First daughter Chelsea Clinton, who chose Stanford over several New England schools, is not the only student rejecting the region's tradition-soaked, brick-and-ivy colleges.
New England's proud tradition of importing a disproportionate number of the nation's college students is eroding, along with its share of higher education research spending. Officials blame the expensive tuition and increasing competition from public universities in other regions."We're still No. 1, but by a smaller and smaller margin," said John Hoy, president of the New England Board of Higher Education. "We're not going down the tubes, but we are losing our preeminent share."
Enrollment on New England's 260 campuses has fallen from a high of 827,300 in 1992 to 806,193 in 1994, the last year for which the figures are available. Four out of five schools in the region still had room in their freshman classes after the application deadline closed last year. And New England's total share of all U.S. students fell from a peak of 6.5 percent in 1985 to 5.7 percent in 1994.
A New England education is the most expensive in the country. Tuition at four-year private colleges here averages $13,641, compared with $12,432 nationally. When room and board is added in, attending a New England college costs an average of $21,492 per year.
At public colleges in New England, tuition and mandatory fees for in-state residents average $3,720, compared with $2,860 nationally.
"I wouldn't be here if I didn't think it was worth it, but it is a little overpriced," said Shane Riches, a Boston College sophomore from Phoenix.
Some price-conscious students who may have chosen a pricey New England school in the past are staying close to home and paying low tuition at improving public universities, experts said.
"New England is caught between two pincers," said Jim Howell, a member of the Boston University Board of Trustees and president of the Howell Group, an economic analysis firm. "On one side is the improved quality of education around the country. And on the other side is the fact that most of those educational improvements around the country have been in public higher education, and that's highly price-competitive."
Sarah Pitts, a Georgian who will graduate this month from Boston College, said, "You can get as good an education at a public as a private (university). I think the public institutions are beginning to strengthen the quality because they had to compete with the private educations."
Competition from other regions also has been battering New England's leadership in research and development spending. New England's share of national university research and development expenditures has dropped from 10 percent in 1985 to 8.6 percent in 1994.
The area relies heavily on federal aid, a target of congressional budget cutters. Out of every dollar of New England university research spending, the government pays 67 cents.
"We earned that dependence, and that goes back 50 years," Hoy said. "Now we may be victims of our own success."
Still, the area conducts an impressive $1.8 billion a year in research.
"The research is being done here and we have been educating the people who know what to do with it," Hoy said. "My hope is that when you have, as we do, the most highly educated work force of any region in the U.S. and the most significant concentration of R&D dollars, that you will be able to sustain that historic dominance."