University of Vermont v. Rutgers

A TINY LESSON

FOR

R.L. McCORMICK AND THE BOG

Here's the University of Vermont, an out-of-the-way state university that used to be very marginal in the world of American higher education.

While Rutgers was spending $400 million on its football and basketball franchises, plus salaries for Mr. Mulcahy's swollen marketing operation over in Piscataway, Vermont was spending $400 million making its campus over into a setting that would do honor to its students, faculty, and alumni.

Campus street, Rutgers University

The result? Applications doubled in four years. SAT levels of entering students rising steadily. Alumni donations pouring in. Size of endowment growing apace. Stellar appointments of new junior and senior faculty.

Amount of money Vermont has spent on football during the same period?

$00.00. Vermont stopped playing football in 1974. It has never looked back since.

Mr. McCormick. Ladies and gentlemen of the Board of Governors. Look at the pictures of the new UVM campus below.

Now go out and take a look at the College Ave campus.

Tell us, do you get any ideas? Don't be shy, now. Does any new possibility come to mind, perhaps?

Vermont Lesson: Invest and Grow

By PAUL FAIN

Frugality has long been part of the New England persona. So a strategy of "invest and grow" was not always an easy sell for Daniel M. Fogel, the University of Vermont's president.

Shortly after arriving in 2002, Mr. Fogel helped nudge the university's governing board to accept the use of debt as a financial tool, something it had never done.

What has followed, under the guidance of an annually updated financial plan, is substantial growth in both the size and academic stature of Vermont's undergraduate student classes.

In the last six years, the university has spent more than $400-million adding and renovating facilities.

An avalanche of applications has followed. The university received 21,058 applications this year, more than double its 2002 total.

But prudent Vermonters need not fret — the growth has not harmed the university's bottom line. To wit, its endowment has grown from $206-million to $350-million* on Mr. Fogel's watch.

*Note: none of which will be spent on football. The University of Vermont permantently abandoned NCAA football in 1974. No evidence indicates that it is missed by UVM students, faculty, or alumni.