UD says it's public—and private. It depends on who you ask—and what benefits accrue to the university

by HOWARD M. BERLIN

1/6/2002

Delaware has a few oddities and paradoxes. One is the practice of selling low digit automobile license plates like rare baseball trading cards to those obsessed with owning one.

Another is the spelling of duPont, the family name, compared with DuPont—the company, a difference lost on most Delaware residents.

As one who was born and has lived here for all of my 55 years, my greatest Delaware paradox concerns the status of the University of Delaware, the state's flagship institution of higher education. Is it a public or a private institution?

Venerable UD can't seem to define its own status, as least not with any consistency. University sources cite three variations in wording. Its catalog states that it is "a private university that receives public support." Its 2000-2001 Facts and Figures report says it is "a state-assisted institution" while its Institutional Research and Planning's Common Data Set classifies itself as "independent, state related."

In contradiction, the U.S. News & World Report annual survey of nation's colleges and commercial college guides list UD as a public institution.

When I queried a few state legislators about this contradiction, their typical response was UD is a private school when it wants to be—and is a public school when its wants to be.

The governor appoints eight of the 32 members of UD's board of trustees. Cozy state politics apparently allows the university to act as a hybrid sacred cow and it enjoy the best of both worlds

There are other inconsistent practices. Some of the UD staff are considered state employees and are part of the state pension system; professors and administrators are not.

Like public institutions in other states, UD has different tuition rates for resident and non-resident students. But what other private college does this? If UD considers itself private, then why does it compare its costs of tuition, room, and board for both residents and non-residents in its Institutional Research reports against five nearby public state schools—Penn State, Rutgers, Maryland, Virginia, and Virginia Tech?

Every year the presidents of the UD, Delaware Technical & Community College and Delaware State make a pilgrimage to Dover and appear before the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee to plead their respective cases why they deserve state-supported funding.

For fiscal year 2000, 21 percent of UD's total revenue came from state appropriations. This must be the "state assisted" classification.

In return for the Legislature's largesse, what are UD's obligations to residents and the admission of Delaware's own students? Is it the lower tuition rates for state residents? Is it that public school teachers and faculty from Delaware Tech and Delaware State are allowed to take one course per term tuition free at the UD?

According to its own figures previously published Aug. 29 News Journal, the 25th/75th percentile SAT-I scores of UD students for 2000 ranges from 1,040 to 1,260 with an average score of 1,161. This means that 75 percent of the admitted students had a score of at least 1,040 (up to the 1,600 maximum).

With an average SAT-I score of 962 for Delaware's public high school seniors this year, it seems that even the average Delaware public school student probably would not have made the cut for admission unless his last name was similar to one of those on a campus building, or the student has some athletic aptitude

If UD is a private institution, does its admission criteria give any preference to Delaware's natives with low SAT scores?

When I attended UD in the mid-1960s, I was told that approximately 25 percent of the freshman classes were out-of-state students, and that almost any state high school graduate having the minimum number of credits in math, English, history, science, and a foreign language was admitted.

According to the university's own 2000-2001 Facts and Figures report, now 59 percent of undergraduate students are from out-of-state, and only 35 percent of freshmen are Delaware residents. Unlike 30 years ago, Delawareans have been a minority at the UD for some time now.

Whether or not UD is considered a private institution can also have different legal treatments. Much of the protective rights afforded by the U.S. Constitution were designed to protect individuals against abuse by public institutions. For example, a public-service employee would have freedom of speech and due process protection concerning employment, but an employee of a private firm might not.

As a final point, if UD is the private institution it says it is, why then does it have the right of eminent domain, which is normally reserved for local and state governments?

Paragraph 5114 of the State Code of 1953 specifically gives UD the right of eminent domain and its condemnation provision covers not just the City of Newark (its main campus) but all of New Castle County. What other private organization in Delaware has this privilege?

I have nothing against UD. I'm a satisfied UD graduate with both a bachelor of arts degree and a degree in electrical engineering. However, I want to know how to resolve all these contradictions.

Howard M. Berlin, of Wilmington, has taught at the college and graduate level for more than 17 years.