Is St. John's leaving Manhattan?

"SJU has been fairly successful in its current niche" - Beast of the East

- Until Now. You are correct, and even non-profits are supposed to have a financial bottom line. I'm not sure that I would completely agree that they're businesses in a conventional sernse: A real firm would've gone out of business a long time ago (even with instituted protectionism from market forces), with the current level of mis-management I suspected back then. I say that they're businesses in the sense of being what's called "overpriced reputational goods". Scale up the infrastructure and spend heavily on global branding. Higher tuition is one of the resultant side effects, or should I correctly state intended effects, according to their revenue model.

Although Harrington has taken SJU a long way, his tenure also had some serious drawbacks. I heard (a few times) that he actively pushed to keep admissions standards down across certain academic sectors of the university. If this allegation is true, then such behavior is highly objectionable. But back to your last statement. The problem that SJU faces now is that they want to run the university unencumbered, while seeking alumni donations to expand the endowment. It looks safe on the surface, until alumni start attaching individually and collectively their donation consideration to certain conditions. We're already seeing this occur. The next President will be forced to move the university in a more academic direction, because too many alumni are closely monitoring the university's current events and academic standing. The question will be - how will this be successfully executed? I think that from a realistic standpoint, the school's media should focus more on it's Pharmacy, Law, and MBA programs. I think that the business school right now needs a serious shake-up, at the administration level. And I'm talking about the possibility of bringing in a new dean with a steep corporate background. The pharmacy program is making strides, while SJU Law seems to have gone on a hiring spree selecting new faculty with JDs from top 10 law schools.

Regarding the Manhattan campus, the business school never used the space properly. And in a city with the highest concentration of business schools per square foot, they had better lease an alternate downtown location fast: Queens won't cut it anymore. Top European bschools are already setting up shop in Manhattan with more top competitors, on the way. Even schools within Tobin's competitive range like Fordham are quickly expanding their offerings to meet current demand. This is the reality, at present. The product offering has to be configured in a more academic direction, but through unconventional means. Based on a law of averages, top students tend to select schools based on superior academics relative to financial aid package offerings, even when other expected leisure amenities are taken into consideration. In that contention, there is a very specific competitive advantage that the university can use against better academically endowed competitors: Continue the improvement of financial aid subsidies, and begin the market this portion of the product mix on a global scale. That's SJU's unique selling advantage in the $100K+ 4-year tuition space.

There are so many components to creating a great university, and you've hit on many of them. On the college selection circuit once again, I was browsing the USnews report, and discovered that a university had its ranking increased based on improvements in graduates findings employment. I think this is one area that SJU with an incredibly strong local alumni, could really deliver the goods if they had talented administrators who would work hard in selling SJU grads to alumni. It's an area all of us in the position of hiring SJU grads could help.

While attending a Boston College tour, which beings with an information session (packed to the gills), student presenters spoke about the many internship opportunities available to BC students. Parents and prospective students were quite interested in hearing this. I raised my hand and asked if most of these opportunities were in Boston, and was told that no, they are mostly in NYC.

I guess one way that concerned alumni could help raise our academic profile is to hire SJU interns and graduates. After all, the thing all students, including high achievers, want is a job after they graduate. Apparently this is part of the criteria for US News uses to rate colleges and universities.

It's funny timing you mention this. St Johns used to have some sort of Mentorship program that I participated in working with the students who might have an interest in where we kind of became a person the kids could call or some in and talk to and just talk about what we did and what their expectations should be in our fields etc and just last week a kid a long time ago I had gotten a job at my firm but then left a couple of years later sent me an email just keeping in touch and he is at credit suisse doing well.

