Impressions about Columbia's fly-out?

[fp3690]

Originally Posted by Golden Rule

Really? Columbia University has a far larger endowment than NYU does, though I believe NYU spends a larger share of its endowment than Columbia does. I have no idea how they stand in relative spending on their graduate schools or the econ depts, which I suppose is more relevant.

And I don't know why space in Morningside Heights would be harder to come by than space in Greenwich Village. But Columbia's expansion into the Manhattanville neighborhood of Harlem should alleviate some of the college/GSAS space constraints, though certainly nothing that's going to help anyone in the near future.

The NYU econ department has a lot of money. I think it's the only non-business school econ department that has as its policy to fund everyone they admit. One of the reasons is also the fact that they get lots of money from the MA.

Naturally, Stern is wealthier, but so are most business schools...

[stupidolive]

cant read previous poster's note

[Nalfien]

Originally Posted by fp3690

I think it's the only non-business school econ department that has as its policy to fund everyone they admit.

Yale does that too , two years fellowship and then TA/RAships as long as you'd like.

[fp3690]

Originally Posted by Nalfien

Yale does that too , two years fellowship and then TA/RAships as long as you'd like.

True, sorry for that. But then again, Yale has an exception called Cowles...

[Stuy]

The econ building at NYU is brand new, they finished renovating it a year ago or so and its very nice, but first years do not get offices. Most of first years live in Stuyvesant town (E14th & First Av.) and appartmets are quite big, so they study there. Also there are little offices that we call fishbowls that are for anybody's use, so first years sometimes study there.

[Golden Rule]

Originally Posted by fp3690

The NYU econ department has a lot of money. I think it's the only non-business school econ department that has as its policy to fund everyone they admit. One of the reasons is also the fact that they get lots of money from the MA.

Naturally, Stern is wealthier, but so are most business schools...

I don't think fully funding everyone necessarily implies the dept. is wealthy. It's more a matter of priorities. You can admit smaller class sizes and fund everyone or you can have larger classes and a few people who are unfunded first year. There are many schools that fund everyone after year one and most people in year one, and Columbia is one of them. So I don't think that suggests a huge difference in the money each department has.

My impression is what happened is in the 90s, NYU wanted to boost its image and decided to spend a lot more out of its endowment than most schools would, and that the economics department was a priority, and that's why they might have more resources -- correct me if I'm wrong and they have some econ-specific earmarked donations that I don't know about. I've read some who've said Columbia then devoted more resources to Econ in reaction to NYU.

I do feel Columbia has also made improving the econ. dept. a high priority there, given that it's the most popular undergrad major there. Space has been a problem for years, and solutions have been proposed, but haven't worked out (there was a time when they were going to move it out of SIPA into a seminary building, but that fell through). In terms of making new buildings, Columbia has been focused on the big Manhattanville expansion project and not just a new building here and there, so that hasn't solved the space problem either.

Bottom line, I think it's more a matter of space being scarce than money being scarce that's causing Columbia econ to have less student space than NYU econ. Why NYU as a whole has expanded his space more recently than Columbia has, I'm not sure. I'd say that fact that Columbia has had to invade more residential space to expand might be a major factor.

[ekonomiks]

A couple of people have said in this thread that NYU made the econ department a priority. Actually, after the successful fund raising campaign, NYU made graduate education in general a priority, and that's why you have the MacCracken Fellowship that funds almost every incoming PhD student.

I didn't know first-year econ students don't get offices. I guess that's not the case for every department then. Also didn't know Columbia provided housing for 5 years. Should've applied to Columbia...

[asianecon]

Originally Posted by Nalfien

Yale does that too , two years fellowship and then TA/RAships as long as you'd like.

Digressing a bit, I thought technically it's not a TAship since the amount you;re gonna get is fixed (ie unlike in other schools, the amount they post is under the assumption you'll have to do the maximum allowable TA hours)? Moreover, I sort of had this impression that if you TA/RA more than the "required" level, you'll get extra cash on top of the guaranteed support. Am I wrong?

[jmancer]

what did most people wear? whats the proper attire for flyouts?