Page 90 - Forbes Magazine-September 30, 2018

PURDUE’S BOLD PLAN
Mitch Daniels wants to make college more
affordable and increase his university’s
enrollment. Higher-ed purists are aghast.

WAITING FOR Mitch Daniels agriculture and the mechanical arts
to pick up a call to his office in to working-class Americans.
West Lafayette, Indiana, you hear Daniels believed Purdue wasn’t
a recording of Purdue’s marching fulfilling that mission. “The only
band followed by a hard-to-believe costs that have outrun healthcare
statement: “Purdue has frozen in the last three decades are college
tuition at 2012 levels through 2019 tuition, room and board,” he says.
for all undergraduate students.” His solution: Freeze student costs
Daniels, the president of In- at 2012 levels. Purdue’s admissions
diana’s flagship public university, staffers balked. “I said, ‘Look, I just
then gets on the phone and says landed here on Mars, and I can tell
something even more startling: In you that the people back on Earth
inflation-adjusted dollars, Purdue think college costs too much.’ ”
costs $4,000 less per year for out- Attacking affordability from an- Daniels’ third bold move invited president. Enrollment is at an
of-state students than it did other angle, in 2016 he introduced the most criticism from higher-ed all-time high, as are alumni dona-
when he took the job in 2013. income-share agreements. Students purists. Last year he paid $1—yes, tions, graduation rates and the
In-staters pay nearly $3,000 who exhaust federal loans can fund a dollar—to acquire the belea- number of startups launched by
less, at just under $23,000 this their education with an agree- guered for-profit, largely online Purdue researchers. Purdue also
academic year for tuition, room, ment to sign over a share of their Kaplan University from former ranks No. 126 on Forbes’ list of
board and expenses. future income, usually between Washington Post owner Graham America’s top colleges, up from
Back in 2013, Daniels, now 69, 3% and 5% for up to ten years after Holdings Co. Purdue instantly No. 143 last year. While other in-
dashed hopes that he would run they graduate. (Repayments are boosted its enrollment by 30,000 stitutions are cutting tenure-track
for the Republican presidential capped at 2.5 times initial costs.) Kaplan students—most of whom jobs, Purdue has added 75 tenured
nomination, signing on at Purdue Critics hate ISAs because they’re are female, between the ages of engineering professorships and
instead after two terms as Indiana’s unregulated and untested. Milton 30 and 60, and the first in their increased the number of students
popular moderate GOP gover- Friedman is said to have invented families to go to college. They are earning STEM degrees by 33%
nor—and setting out to fix the bro- the idea but famously noted that now working toward degrees at the (minorities are up 50%).
ken business of higher ed. His first they were “economically equivalent newly named Purdue Global Uni- Then there’s Boiler Gold, a
priority: make good on Purdue’s . . . to partial slavery.” Daniels says, versity. After Purdue covers operat- craft beer on which Purdue’s hops
mission as a land-grant university, “If you want indentured servitude, ing costs and collects $50 million in and brewing analysis lab is col-
a designation dating back to the it’s the student-loan program. With tuition, Kap lan is entitled to 12.5% laborating with a local brewer. “It
Civil War, when the federal gov- ISAs, the risk shifts entirely to the of Purdue Global’s revenue. started as a research project,” says
ernment allotted land and funds lender,” since grads who don’t find So far, so good. Applications Daniels, “and now we can’t make
to universities that would teach work pay nothing. are up 67% since Daniels became the stuff fast enough.” F

BEST VALUE SCHOOLS
THE MOST GRATEFUL GRADS
These universities score well on net price, net student debt, alumni earnings, How to measure college ROI: Find the schools with the alumni who give back in droves.
timely graduation, school quality and access for low-income students.
For public institutions, we used in-state tuition. To see the full list of 7-YEAR MEDIAN 3-YEAR 2018
Best Value Colleges, go to forbes.com/best-value-colleges. DONATIONS PER AVERAGE ALUMNI GRATEFUL
COLLEGE STUDENT PARTICIPATION GRAD INDEX
$24,039 41.3% 99.81
1 2 3 4 5 TOP COLLEGES EDITED BY SUSAN ADAMS AND CARTER COUDRIET WITH REPORTING BY GWEN AVILES,
DARTMOUTH COLLEGE
1
23,434 47.8 99.77 QUANZHI GUO, TIA NANJAPPAN AND AISHA POWELL. PURDUE BY SUSAN ADAMS. GRATEFUL GRADS
2 WILLIAMS COLLEGE
UNIVERSITY OF UNIVERSITY OF BRIGHAM UNIVERSITY OF UNIVERSITY OF
CALIFORNIA, CALIFORNIA, YOUNG CALIFORNIA, WASHINGTON–
23,536 40.5 99.67
3 PRINCETON UNIVERSITY BY SARAH HANSEN AND MATT SCHIFRIN. PHOTOGRAPH BY TIMPANNELL FOR FORBES
LOS ANGELES BERKELEY UNIVERSITY IRVINE SEATTLE
Los Angeles Berkeley, CA Provo, UT Irvine, CA Seattle 4 AMHERST COLLEGE 21,354 45.1 99.38
TUITION2 $14,170 $5,460 $13,738 $10,974
$13,261 5 DAVIDSON COLLEGE 19,994 44.5 99.05
22,776 33.8 98.8
6 7 8 9 10 6 CLAREMONT MCKENNA COLLEGE
19,810 38.1 98.68
HARVARD STANFORD PRINCETON UNIVERSITY OF AMHERST 7 HAVERFORD COLLEGE
UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY CALIFORNIA, COLLEGE
16,328 49.0 97.79
Cambridge, MA Stanford, CA Princeton, NJ SAN DIEGO Amherst, MA 8 WELLESLEY COLLEGE
$48,949 $49,617 $47,140 La Jolla, CA $54,310 9 WABASH COLLEGE 19,850 31.4 97.78
$14,018
17,472 35.5 97.64
10 UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME
1Enrollment is total number of undergraduates. Annual cost is the estimated total cost of attendance for out-of-state students living on campus in 2017–2018.
2Tuition is for the 2017–2018 academic year. Source: National Center for Education Statistics.
SEPTEMBER 30, 2018 FORBES | 25