Was nice to know that. I wonder if St Johns still has that program because they havent contacted me in quite some time about it
 
Guess what? You're right on time. Check this out:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/17/nyu-expansion-student-debt_n_3437097.html?ref=topbar

I'll tell you something else here. I know a couple of Tobin MBA alums who transferred out of NYU Stern, in regards to the above situation. In those particular isolated cases, the individuals were already well situated in the banking industry due to their backgrounds, existing connections, and experience. This isn't the first time I've heard this either: There's another Tobin MBA alum who transferred out of Fordham, because she didn't see any advantages to having an MBA from Fordham over Tobin, when the Tobin program was far less burdensome tuition-wise. I think Fordham's tuition is actually lower, but what resolves the paradox is that their course requirements are too heavy (i.e., 69 credits average for their MBA program vs 54 for Tobin and even NYU Stern).

In regards to your experience in Boston, you nailed it perfectly. I've been stating for a very long time that SJU grads are competing against grads from top universities in the NYC labor market, and not making an effort to be more selectively competitive, brings serious problems, when corporate recruiting demands are made. SJU alum hiring SJU grads I agree is the ideal way to currently advance in the most competitive business school recruiting market, in the world. With that said, I honestly do not believe that the university's alumni network is as strong as they claim it be. I'm not saying that it's weak, but the university with the strongest alumni network in the country is probably Northwestern, which is either tied with Harvard or number one with Harvard coming in a very close second. Here's the difference: Top universities balance the administrative infrastructures of their alumni networks with the students' and alumni's ability to self-manage its progression, in terms of partially being student run without excess administration (i.e., students and alum can reach out and formulate ongoing discussions at scaled levels without having to organize formal events). SJU's management of its alumni network is too programmatic comparatively to other more successful alumni networks that rely somewhat on the flexibility of student and alumni input and operations. And this disadvantage allows more seasoned business schools to infiltrate the NYC labor market.

Also, I noticed on some financial web sites, where SJU MBA grads are listed as members of management teams, these individuals tend to be much older with their somewhat younger colleagues coming from schools like Yale, Wharton, and Columbia. This implies that Tobin may have had a better academic reputation a generation ago, but even with the assertion that "at one time it was clearly 3rd behind Columbia and NYU back then", I'm still unsure. These alum and students should have clear access to each other without too much administrative oversight, which impedes dialogue when things are moving faster in the real more connected world.
 
If they don't, they should bring it back fast, and I mean like yesterday. Although I reached out to a few students myself, and provided some help, I told the administration that I would not come to the school and give lectures under the standard pretense. The way they over-structure and over-control the communications between students and alumni is part of the problem. It needs to be more decentralized, in that like you said, students and alum should be able to agree to have private discussion(s) about each student's individual path, if they so choose. Lectures and receptions are fine and well appreciated, but when those appear to be the only options, then the school is asking for trouble. They don't realize that if they invested in a real time communications infrastructure for students and alumni, then fundraising efforts would be much more effective.

Hopefully, the university scales up its subsidies of student financial aid, and scales back physical infrastructure expansion. This should be the starting point for making the university academically more competitive not only in student selection opportunities, but also in corporate recruiting demand. The tuition problem is plaguing other schools to the point, where it can't be ignored anymore:

www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/17/nyu-ex...7097.html?ref=topbar

Would you believe that an SJU degree outranks NYU in mid-career salary potential? I still find it hard to believe, even with this data:

http://www.payscale.com/2010-best-colleges/northeastern-colleges.asp
 
If they don't, they should bring it back fast, and I mean like yesterday. Although I reached out to a few students myself, and provided some help, I told the administration that I would not come to the school and give lectures under the standard pretense. The way they over-structure and over-control the communications between students and alumni is part of the problem. It needs to be more decentralized, in that like you said, students and alum should be able to agree to have private discussion(s) about student's individual path, if they so choose. Lectures and receptions are fine and well appreciated, but when those appear to be the only options, then the school is asking for trouble. They don't realize that if they invested in a real time communications infrastructure for students and alumni, then fundraising efforts would be much more effective.

