Preview Mode Links will not work in preview mode

USACollegeChat Podcast

  1. All Episodes
  2. Episode 46: Colleges in the Mid-Atlantic Region—Part II

Episode 46: Colleges in the Mid-Atlantic Region—Part II

Oct 1, 2015

This is the nineteenth episode in our virtual tour of colleges across the U.S., designed to help you find colleges that might be great choices for your child, but are outside your geographic comfort zone. So far, we have toured the Great Lakes region, the Southeast region, the Rocky Mountain region, the Plains region, the Southwest region, the Far West region, and the New England region, and we started into the Mid-Atlantic region last week. We are on a continuing mission to see whether we can convince even our nearby listeners in this region to check out colleges in their neighboring states.

As always, we are discussing only four-year colleges, reasoning that students who plan to attend two-year colleges are highly likely to go to the closest one, which makes sense for a two-year college.

And let us say it once again, no college has asked us or paid us anything to include it in our virtual tour. These are our own choices.

1. The Mid-Atlantic Region

As we explained last week, even though The Bureau of Economic Analysis (an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce) calls this region the Mideast region, I will continue to call it the Mid-Atlantic region, which, as a native Pennsylvanian, I have always called it. So, with apologies to the Bureau, we will look at the Mid-Atlantic region of Maryland, Delaware, the District of Columbia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York—but we are going to put off a discussion of New York because it is the home state of many of our listeners and we know that they will be especially interested in it (though we kind of wish they were not).

Last week, we examined the public flagship universities in the Mid-Atlantic region, including one HBCU, and we will continue to look at public options in this region in this episode. Next week, we will be taking a look at a variety of private colleges here.

2. Other Public State Universities

In each of these states, there are also other public universities—campuses within the flagship system, campuses within a second-tier system in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and colleges and universities in their own right. As we said last week, some of these campuses are, in fact, historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), and we will look at them separately. In looking at all of these other public options, I want to say again that we always consider whether any one of these public options is sufficiently attractive to draw a student away from the public options in his or her home state, which would likely be far cheaper.

I do believe that flagship universities are very often appealing enough to attract students away from public options in their own states, especially public options that are not their own flagship universities. I am not sure how many other public options there are in the Mid-Atlantic states that are that attractive, but let’s look at a few of the best candidates.

Let’s start in Pennsylvania with the University of Pittsburgh (commonly referred to as Pitt), a major urban university in a major city in the far western part of the commonwealth. Pitt was founded in 1787 as Pittsburgh Academy in a log cabin on the frontier and later came to be called Western University of Pennsylvania. In addition to its main campus—which enrolls about 19,000 undergraduates and 10,000 graduate and professional students, for a total of 29,000 students—Pitt also has four regional campuses.

Pitt has 14 undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools and colleges, including all the standard undergraduate colleges for a large university—arts and sciences, education, business, engineering, and information sciences—plus a School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, School of Nursing, and School of Social Work. Pitt also has graduate and professional schools of law, medicine, public health, dentistry, and pharmacy. By the way, Jonas Salk developed his world-changing polio vaccine at Pitt in 1955.

Pitt offers over 400 student organizations and 19 varsity sports teams. Pitt Panthers play some good basketball and football. The football team was the first college team to wear numbers on their jerseys, the first to fly to away games, and the first to play in games broadcast on the radio. And in case you didn’t know, Pitt’s four-time All-America Tony Dorsett was the first football player to win a college national championship (and the prestigious Heisman Trophy in 1976) and then the Super Bowl for the Dallas Cowboys in back-to-back years. Unfortunately, Dorsett has been diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy as a result of brain trauma from his playing years. So here’s a shout-out to you, Tony Dorsett: We loved to see you run and wish the very best for you now.

The latest class of Pitt freshmen came from 44 states and 17 foreign countries. About 65 percent were Pennsylvania residents (just about like Penn State), with New Jersey and New York being the next-most-popular home states. SAT subtest scores were in the low to mid-600s, and the average high school GPA was about a 4.0 (75 percent of students posted a GPA of 3.75 or higher). About 25 percent of students were non-white—a record high for the University.

Though tuition differs some by school within Pitt, tuition and fees run about $19,000 per year for in-state students and about $30,000 per year for out-of-state students—with out-of-state tuition and fees comparable to the flagship universities in the region, but with in-state costs a bit higher.

Coming along about 100 years after Pitt in the far western part of Pennsylvania was Temple University in Philadelphia in the far eastern part of the commonwealth. Temple had an interesting beginning:

Temple University's history begins in 1884, when a young working man asked Russell Conwell if he could tutor him at night. A well-known Philadelphia minister, Conwell quickly said yes. It wasn't long before he was teaching several dozen students—working people who could attend class only at night, but had a strong desire to make something of themselves. 

