Yale University is set to open a
college in Singapore, the first foreign outpost in its 312-year
history, bringing an elite brand to a country that has seen
other U.S. universities come and go.
The inaugural class of 157 students at Yale-NUS starts this
month at the campus, jointly run with the National University of
Singapore, after a summer orientation in New Haven, Connecticut.
Yale-NUS is betting its liberal arts mission, endowment and
local support will help it succeed where others haven’t. It is
bringing a wide curriculum to an education system where students
typically focus on one area of study. The University of Chicago,
New York University and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas,
which plan to exit or reduce their presence in Singapore, offer
industry-specific programs. Their departures aren’t setting off
alarms among members of Yale-NUS’s faculty advisory committee.
“The others didn’t have the long-term commitments of
support that Yale-NUS College has,” said Marvin Chun, a leader
of the committee, said in an e-mail. “There may be bumps in the
road” ahead and Yale will work through them, he said.
While Yale hasn’t disclosed terms of its deal with NUS, the
campus is being fully supported financially by the Singapore
Education Ministry and an endowment, according to a May faculty
report. Including donations from foundations and gifts, the fund
has grown to almost $250 million, spokeswoman Moon Shin Ho said.
Singapore “made generous investments to establish the
college and to build its academic program and construct a new
campus,” Yale-NUS President Pericles Lewis said in an e-mail.
11,400 Applications
NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, which opened in Singapore
in 2007 offering a Masters of Fine Arts degree, will shut down
after the class of 2015 graduates because of low enrollment and
rising expenses.
“We did not meet enrollment targets,” Shonna Keogan, a
spokeswoman for the school, said in an interview. “Then, there
was not as much support from the government forthcoming and that
created a problem in sustaining the campus.”
Enlisting qualified students hasn’t been an issue for Yale-NUS. The college received 11,400 applications for the incoming
class, making it highly selective. Leveraging on the “high
caliber of the applicant pool,” the school aims to enroll 250
students in the next few years, Lewis said.
Students “turned down offers from Cambridge, Stanford,
Yale and all seven other Ivy League universities to attend,”
said Chun, who is also a psychology professor.
Some foreign colleges are well-ensconced in Singapore and
have no plans to leave, including Duke University, which runs a
medical school there with NUS, and French business school
Insead.
Yale Brand
Ben Wildavsky, a senior scholar in Washington for the
Kauffman Foundation, doesn’t doubt that Yale’s brand prestige
will attract tuition money for Singapore’s government.
“Financially, it’s not an issue. If they expect Yale to be
self-supporting in 10 years, depending on the market, it’s a
possibility,” Wildavsky, a Yale graduate, said in a phone
interview.
Even so, the government may not continue its investments if
Yale’s liberal-arts mission doesn’t pay off in terms of tuition
revenue, said Jason Lane, associate professor of education at
the State University of New York at Albany. Even if Singapore
continues its support indefinitely, the subsidized model can
lead to a lack of commitment on the part of the parent college
to the local market, Lane said.
“I always question the sustainability of highly subsidized
branch campuses because they aren’t incentivized,” Lane said.
Dependency on government revenue can translate to a lack of
motivation to boost enrollment and program standards, he said.
‘Greener Pastures’
Some schools have “decided to look for greener pastures,”
Lane said.
The University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business looked
north toward China. After 13 years in Singapore, Booth said last
month it will relocate its executive MBA program to Hong Kong.
The proximity to China “is particularly attractive,” Booth
Dean Sunil Kumar said in a statement.
The University of Nevada, Las Vegas is considering Macau,
said Richard Linstrom, associate dean for the Singapore campus,
in an e-mail. China’s special administrative region is the
world’s biggest gambling hub. The school plans to relocate after
failing to agree on financial terms to renew a contract with its
partner school in Singapore.
UNLV’s focus “is on locations where there is interest in
our differentiating expertise in gaming and integrated resorts,
and where there would be support for our efforts,” Linstrom
said.
Wealthy, Expensive
Singapore and the Persian Gulf are attractive to foreign
universities because of their wealthy student populations. Yet,
property prices and operational expenses are high.
“Various venues in China strike me as economically more
stable,” said Barmak Nassirian, director of federal relations
and policy analysis at the American Association of State
Colleges and Universities in Washington. “Singapore is one of
the most expensive places on Earth to just get a footprint. The
cost structure works against it.”
Government subsidies also mean yielding some control.
Surrendering decisions to a regime such as in Singapore could
damage Yale’s brand, Wildavsky said. He and Nassirian said the
government hasn’t shown an adaptability to free thinking, a
concern of Yale faculty members and alumni.
Singapore restricts public speech, censors the media and
criminalizes homosexual acts, according to Human Rights Watch, a
New York-based nonprofit organization.
“Why not a democracy for goodness sakes?” said Yale
Professor Christopher Miller, who opposed the Singapore
expansion plan. “Why a place ranked so abysmally low on human
rights measures?”
‘Real’ Yale
There are risks for the students in the pioneer class, who
will help create the Singapore school’s public identity, said
Joanna Lee, a 19-year-old Singaporean who opted to attend
Columbia University in New York with no scholarship over a free
ride to Yale-NUS.
There is still confusion about the difference between the
college — which will confer degrees that include Yale’s name
but aren’t Yale University diplomas — and the “real” Yale,
Lee said. Yale-NUS students are eligible to join Yale’s alumni
association, though as non-voting members.
“The Singaporeans are here because it’s the best option
they have locally, perhaps if they didn’t get into to other
international schools,” said Lee.
The cost to attend Yale as an undergraduate in Connecticut
was about $55,300 in the 2012-2013 academic year, excluding
books and personal expenses, according to the website. Yale-NUS
has a tiered cost structure, depending on whether the student is
a Singapore citizen, permanent resident or a foreigner.
‘Fundamentally American’
Tuition, room and board for an international student is
about S$52,900 ($41,513). Students who accept a Singapore
government grant that requires a three-year work commitment
after graduation, will have their tuition reduced by S$7,920
($6,215) a semester.
Maria Ivanenko, an American student accepted in the first
class, plans to take the grant. The 17-year-old from Lexington,
Massachusetts, said she’s always been passionate about Asia and
plans to study environmental science and sustainability. Since
she was accepted by the school on early decision, she didn’t
apply elsewhere in Asia or to any colleges in the U.S.
“I still wanted a fundamentally American education,”
Ivanenko said. “So Yale-NUS was everything I wanted.”
To contact the reporter on this story:
Mary Camille Izlar in New York at
mizlar@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Lisa Wolfson at
lwolfson@bloomberg.net
Yale Betting on Singapore Expansion as NYU Departs on Enrollment
Munshi Ahmed/Bloomberg
People view a model of the Yale University-NUS College at the school’s launch in Singapore, in this April 2011 file photo.
People view a model of the Yale University-NUS College at the school’s launch in Singapore, in this April 2011 file photo. Photographer: Munshi Ahmed/Bloomberg
Yale Betting on Singapore Expansion as NYU Departs on Enrollment
Munshi Ahmed/Bloomberg
People walk past a sign for the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School in Singapore.
People walk past a sign for the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School in Singapore. Photographer: Munshi Ahmed/Bloomberg
Yale Betting on Singapore Expansion as NYU Departs on Enrollment
Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, which opened in Singapore in 2007 offering a Masters of Fine Arts degree, will shut down after the class of 2015 graduates because of low enrollment and rising expenses.
New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, which opened in Singapore in 2007 offering a Masters of Fine Arts degree, will shut down after the class of 2015 graduates because of low enrollment and rising expenses. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
Yale Commences With Singapore Wielding Subsidy as Rivals Depart
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