Hopefully, the university scales up its subsidies of student financial aid, and scales back physical infrastructure expansion. This should be the starting point for making the university academically more competitive not only in student selection opportunities, but also in corporate recruiting demand. The tuition problem is plaguing other schools to the point, where it can't be ignored anymore:

www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/17/nyu-ex...7097.html?ref=topbar

Would you believe that an SJU degree outranks NYU in mid-career salary potential? I still find it hard to believe, even with this data:

http://www.payscale.com/2010-best-colleges/northeastern-colleges.asp
Yeah I'm not a big fan of the whole lecture route in regards to speaking to the kids. One on one is more personalized and I think the kids get a lot more out of it because it gives them a lot of time to ask questions for themselves and I found that having the meetings at my office if the student wanted to come in was very effective.

A lot of times kids really dont know what they might be getting into career wise but when they can come to your office and see for themselves to me at least I think that is invaluable. Plus it gives them an opportunity to follow up on the phone if they have other questions etc


As far as the pay scale thing I think the reason for our high mid career salary numbers is the high amount of students that go on to be suffolk and nassau county cops. LOL
 
If they don't, they should bring it back fast, and I mean like yesterday. Although I reached out to a few students myself, and provided some help, I told the administration that I would not come to the school and give lectures under the standard pretense. The way they over-structure and over-control the communications between students and alumni is part of the problem. It needs to be more decentralized, in that like you said, students and alum should be able to agree to have private discussion(s) about student's individual path, if they so choose. Lectures and receptions are fine and well appreciated, but when those appear to be the only options, then the school is asking for trouble. They don't realize that if they invested in a real time communications infrastructure for students and alumni, then fundraising efforts would be much more effective.

Hopefully, the university scales up its subsidies of student financial aid, and scales back physical infrastructure expansion. This should be the starting point for making the university academically more competitive not only in student selection opportunities, but also in corporate recruiting demand. The tuition problem is plaguing other schools to the point, where it can't be ignored anymore:

www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/17/nyu-ex...7097.html?ref=topbar

Would you believe that an SJU degree outranks NYU in mid-career salary potential? I still find it hard to believe, even with this data:

http://www.payscale.com/2010-best-colleges/northeastern-colleges.asp
Yeah I'm not a big fan of the whole lecture route in regards to speaking to the kids. One on one is more personalized and I think the kids get a lot more out of it because it gives them a lot of time to ask questions for themselves and I found that having the meetings at my office if the student wanted to come in was very effective.

A lot of times kids really dont know what they might be getting into career wise but when they can come to your office and see for themselves to me at least I think that is invaluable. Plus it gives them an opportunity to follow up on the phone if they have other questions etc


As far as the pay scale thing I think the reason for our high mid career salary numbers is the high amount of students that go on to be suffolk and nassau county cops. LOL

110k after 5 years for Suffolk cops I believe. I know plenty of guys making 130k in Nassau...I can't tell you how many Suffolk cops literally just sit around in their cars parked next to each other talking and BSing. Must be nice! I took the Suffolk test and knew I wouldn't get a call back with a 90. Right now if you don't get at least a 95 you are not even considered. Even some guys who got 95's don't get calls. What really got me angry was seeing how many heavyset cops there were collecting 120k checks when there are plenty of hungry younger guys in great shape. I always laugh picturing the obese cops trying to chase someone. There is actually a weight requirement for entering the force...you can't be obese. But then after that they just let their guys get fat and out of shape and no one holds them to any standards. It really makes no sense...
 
As far as law enforcement recruitment in Suffolk and Nassau counties is concerned, it would be interesting to see the average sample size and academic area distribution of the ranking. Because, those counties are not known to have relatively large numbers of available slots, like NYPD. I also think that the mathematics, pharmacy, biology, and undergraduate business programs are consistently producing the higher earners, from the university. And this is most likely the case in addition to those who go into Long Island law enforcement (all of which most likely represents the skewness, in ranking results). Also, keep in mind that NYU has a student population that's at least 40% larger than that of SJU. Therefore, NYU will likely have much larger areas, which don't necessary produce high earners, by way of occupation (i.e., BSW or Bachelor of Science in Social Work, etc.. is much larger than their undergraduate business program at Stern).
 
Back
Top