Conwell recruited volunteer faculty to participate in the burgeoning night school, and in 1888 he received a charter of incorporation for “The Temple College.” His founding vision for the school was to provide superior educational opportunities for academically talented and highly motivated students, regardless of their backgrounds or means…. 

Today, Temple's . . . students continue to follow the university's official motto—Perseverantia Vincit, or “Perseverance Conquers.” (quoted, with editing, from the website)

Currently, Temple serves about 32,000 undergraduate, graduate, and professional students on its main campus in downtown Philadelphia. Temple has other campuses in Philadelphia; three campuses outside Philadelphia, but in Pennsylvania; a campus in Rome; and quite a campus in Japan. The Japan Campus serves about 800 students in undergraduate degree programs (almost half are U.S. residents) and another 2,500 graduate, professional, and corporate adult students from about 60 countries:

Temple University, Japan Campus (TUJ), is the oldest and largest foreign university in Japan. Founded in 1982, TUJ has developed into a nationally recognized institution offering an extensive range of educational programs. In addition to its core undergraduate program, TUJ offers graduate programs in law, business, and education; an English-language preparation program; continuing education courses; and corporate education classes….

TUJ is the first educational institution in Japan to be officially recognized as a Foreign University, Japan Campus by Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. This status allows TUJ to sponsor student visas, enabling international students to study at the university on either a short-term basis (one or two semesters) or a long-term basis (such as to complete a full four-year program). (quoted from the website)

Temple has 17 undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools and colleges—including all of the regular choices, plus a School of Environmental Design, a School of Tourism and Hospitality Management, and the Boyer College of Music and Dance. It offers undergraduates over 100 degree programs.

Like the big public universities we have been discussing, Temple has hundreds of student organizations and 19 varsity sports teams. Temple also offers Army ROTC—Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, which provides leadership training during the year and in the summer. ROTC cadets graduate as Second Lieutenants, with a required service commitment. ROTC scholarships can pay for up to full tuition for eligible students. Though we haven’t talked about ROTC much, it is available on about 1,100 college campuses nationwide.

Incoming freshmen at Temple post SAT subtest scores averaging in the mid-500s, with a high school GPA average of about 3.5. About 75 percent are Pennsylvania residents—meaning to me that Temple is not as well known outside the commonwealth as Pitt and Penn State.

Its tuition differs by school/college, with the College of Liberal Arts running about $15,000 a year for Pennsylvania residents and about $25,000 a year for out-of-state students. But out-of-state students attending Temple’s fine arts schools or business school, for example, will pay closer to $33,000 a year. So, parents, check the tuition rates carefully school by school at universities you are looking at for your teenager.

Let’s turn our focus to New Jersey and its two public research universities in addition to Rutgers: Rowan University and New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). Let’s start with Rowan, which came rather late to the game for colleges in this part of the country—that is, in 1923. It was started as a normal school to train teachers for South Jersey on a piece of land that 107 residents of Glassboro raised money to buy and donate to the state for this institution. Becoming a junior college and then Glassboro State Teachers College, Rowan got its new name in 1992 from benefactors Henry and Betty Rowan, who gave the university $100 million, with a request “that a College of Engineering be created with a curriculum that would address the shortcomings of engineering education at that time” (quoted from the website). Wow. Glassboro, by the way, is a reasonably short drive from both Philadelphia and Atlantic City. Rowan also has a campus in Camden to serve the needs of its inner-city residents.

Rowan offers its approximately 11,000 undergraduates about 90 degree programs in about a dozen undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools and colleges, including the Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering. Rowan also serves another approximately 2,500 graduate and professional students, for a total of about 13,500 students, and provides plenty of student organizations and 16 varsity sports teams.

The Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering offers degrees in biomedical, chemical, civil and environmental, electrical and computer, and mechanical engineering. According to the website, “A signature component of the program, the Engineering Clinics, thread the 4-year program of study. The Clinic sequence accentuates a hands-on, team-oriented approach to a highly multidisciplinary education. The importance placed on technical and communication skills make Rowan engineers a valuable asset for the region and the profession.”

Incoming freshmen two years ago posted average SAT subtest scores in the mid-500s and an average high school GPA of 3.5. Interestingly, beginning with this year’s freshman class, students who had a high school GPA of 3.5 or better could choose not to submit college admission test scores—with some exceptions, including engineering students, homeschooled and international students, and students applying for merit scholarships—but rather write an additional admissions essay.

