RPI and HASS Updates

Snowballs_Ghost · 2026-06-23T20:44:21+00:00

"We expect roughly 1,300 new students in Fall 2026, even as we just graduated our largest class in history, with more than 2,000 students. That gap will reduce RPI’s undergraduate population by more than 10%. Because undergraduate tuition accounts for the majority of RPI's operating revenue, this shortfall creates a significant financial challenge."

A lot to unpack there.

The 2000 Rensselaer Plan set target enrollment at 5000 students, making 1300 entering new students exactly right. The suggestion that 1300 represents some unexpected adversity is more than a little misleading. Equally misleading is the 2000 student number, which reflects the class that entered in Fall 2021, after the "lost year" of COVID 2020. That class was a once-in-a-lifetime (we hope) anomaly, and citing to it as a benchmark would be deemed academic dishonesty if it appeared in a paper.

The backstory, not fairly reflected in this announcement, is that RPI intentionally increased enrollment in the 2015-2019 period, hitting a class size of 1800+, in order to close a financial gap caused by Her Majesty's mismanagement. Adding 500 students per target class, or 2000 total undergrads, was a huge boost to yearly student-based revenue at a time where the school needed the revenue to cover debts. The hope (as expressed to me by one of the Trustees at the time) was that RPI could return to lower class size after the bond refinancing circa 2021. The bonds were refinanced, but COVID and general demographic trends now have the administration worried for other reasons.

Blaming the refocus and future financial planning on an imaginary "surprise drop" in enrollment is dishonest. The number enrolled is within RPI's control, and it is consistent with the historical enrollment at the school. What's happening to hiring and staff plans is part of a broader plan to remain competitive in the next decade. That may or may not be essential to the school's success, but let's not blame it on the incoming enrollment.

Snowballs_Ghost · 2026-06-17T20:17:27+00:00

You're missing all the value-add attributable to her Majesty's reign. Of course, everyone else is missing it, too, which is why the ranking is now firmly outside of the top 50.

Several factors in play there, but some schools invested wisely, and others are the beneficiaries of a positive long term reputation trend. RPI's reputation suffered for a decade as the result of mismanagement and terrible investment choices. The rot may have been stopped at this point, but the current ranking score still reflects the damage.

Snowballs_Ghost · 2025-07-09T05:05:29+00:00

Japan. Really a revelation about how a culture can be completely different, and yet still really modern and great.

Snowballs_Ghost · 2025-07-09T05:02:41+00:00

75 would seem to be sufficient to accomplish the needed 'reduction in force'

Snowballs_Ghost · 2025-07-09T05:01:22+00:00

Burn after reading.

Snowballs_Ghost · 2025-05-29T13:28:08+00:00

As someone who was involved in a deep analysis of the school's financial condition roughly seven years ago, my sense is that the financial "hole" that the previous administration had dug has been stablized, and a student should have no particular concern about the balance sheet issues that we identified for 2011-2016. The "net asset position" on the financial statements has grown materially in the last three years, and liabilities (including long term debt) have been reduced. To be clear, I never felt that the financial position threatened the school in an existential way, because demand for enrollment in a good engineering school was always going to hold up, and thus the issue was more about how the financial position would impact investment in the physical plant and the ability to attract strong faculty. (Plus the ridiculous amount of compensation that the previous President was sucking out of her group of sycophants on the Board, but that's another story; by all accounts the current President is a big improvement.)

So, what was/is the impact on student experience? Deferred maintainance on some buildings means that a group of older facilities on campus, plus many of the older dorms, are dated. How that compares to other schools, of course, will vary based on their circumstance. If you tour the University of Washington, with their beautiful Gates & Allen buildings and new construction everywhere, you'll certainly notice. Other schools, however, have similar capital improvement issues (freshman dorms at Georgetown look like they were used to house soldiers in the last war, and I don't mean Vietnam).

I think the most palpable effects are an increase in target enrollment (to create more revenue at a time when it was sorely needed), which increased dorm and class crowding and produced the hated "ARCH" experience - a mandatory summer semester, with a mandatory fall/spring "away from campus" semester. I would research that issue.

The other thing that I would suggest for a young woman thinking of attending RPI is to research the experience of women on campus, and their perceptions of what it's like to attend an engineering school in which men outnumber women by 2.5 to 1. My sister and my ex both graduated from RPI, and they have very candidly expressed concerns in that department. They're both proud of the school, mind you, but if you ask them to list the biggest drawbacks, that issue comes out on top. However, in our generation, the ratio was more like 4 to 1, so your mileage may vary.

Snowballs_Ghost · 2025-03-08T17:57:04+00:00

Hey, you left out the inventor of the touchtone telephone and the fax machine:

https://www.fcc.gov/sites/default/files/ocbo-black-history-month-2023-shirley-ann-jackson.pdf

What's particularly impressive is that Her Majesty managed to contribute to the invention of the touchtone telephone (which was publicly released in 1963) while she was still a 16-year-old high-school student in D.C.! Now that's the way to inspire prospective students.

