland's universities are too distributed among CSU, KSU, and UA; same with Toledo and UT/BGSU; it would perhaps be in the long term interests for those universities to merge for the good of those metros. Imagine another OSU in downtown Cleveland or Toledo, what that would do to both cities. Ohio could support another major public research university on par with OSU (and perhaps reducing its size slightly), and I'd think that Cleveland would be the better site for it.

 

I'm not sure you realize how large UC is. It's already over 2/3 the size of OSU, by enrollment. (Though apparently it receives only half the research funding from the state.)

 

The state isn't the source of those research dollars; those mostly come from the feds and foundations.

 

Case does have the highest research status by its membership in the Association of American Universities, which has baseline research expectations for membership. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln recently left the AAU because, lacking a medical school, it could not attract the research dollars necessary for membership. Case and OSU are both members of the AAU, but the state of Ohio really only supports one major research university - OSU, unlike nearly all surrounding states. That's why Im confident that the state could support another, if OSU weren't interfering, as others have mentioned.

 

AAU and R1 research are 2 different things.

The state isn't the source of those research dollars; those mostly come from the feds and foundations.

 

My bad, I misread your earlier post.

I'm not sure you realize how large UC is. It's already over 2/3 the size of OSU, by enrollment. (Though apparently it receives only half the research funding from the state.)

 

UC is much bigger than the flagship state university in most states.  It has about 45,000 total full-time and part-time students. 

 

UC doesn't have a very big reputation state-wide due to most students staying in the metro after graduation. between Cincinnatians being very well-networked and co-ops there often isn't much need for them to leave town. I don't hear much about UC students co-oping in the rest of the state. It's usually in town or out of state.

I didn't even know UC existed until my parents decided to sign me up for a campus tour since we were already down in Dayton checking out UD, which until visiting UC was my #1 college choice at the time. Honestly my entire mental picture of Cincinnati prior to 2011 was the Beast and the Eiffel Tower. I think there were 3-4 kids, including myself, from my graduating class in Olmsted Falls that started at UC with me. Almost everyone else went to Kent, BGSU, or OSU. As for co-ops, a large portion of my engineering classmates stayed within Cin-Day, with very few exceptions. DAAP kids definitely got out a lot more to the coasts and Chicago, but other than my one friend who did a rotation for a firm in Columbus, most of the DAAPers seemed to stay in Cincinnati or an "alpha" city as opposed to really anywhere else in the midwest.

AAU and R1 research are 2 different things.

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That's true; R1 is a broader definition, set by the Carnegie Foundation I believe; but it's the AAU schools that, as a condition of their membership, must maintain an extremely high level of external funding, which is why I think AAU membership is a better gauge of the kind of world-class universities that major metropolitan areas need.

While we're on this topic, does anyone know why "State" was added in the names for CSU, KSU, BGSU, Wright State, and Shawnee State but not Cincinnati, Toledo, Akron, and Miami? I've always thought "University of Cleveland", "University of Kent", and "Bowling Green University" sounded better. "University of Portsmouth" was already taken so that was off the table, but "Shawnee State" is an odd choice since there isn't any connection to the Shawnee Tribe, at least not that I'm aware of.

It's probably just due to each institution's history. University of Cincinnati was a city university before it became a state university. If Ohio had a more centralized public university system, it might be called Ohio State University Cincinnati instead.

The present state university system is the legacy of Gov. Rhodes and his notion that all Ohioans should have a public university in their community or at least within a reasonable commute. While it's a very egalitarian policy, it clearly isn't practical for the state and its socioeconomic outlook today, and also considering current trends in Higher Ed.

 

I think as others have also suggested, Ohio really should have and focus on building-up and maintaining 3 major public regional universities representing each of the 3Cs/largest metros--Ohio State, University of Cincinnati, and what would need to be a massively "powered-up" Cleveland State likely resulting from a consolidation of CSU, Kent, and Akron into a regional system (e.g. University of Cleveland? University of Northeast Ohio?). The 3Cs should obviously differentiate themselves somewhat in terms of their research and programmatic focus to the point that they aren't essentially carbon copies of each other.

 

Where this leaves other state universities like Ohio University, Toledo, Bowling Green, Youngstown State, and Wright State long term is uncertain, but I could see some amount of specialization and/or regional consolidation happening among them too--Toledo and BGSU in NW Ohio, as someone suggested. Wright State also maybe becomes "University of Cincinnati at Dayton." This approach probably doesn't support some of the more aggressive satellite campus expansion efforts we have recently seen by OU in Columbus, which really make no sense from a state resource allocation standpoint with Ohio State already being an established presence there.