In-state tuition and fees run about $13,000 a year, while out-of-state tuition and fees run about $21,000 a year—which make it one of the better-priced options for out-of-state students we have discussed. Rowan also offers Wintersession, which allows students to take a three-credit course on an accelerated schedule—and out-of-state students pay the same lower cost as in-state students. So, students can finish a degree faster and cheaper!

Let’s move on to NJIT, located on a 45-acre campus in the University Heights district of downtown Newark and founded as Newark Technical School by an act of the New Jersey legislature in 1880 to provide for industrial education for New Jersey residents. Known as New Jersey’s Science and Technology University, NJIT serves almost 8,000 undergraduates and another approximately 3,000 graduate students, for a total of about 11,000 students—one of the smaller public options.

NJIT is a specialized technical university, offering over 45 bachelor’s degree programs in its schools and colleges of engineering, architecture and design, computing sciences, management, and science and liberal arts (which is understandably heavy on the sciences). Despite its technical orientation, NJIT also offers students traditional college life, including over 90 student organizations and 17 varsity sports teams and with about half the freshman class choosing to live in NJIT residence halls on campus.

Almost 20 percent of NJIT undergraduates are female. The Murray Center is dedicated to helping those undergraduate women succeed. As well as serving as an informal gathering place, the Center houses the Society of Women Engineers and NJIT’s Big Sister–Little Sister and Alumnae–Student mentoring programs.

Average SAT subtest scores for incoming freshmen last fall were a 563 in critical reading and a 629 in math. I think this is an unusually clear statement of what NJIT is looking for in an applicant, according to its website:

The average composite SAT score for our enrolling freshmen is 1190. If your score is below 1100, we recommend that you retake the test to try to raise it.

Class rank: We look for students in the top 30 percent of their class. For schools that don't use a ranking system, we consider a B average to be equivalent. (quoted from the website)

I think that these scores and high school grades put NJIT within reach for a lot of students who thought a highly technical university might be too selective for them.

Tuition and fees for New Jersey residents run about $16,000 per year, while tuition and fees for out-of-state residents are almost twice that at about $30,000 per year. These figures put NJIT about on a par with the flagship universities we discussed last week. Incidentally, NJIT offers rolling admissions, with a decision coming just two to three weeks after an application is complete (and note that some programs in the College of Architecture and Design do require a portfolio of creative work as part of the application).

Let’s head over to Maryland to look at two special colleges: St. Mary’s College of Maryland and the U.S. Naval Academy. Starting with St. Mary’s College of Maryland, The Public Honors College, we find a very small public institution, located on the St. Mary’s River in the Chesapeake Bay region, about 70 miles southeast of our nation’s capital and about 95 miles south of Baltimore. St. Mary’s has a most unusual history from the moment colonists reached the land that is now its campus:

English colonists arrived aboard the Ark and Dove in 1634, determined to establish a settlement under a charter from King Charles I, authorizing them to take dominion of the lands surrounding the Chesapeake Bay. Led by Leonard Calvert, second son of Lord Baltimore, they came ashore within sight of where the College stands today, signed a treaty of peaceful coexistence with the Yaocomaco, and named their town St. Mary’s City. Though the settlement had ceased to flourish by the end of the 17th century, it was the capital of Maryland for 61 years (until 1695) and saw the beginnings of civil rights and representative government on this continent.

From the very first, St. Mary’s embraced the ideal of making an excellent education affordable. In 1846, the first board of trustees designed tuition and living costs to be substantially lower than those at similar schools. After 1868, when the General Assembly began giving the school annual appropriations, the seminary frequently educated up to half of its students…free of charge…. During the 20th century, the school expanded its campus and enriched the quality of instruction to serve the growing numbers of young women, and eventually men, who desired a fine education….

In 1927, … St. Mary’s became Maryland’s first junior college, affording students the unique opportunity to complete four years of high school and two years of college at the same institution.

In 1947, the Maryland Commission on Higher Education slated St. Mary’s Female Seminary-Junior College for dissolution although it was fully accredited and had begun admitting male students. Before the governor could act, a large public outcry, prompted by tireless alumnae, not only saved the school from extinction, but created the momentum for removing the word “Female” and renaming it St. Mary’s Seminary Junior College (1949), and its eventual evolution into a four-year baccalaureate college (1967). In 1992, the Maryland legislature designated it the state’s public honors college. (quoted, with editing, from the website)

Today, St. Mary’s serves almost 1,800 undergraduates (and about 35 graduate students in a Master of Arts in Teaching program). It is the quintessential liberal arts college, offering 24 majors in 17 departments, with seven intriguing cross-disciplinary minors. Students take a truly liberal arts core curriculum, which includes a freshman seminar on the liberal arts skills; a one-course international language requirement; courses in six academic fields that represent “liberal arts approaches to understanding the world” (arts, cultural perspectives, humanistic foundations, mathematics, natural sciences, and social sciences); and an “experiencing the liberal arts in the world” requirement, which can be satisfied by a study tour or a semester or year-long study abroad program, or a credit-bearing internship, or a service learning class.