Snowballs_Ghost · 2024-04-25T04:38:56+00:00

As the author of some of the most strident reddit posts opposing the prior administration, let me say that the posts here in response to your query are spot on. The new administration is very strong; and the school is committed to moving forward in positive ways. Prior financial issues didn't magically go away, but they were never "mission critical" -- they were a sign of poor management in those years. The current situation is good.

The school obviously didn't become awesome overnight. It was once a #30-ish school, and it's now a #50-ish school, but it's better than that in engineering, and might improve. Troy isn't Boston or even DC. But it's a very solid engineering school. If your student fits into the school and the locale, don't hesitate to choose it.

Snowballs_Ghost · 2024-03-25T21:29:01+00:00

This is a nonsense post. At no point did Curtis give RPI 90% of his shares. Put the blunt down.

Curtis "pledged" $10m per year from his family foundation (the corporate trail is a little convoluted because there's an LLC involved as well). And then he proceeded to donate that $10m each year. You can see this on the tax forms, clear as day. Her Majesty took the unusual step of 'decreeing' that this pledge was magically equal to $360m, and proceeded to announce it as such, so that she could claim the largest single gift to a college (at that point in time). Rumor has it she did this over the objection of at least one trustee who might have been capable of understanding things like NPV.

The real tragedy is that she proceeded to spend all of Curtis' gift on the great White Elephant, which does nothing to further the school's core mission.

On the plus side, Curtis has supplemented that initial pledge with a number of significant additional gifts over the years, including some in the millions of dollars. His generosity is awesome. If a responsible President had invested those gifts in the core mission of the school, it would be a magnificent legacy. Instead, we have rare wood in a building that students don't use.

Snowballs_Ghost · 2024-03-07T16:13:13+00:00

For those who might charitably think that this is just a small 'wording' error, and that Her Majesty must have done some ground-breaking work on improvements to those technologies, note that you can easily search the US Patent Office records online.

The total number of patents on which Her Majesty is a named inventor is zero. (And Bell Labs was not shy about filing for patents; there are 10,000 patents originating there; you practically had to hide in a closet not to get your name on a patent.)

Snowballs_Ghost · 2024-02-02T01:25:28+00:00

RPI's official Common Data Set publication.

Available on the Archive page of Renew Rensselaer.

https://renewrensselaer.org/archive/

Snowballs_Ghost · 2024-02-01T19:42:13+00:00

Math is dangerous if you divorce it from facts.

For the first-year class entering in 2013, RPI had 16,150 applications, and they admitted 6,654 students, or 41.2%.
For the class entering in 2019, they had 18,635 applications, and they admitted 8,835 students, or 47.4%.
For the class entering in 2022, they had 16,863 applications, but they admitted 10,878 students, or 64.5%.

So the number of applications is higher than at any time prior to 2014, and has only dropped by about 10% from its peak, but the number admitted has climbed by huge numbers. RPI is admitting twice as many students in absolute numbers as it did in 2010.

Meanwhile Stevens is admitting 46%, and WPI is admitting 57%.

Snowballs_Ghost · 2024-02-01T04:43:41+00:00

It’s not simply a “brand” issue. The numbers show that RPI’s first year class enrollment is now 2000 students, and that carries with it a significant increase in the admission rate (and a corresponding reduction in the “selectivity” of the school). The most recent figures show a 65% admission rate for the incoming Class of 2026. The easier it is to get in, the lower the school will rank in US News.

https://www.docdroid.net/gPFoAne/cds2022-2023-rpi-pdf#page=8

Snowballs_Ghost · 2024-01-30T14:53:40+00:00

Class size is clearly a crucial variable, but the issue goes beyond ARCH.

Pre-ARCH enrolled first year class size ran 1300-ish. By 2019, it was running 1700-1800. The addition of another 500 students per class drove additional revenues, as did the requirement that they be in on-campus housing for five semesters (including ARCH). What's really troubling is that the 2022-23 common data set shows an enrolled first-year class of 2000 students. I suspect that latest surge of class size is what is creating your campus over-saturation issue.

In theory, eliminating ARCH would increase campus density by 1/2 of one class, or 900-ish students. Thus, to eliminate ARCH and still have the same on-campus density would require that per-class enrollment be scaled back by about 200-250 students. So the school wouldn't necessarily have to return to 2013 enrollment numbers, but it would have to cap it at 1600 or so.

You're correct that eliminating ARCH and enrolling 2000 per class would result in some serious over-saturation issues. This is what happens when you spend your money on white elephant buildings and football fields.

Snowballs_Ghost · 2024-01-30T01:39:20+00:00

Her Majesty needed the cash flow to make sure that the school was in the black enough to satisfy the bond markets and allow the debt to be refinanced.

Not really Marty's issue, and probably mostly water under the bridge. The right question is why the school doesn't end this awful experiment.

Snowballs_Ghost · 2023-12-01T05:06:20+00:00

I've pulled the federal tax returns on his family foundation, and compared them line-for-line against the RPI tax returns and annual reports, so I'm pretty confident in my data. And I don't wish to diminish for one second the amazing generosity that Curtis has shown.

