New York University couldn’t have asked for better media coverage than it received this summer upon announcing the composition of its first class on its new campus, in Abu Dhabi, this fall. Newspapers reported the impressive-by-any-measure results. Only 2.1 percent of the 9,048 applicants were accepted, and of those accepted, almost four out of five chose to enroll. The 150 new students hail from 39 countries and speak 43 languages among them, and their average SAT scores are well above 700 on the verbal and the math sections.
The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and USA Today all managed to find students who had turned down attractive offers from other prestigious colleges. Two of the newspapers managed to find the same student: “Symone Gamble, 17, of Frisco, Texas, was dead set on attending Princeton University,” reported USA Today. “Then she noticed a booklet about New York University Abu Dhabi in her stacks of college mail. ...” According to The Wall Street Journal, Ms. Gamble calls herself a “Princeton girl” who was persuaded to go to Abu Dhabi by the “passion” of the professors and other staff members.
So what motivates a student from suburban Texas to move across the world for college when she could have gone with a sure thing here? For some, money probably plays a role: NYUAD’s tuition, room, and board is over $62,000, but the government of Abu Dhabi offers generous financial aid, making sure that every student admitted can comfortably attend, and even travel to and from home a couple of times a year.
But most likely, NYUAD is drawing students primarily because it is a new venture. There are about 4,400 colleges and universities in the United States right now, according to the U.S. Department of Education, and new ones open every year. I’ve spent some time studying some of the religious-college start-ups that dot the American landscape, and they may offer interesting insights for observers of the Abu Dhabi effort.
Although the comparisons aren’t always apples-to-apples, other institutions’ efforts offer some cautionary lessons. NYU is building a new campus, using its own faculty and part of its own administration and curriculum. And NYU is a pretty well-established brand. On the other hand, even as a secular institution, NYUAD seems to inspire the same missionary zeal that prompts the opening of new religious colleges.
In 2000 the new Ave Maria School of Law actually offered free tuition to all of its students and admitted a class whose LSAT’s ranked 26th in the country. It even had one student turn down Harvard Law to attend. The school did become accredited and still attracts some smart kids, but it has never regained the caliber it had when it was giving away all that money.
Of course, those young men and women did not decide to attend a little-known Roman Catholic law school (unaccredited at the time) only because of the money. Like the students who applied to any number of the recent start-up institutions in America—Patrick Henry College, an evangelical institution in Virginia for primarily home-schooled students, or Soka University of America, a Buddhist institution in Southern California—the young men and women at Ave Maria saw themselves as pioneers. They wanted to be a part of something new; they wanted to help shape a school from its infancy. They believed in the mission and didn’t mind taking a few risks. Monica Secord, who was in the first class at Ave Maria, summed up the attitude to me. She described a “a certain enthusiasm at Ave Maria because we are part of something new.” She and her classmates seemed excited at the prospect of “shaping the school.” “Our actions,” she said, “will become tradition.”
But that excitement begins to fade after the second or third year. Slowly the news media stop covering such campuses, which start to seem like just other choices. Of course, NYUAD will still be located thousands of miles away from the United States, and it will still have an international student body, but for American high-school kids, the luster may start to wear off. Perhaps just a year abroad instead, they may think. Often the quality of students and of faculty members will begin to fall off.
Starting a college is an exciting venture for all involved. To find the financial support and the staff for something that for years was only a distant dream is so exhilarating that people can lose track of practical considerations. Take Southern Virginia University, the brainchild of a few Mormon academics who wanted to see if they could get students a good liberal-arts education in a religious environment without having to send them to Utah. The founders actually originally envisioned it as a Great Books school. (When guidance counselors tell students that there is a college out there for everyone, maybe this is what they mean). But it turned out that the number of Mormon students interested in taking on this limited curriculum in the middle of the Blue Ridge Mountains was small. So the organizers had to expand their horizons a bit. Southern Virginia had to start offering not only a broader liberal-arts curriculum but also some vocationally oriented classes in business.
For some start-up colleges, the passions can run so strong that they can make leaders unaware of similar experiments that have been tried. At the same time that NYUAD was issuing news releases about its early success, Michigan State University announced that it would close its undergraduate program in Dubai. The university chalked up its multimillion-dollar losses to the global economic downturn. But even when Michigan State cut tuition significantly at Dubai, it did not seem to attract enough qualified students to make its experiment work. Of course, the folks at NYUAD read the newspapers, but many start-up leaders fail to consider the experience of other institutions because they think their own idea is unique.
The comparison with Michigan State is not perfect. It was receiving most of its funds from the home institution, and it is a less prestigious brand. But there are lessons to be learned anyway.
The logistical difficulties of starting a university are not unique. The people I have talked with about it have all reported that it is a bureaucratic nightmare. No matter what a college or university’s mission, the questions are the same: How will we induce faculty members to come? How will we arrange the dormitories? What will the gender ratio be? How can we ensure that all of these new students and professors buy into the mission? What should the handbook say? But few institutions bother to consult others outside of their niche.
Over time, many of these start-up institutions have experienced similar conflicts. Some professors at Ave Maria and Patrick Henry, for instance, say they were promised a level of academic freedom that the institutions did not achieve. At Soka, incoming students expected a diverse student body, but 90 percent turned out to be Buddhists. The university said it was dedicated to the universal values of “peace, human rights, and the sanctity of life,” but several professors and administrators claimed they were the victims of discrimination. A couple even sued on the grounds that their contracts weren’t renewed because they weren’t Buddhists.
It is hard to tell how new colleges are going to turn out. It is hard to make sure that everyone involved has the same vision from the start. It is hard to turn sheer enthusiasm and a pioneering spirit into a workable model for higher education.
Perhaps NYU Abu Dhabi sounds like none of these institutions I mentioned. And certainly the NYU administration has been careful and savvy. But NYUAD is also a university with a particular mission. According to The New York Times, admissions officers “looked for students who seemed intent on improving society. So those who had conducted medical research or promoted social justice had an edge.” Social-justice crusaders will find much to do in Abu Dhabi, where homosexual activity is illegal and the Internet is censored. Students in the first class have been discussing on Facebook the formation of a civil-rights club this fall. But as one student told the Times, “In a way, it’s almost a challenge, because we can’t hold protests. But I think we’ll be able to find creative ways to circumvent restrictions while maintaining respect for our host country.”
Look out Abu Dhabi: Here come the pioneers.