St. Mary’s offers public higher education students a small-college atmosphere, with a student-to-faculty ratio of just 10:1 (very unusual for a public higher education institution)—as well as 85 student organizations and 17 varsity sports teams. While designated as an honors college, the academic profile of its freshman class seems achievable by many college-bound students. Average SAT subtest scores are a trio of scores in the high 500s, and the average high school GPA is about a 3.4. About 90 percent of its students are Maryland residents, and I am guessing that is partly because St. Mary’s has a low profile outside the state.

Maryland residents pay about $14,000 per year in tuition and fees, and out-of-state students pay about $29,000—or twice as much. That out-of-state figure is equivalent to many of the other public institutions we have been discussing. But families and students who are looking for a small liberal arts college vibe at a public price might find St. Mary’s remarkably attractive.

Another almost-unique public institution in Maryland is the U.S. Naval Academy (often referred to by its location as Annapolis)—one of the nation’s five military service academies—founded in 1845. As we said in an early episode of NYCollegeChat, the federally funded military service academies are all outstanding, academically rigorous institutions, whose mission is to build highly trained and highly ethical leaders, in this case for the Navy and the Marine Corps. Students are classified as midshipmen on active duty in the Navy.

Young men and women at the Academy graduate with Bachelor of Science degrees in a choice of about 25 majors—mostly in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics related to their future careers, though they can major in Arabic, Chinese, economics, English, history, or political science (and minor in other foreign languages). Upon graduation, they are commissioned as Ensigns in the Navy or Second Lieutenants in the Marine Corps. Academy graduates serve at least five years after graduation—a significant, and perhaps scary, commitment for many high school seniors to make.

Admissions to the Academy is a multi-step process, which includes the well-known appointment by a government official, typically a U.S. Representative, a U.S. Senator, or the Vice President of the U.S. Those government officials look over applications from interested students and decide which to put forward for possible admission to the Academy. Clearly, admission to the Academy is highly selective in every possible way.

As with all federal military service academies, tuition, room and board, and everything else are free. Midshipmen also receive a monthly stipend while in school, though certain expenses are deducted from it. Actual cash pay is about $100 a month to start. Midshipmen get normal holiday breaks, but only three weeks of vacation in the summer. The Academy and what follows are a way of life—with enormous benefits and likely some sacrifices.  

3. Historically Black Colleges and Universities

As we said last week, we have talked many times about historically black colleges and universities (commonly referred to as HBCUs), which were established with the mission of educating African-American students solely or primarily. You might recall that there are just over 100 HBCUs—public and private, rural and urban, large and small, two-year and four-year and graduate schools. They all have a strong sense of community among the alumni/alumnae and a strong sense of tradition and shared culture on HBCU campuses.

Eight of the public HBCUs are located in this Mid-Atlantic region—the University of the District of Columbia, the flagship university, which we discussed last week; The Lincoln University in Chester County, Pennsylvania, and Cheyney University of Pennsylvania; Delaware State University; Morgan State University in Baltimore; and three campuses of the University System of Maryland, namely Coppin State University, Bowie State University, and the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. Let’s look briefly at two of these.

Starting in Maryland, Morgan State University is located in residential northeast Baltimore and carries “the responsibility of addressing the needs of residents, schools, and organizations within the Baltimore Metropolitan Area” (quoted from the website). Though Morgan awards more bachelor’s degrees to African-American students than any other higher education institution in Maryland, it has served and continues to serve students of all racial and ethnic backgrounds. Morgan has an interesting history:

Founded in 1867 as the Centenary Biblical Institute by the Baltimore Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the institution’s original mission was to train young men in ministry. It subsequently broadened its mission to educate both men and women as teachers. The school was renamed Morgan College in 1890 in honor of the Reverend Lyttleton Morgan, the first chairman of its Board of Trustees, who donated land to the college. Morgan awarded its first baccalaureate degree . . . in 1895. . . .

Morgan remained a private institution until 1939. That year, the state of Maryland purchased the school in response to a state study that determined that Maryland needed to provide more opportunities for its black citizens. . . .