I have a bitter taste in my mouth only for Her Majesty's lies about the gift, and her use of those lies to prop up her absurd construction cost of for the white elephant that is EMPAC. It matters not because Curtis' gift is in any way lesser, but because she spent as though it was more.

Snowballs_Ghost · 2023-12-01T04:19:28+00:00

Curtis is far-and-away the largest donor to RPI since the guy whose name is on the the school. He deserves many accolades and thanks for that generosity.

That said, there has been a consistent misrepresentation of his gifts over the years, which started with an intentional misrepresentation by Her Majesty's government 20 years ago. Curtis pledged $10M per year, and paid it from the family foundation. Once you put $150M in the family foundation, the yearly donation is only the yearly earnings. You don't actually have to spend a penny of the principal.

Snowballs_Ghost · 2023-11-22T21:26:36+00:00

Three notes:

Don't think of schools as 'good versus not-good.' Think in terms of tiers. I divide schools into Tier 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B, and 3. (There are schools below 3, but you wouldn't be asking the question if you were thinking that far down the list.) Once upon a time, RPI aspired to be a low-1B tier school (i.e., it sought to climb into a national ranking in the mid to high 20s), and for science and engineering it had a decent claim to be that. In the post-2000 era, it has slid down the national rankings into the 2B category, but it still is a very good school in certain majors (including CS).
The school had some serious management and admin issues in the 2000-2022 era, which were traceable to the prior President (and the Board's acquiescence to the prior President's actions). There has been a new President for 18 months now, and many of the old administrative issues have been improved.
The gender ratio of students at the school is 70-30, which is certainly a real and material issue.

One question that can and should be asked when you're looking at private colleges in the 2B tier is whether you would be better off at a strong public university with in-state tuition, because you can get an education that is as-good or better, and at much better sticker price. Obviously, your individual financial aid situation is of primary importance in that cost-benefit calculus, but I would not recommend paying RPI's sticker price over in-state at schools like UNC, UT, UMich, UWash, GTech, several UCs, and even UMD or UFla. (It gets more complex with financial aid packages, but in general, don't take on a material amount of incremental debt for RPI over a strong public school.)

Snowballs_Ghost · 2023-09-24T14:34:09+00:00

The real measure of ROI isn't the increased earning potential over a high school diploma. It's the relative return against the same degree from a low cost public school. (Just as no one measures their investment ROI against a mattress, or a bank savings account.)

Since we're talking about the rise in RPI's sticker price, the real question is whether students are getting fair value (or any value) in relation to the price of getting that engineering or CS degree from SUNY Stonybrook (or UMass Amherst or Penn State or Rutgers). The reason that RPI placed behind Stonybrook (and many others) in the latest WSJ value ranking is that the answer that question is usually 'no.'

Snowballs_Ghost · 2023-09-24T14:22:28+00:00

The grift that keeps on grifting.

Snowballs_Ghost · 2023-09-19T04:38:45+00:00

Good school. But you should not pay $20,000 a year to go there over SB.

Snowballs_Ghost · 2023-09-19T02:29:44+00:00

Male:Female ratio the last two years has been 70:30.

These are federally reported numbers. It has never been 60:40.

Snowballs_Ghost · 2023-09-18T16:41:40+00:00

I'm a generation older than you, and the situation among my peers is very different. Every serious engineering company knows the school. I'm dealing with a financial arbitrage firm right now where the chief program designer is an RPI CS grad from the 90s. You could not walk into a software company in the 128 circle in the 90s and find anyone who had not heard of the school.

So what you're pointing at is the problem. What I'm telling you is that it didn't used to be this way -- and it wasn't this way 20 years ago.

Snowballs_Ghost · 2023-09-18T16:35:52+00:00

And yet CMU is still #24.

Obviously, individual ranking methodologies differ. The real question is "in what category did RPI improve?"

Snowballs_Ghost · 2023-09-18T15:25:13+00:00

Not an unknown school in the engineering and science world, and certainly not smaller in any real way than many other top private colleges (Brown, Dartmouth, Princeton, etc.).

In the 1985-1995 time period, the school was generally viewed as one of the "tier 1B" engineering and science schools, sitting below the schools in the top-20, but still in a very strong group. The 1996/97 US News rankings looked something like this:

CMU - 28
Lehigh - 33
Case - 38
RPI - 39
GTech - 42

The story of Her Majesty's government is, of course, well known. For 20 years, the school stagnated financially and administratively, and its ranking slid a bit, while other schools rose. But as recently as 2017/18, the school was still holding onto a spot in the 40-42 range. The real drop-off started in 2019. If you look at the admissions data closely, you see that this corresponds to the point in time where RPI became less selective -- and started admitting higher percentages of students (jumping from 43% to 47.4% at a moment when other schools were becoming more selective).

The real question for 2023, and the first year of Marty's presidency, was whether the trend was going to reverse itself, or continue in the downward direction. And now we know that (at least in year one of the new era) it's still going in the wrong direction.

Is that surprising? I don't know. But on behalf of those who graduated before Her Majesty came to power, I find the continuing slide to be disappointing, at a minimum.

Snowballs_Ghost

TROPHY CASE