Private university
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A private university is a university that is run without the control of any government entity.[1] Private universities are common in Japan, the United States, the Philippines, Bangladesh, and many other nations, but do not exist in some countries. Tuition fees at private universities tend to be much higher than at public universities[2] which might not have tuition fees.
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[edit] Australia
Bond University was Australia's first private university, founded in 1987.[3] It runs three semesters per year (correlating exactly with the Northern and Southern Hemispheres' schedules), which allows a student to complete a six semester degree in two years and an eight semester degree (e.g. Law) in under three years.[4]
[edit] Bangladesh
[edit] China
In the late 19th and early 20th century the first private universities in China were founded by missionaries, such as St. John's University and Aurora University in Shanghai, Yenching University in Beijing (Peking), and Ginling Women's University and University of Nanking in Nanjing (Nanking). During the Republican era, all public universities were all designated "National Universities". (This is still the case in Taiwan, where the Republic of China still exists e.g. National Taiwan University.)
All universities in mainland China were made public following the 1949 revolution and the establishment of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Since 1980s more and more private universities have emerged in mainland again.
[edit] Hungary
- Central European University in Budapest a founding member of the European University Association (EUA)
[edit] India
Vedanta University, near Bhubaneswar, Orissa will be India's first large multidisciplinary university. [5]. It will start functioning in 2008.
[edit] United Kingdom
The private university/public university split is of little relevance to the British university system. British universities have institutional autonomy, which is well respected as it has developed over centuries, but in the 20th century they came to rely on the government for most of their funding. The only university which is wholly privately financed is the University of Buckingham, which has a low profile within the UK and caters largely to overseas students.
[edit] United States
See also: Universities in the United States
Most private colleges and universities in the U.S. accept some government funding through grants and loans to students. Only a few remain that do not accept government funding.
Because private universities are not an extension of the government, they can engage in behaviors from which public universities as an extension of the government are prohibited.
For example, religious institutions can expressly forward their own beliefs. Some use this autonomy to teach that other religions are incorrect.[citation needed] They also are allowed to train clergy, which public universities may not. Both private and public universities can be nationally accreditated. Some private universities are not accredited (see list of unaccredited institutions of higher learning), and their degrees are not formally recognised; some are simply diploma mills.
Private universities have had a freer hand to discriminate on the basis of race, religion, and gender. For example, until 1971, Bob Jones University in South Carolina refused to admit African-American students, and, until 2000, it did not allow inter-racial dating or marriage, based on its assertion that such relationships were forbidden by the Bible.
In more recent years, affirmative action policies have favored minority students - some private schools have more aggressive affirmative action than their public counterparts.
For the same reason, private universities generally have a freer hand in setting admissions policies than public institutions. Universities such as those of the Ivy League have historically based their selections on many factors other than academic performance, including "lineage," "character", and "personal" characteristics [6]. Some observers state that these factors, intentionally or not, tended to favor applicants whose families who were part of the U. S. "power structure," and created a self-perpetuating association between certain schools and high social ranking. Thus it could be seen that graduates of some universities were statistically overrepresented in the Social Register.[7] In recent years, however, prestigious private universities in the U.S. have been making a marked effort to appeal to and recruit academically talented students from underprivileged backgrounds. There are a variety of other factors, including family tradition, high test scores and high degrees of education besides the admissions process procedures that are partially responsible for this observation.
In the U.S., it is a valid generalization that the most socially prestigious universities—such as those of the Ivy League and equivalent schools like Stanford, Duke, and MIT— are private.
Most liberal arts colleges, such as those among the Five Colleges of Ohio, are privately controlled. Many smaller or less prestigious private universities are run by religious entities, such as Gonzaga University and Brigham Young University. Several renowned private universities are also operated by or affiliated with religious organizations, such as the University of Notre Dame, Wake Forest University, Baylor University and Georgetown University.
The U.S. system of education has also been exported to other countries. Private universities such as the American University in Cairo and the American University of Afghanistan typically offer a liberal arts curriculum to their students.
[edit] References
- ^ Fishbine, Glenn. (2002) The Investor's Guide to Nanotechnology & Micromachines. GOM Publishing. p. 42. ISBN 0-471-44355-7.
- ^ Tottie, Gunnel. (2001) Introduction to American English Blackwell Publishing. p. 65. ISBN 0-631-19792-3.
- ^ Burrows, Toby & Philip G. Kent. (1993) Serials Management in Australia and New Zealand. Haworth Press. p. 19. ISBN 1-56024-453-4.
- ^ Princeton Review. (2004) Guide to Studying Abroad. The Princeton Review. p. 105. ISBN 0-375-76371-6.
- ^ Wells, Georgia. (2005) "New Indian university modeled after Stanford." The Stanford Daily, July 27, 2006 [1]
- ^ Gladwell, Malcolm. (2005) "Getting In: the social logic of Ivy League admissions." The New Yorker, October 10, 2005 [2]
- ^ Kingston, Paul W. and Lionel S. Lewis (eds). (1990) (1990) The High Status Track. SUNY Press. ISBN 0-7914-0010-7., p. 60: from the 1880s through the 1960s, registrants of the New York Social Register were comprised 28% Yale graduates, 22% Harvard, 14% Princeton, 7% Columbia, 2% Williams.