By the time it became a public campus, the College had become a relatively comprehensive institution. Until the mid-1960s, when the state’s teachers colleges began their transition to liberal arts campuses, Morgan and the University of Maryland College Park were the only two public campuses in the state with comprehensive missions. . . .

[I]n 1975 the State Legislature designated Morgan as a university. . . . In 1988 Maryland reorganized its higher education structure and . . . campuses in the state college system became part of the University of Maryland System. Morgan and St. Mary's College of Maryland were the only public baccalaureate-granting institutions authorized to have their own governing boards. The legislation also strengthened Morgan's authority to offer advanced programs and designated the campus as Maryland's Public Urban University. (quoted and edited from the website)

Today, Morgan boasts nine undergraduate schools and colleges, including the School of Community Health and Policy, the School of Global Journalism and Communication, the School of Architecture and Planning, the School of Engineering, and, appropriately, the School of Education and Urban Studies. Morgan’s approximately 6,500 undergraduates choose among about 45 bachelor’s degree programs. (Morgan enrolls another approximately 1,500 graduate and professional students.)

About 80 percent of Morgan’s students are African American, and about 75 percent are Maryland residents, with nearby New York, New Jersey, D.C., and Pennsylvania being the next-most-popular residences. Tuition and fees are a relative bargain at Morgan, with Maryland residents paying just about $7,500 per year, and out-of-state residents paying about $17,000 per year.

When Marie and I attended the National Association for College Admission Counseling’s college fair in New York City last April, we spoke with Grayson Savoie, an admissions officer, who offered the following audio pitch for Morgan for NYCollegeChat. (Be sure to listen to it in our recorded episode.)

For a last look at HBCUs in the Mid-Atlantic region, I would like to spotlight The Lincoln University, located in Chester County, Pennsylvania—just southwest of Philadelphia and northwest of Newark, Delaware. The University “formally associated” with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as a public institution in 1972, but its roots go far, far back as the oldest degree-granting HBCU in the country. Chartered as the private Ashmun Institute in 1854, it was renamed after President Abraham Lincoln in 1866.

Horace Mann Bond, Lincoln Class of 1923 and the eighth president of the University, wrote that it was “the first institution found anywhere in the world to provide a higher education in the arts and sciences for male youth of African descent” (quoted from his book, Education for Freedom). If President Bond’s name sounds familiar, it will be obvious why in this statement by current Interim President Richard Green last month:

Lincoln University’s administration, faculty, staff and students are deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Julian Bond, an admired civil rights leader who leaves a rich legacy that others can only aspire to achieve. He spent many years on this campus with his father, Horace Mann Bond ’23, the university’s first African American president, from 1945 to 1957. (quoted from the website)

 Currently, the University enrolls about 1,600 undergraduate students and about 200 graduate students. About 80 percent of its undergraduates are black, and only about 40 percent are Pennsylvania residents. For a small school, it has quite a list of prominent alumni/alumnae, including poet Langston Hughes, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, and the first presidents of both Ghana and Nigeria.

The University offers over 25 undergraduate degree programs in the liberal arts and sciences and in some career fields, including business, criminal justice, mass communications, health science, and nursing.

Applications are accepted any time after completion of a student’s junior year in high school, with admissions decisions made on a rolling basis, with no firm deadline and with decisions made in three to four weeks. Students may apply for spring admission, too. Its incoming freshmen last fall posted average SAT subtest scores in the low 400s and an average high school GPA of about a 2.8.

Tuition and fees run about $12,000 per year for Pennsylvania residents and about $17,000 for out-of-state students—the slimmest difference we have seen.

Again, when we attended the National Association for College Admission Counseling’s college fair in New York City last April, we also spoke with Kenyatta Austin, an admissions counselor, who offered the following audio pitch for The Lincoln University, her alma mater, for NYCollegeChat. (Be sure to listen to it in our recorded episode.)

Listen to the podcast to find out about…

  • Public colleges with reasonable admissions standards
  • Public colleges with special missions and specialized curricula
  • Public colleges with remarkable histories

Check out these higher education institutions and organizations we mention…

Outside of New York State

Learn more about these topics in previous episodes…

Ask your questions or share your feedback by…

  • Calling us at (516) 900-NYCC to record a question on our NYCollegeChat voicemail if you want us to answer your question live on our podcast
  • Emailing us at paul@policystudies.org to ask a question if you want us to answer it privately

Connect with us through…

  • Subscribing to our podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, or TuneIn
  • Liking us on Facebook
  • Following us on Twitter
  • Reviewing parent materials we have available at www.policystudies.org
  • Inquiring about our consulting services if you need individualized help