Living in Ohio I have been wondering about the in-state/out-of-state issues for a while, particularly as it applies to Ohio State and Case Western.
First the easy one - Case western has a yearly budget of $100 million. Exactly $5M of that comes from the state of Ohio coffers, and according to statute (or it could be by regulation, which has the effect of a statute unless in conflict with one) must accept a certain percentage of applicants from Ohio, though I do not know what that percentage is.
I was told that Case planned to eliminate its burdens to Ohio, but that it did not want to give up the funding. Although 5% is not that huge of a deal, it still represents $5M that needs to be found somewhere else. My question has always been how a school can keep state funding but ignore state obligations.
Ohio State is in a different boat. It receives something like over half of its annual budget from the state. It too would be required by statute (or regulation) to admit (and/or matriculate) a certain percentage of Ohio state residents. I was under the impression this ratio was 60/40 in/out. That being the case, I cannot understand how a new dean (no matter who he is) can simply ignore state laws which require him to matriculate a certain percentage of Ohio state residents.
It is my impression that the Ohio Board of Regents is NOT asleep at the switch regarding the state of medical education in Ohio. point in fact, the chairman of that organization proposed last year that the state "consider" closing one of its state supported medical schools (which would likely be either WSU or NEOUCOM - or possibily, though less likely, MCO). Each year the medical schools of Ohio have to fight for state funding. And I was told this was an annual concern of some of the smaller schools (obviously NOT a concern for OSU and UC).
It could be, then, that OSU has decided to do without (or with less) state funding in order to raise its out-of-state number of matriculants. To the extent this program is successful, tuition for out-of-staters MUST rise (or perhaps the residency rules after the first year will be tightened - for instance to prevent out-of-staters from getting in-state tuition for years 2,3 and 4).
In any event, moving up in the rankings - I believe - entails quite a bit more than simply declaring that that is a goal of the program. Honestly, isn't this the stated goal of just about all programs? No to mention that each place a school rises means that another school must be displaced. And, as has been mentioned more than once above, a student with a 34 MCAT (let's face it, GPA is almost meaningless above a certain level) not only must choose to go to OSU (where the average MCAT last year was only 31) but also must choose NOT to attend Columbia or Harvard, where the MCAT's last year were closer to her own. I think that within blocks of 5-7 schools on the rankings, the rankings are fairly entrenched. It will be hard for any school to move one way or the other more than, say, a spot or two (or maybe three) based on MCAT and GPA scores alone, simply because the system tends to cause historical scores for each school to remain static. It's my feeling, then, that scores are the LAST thing to move for a school and that if a school wants to move up in the list, it needs to influence some other aspect of its ranking, which will only then cause the scores to inch up. What this is, I have no idea.
I was interested very much in OSU, but got no love. I wish it well, but i guess I was one of the casualties of the new policies.
Judd
