A WORLD-CLASS UNIVERSITY KEEPS THE STATE'S MOST TALENTED STUDENTS HOME

• College Park Scholars offers 12 interdisciplinary living-learning programs for talented first- and second-year students. Students study and live together, and are guided by faculty through specially designed courses and learning experiences on particular themes. The Scholars program serves 1,700 students each year.


• The highly acclaimed University Honors program invites 800 high-performing students to enroll each year. (Fall 2007 drew a particularly large group of talented students: 928 enrolled). Through strong community bonds and small classes, the Honors program mentors its students closely, engaging them in research, internships and international experiences. Last year most of University Honors graduates went on to graduate or professional schools directly after graduation.


• Gemstone is a four-year research program within University Honors that culminates in a senior thesis. The program enrolls 600 students who work in research teams on complex, multidisciplinary technological and social issues. While living with their extraordinary Gemstone peers, students benefit from close faculty mentorship and dynamic research topics.


• A Scholars Program for Industry-Oriented Research in Engineering (ASPIRE) broadens the undergraduate experience through direct involvement in real-world engineering projects. With scholarship funding, students perform research under close faculty mentorship, and work on industrially-oriented engineering projects through a semester or the summer.


• The Smith Undergraduate Fellows Program, launched in 2005, is an innovative program in the Robert H. Smith School of Business with more than 20 academic tracks, each serving 30 students, and unique thematic focuses such as technology, sports management and entrepreneurship. Depending on their track, students engage in activities that enrich their studies, such as field trips to Wall Street, internships with leading firms and international study. In Spring 2008, 700 undergraduate fellows are served by the program.

Programs such as these keep some of Maryland’s top students in the State. The most talented students can select from many prestigious options, and many of them are outside Maryland. Today, the State ranks third in the nation for sending its high school graduates to other states for higher education, exporting more than twice as many Maryland students than students it attracts from other states. Of the 5,556 students scoring 1300+ on sat’s , only 34 percent stay in the State. The percentage of students leaving the State has grown in the last few years.

Keeping the best and the brightest in Maryland is important because half of all students who leave their home state for higher education do not return. The State cannot compete in today’s economy by sending away its most talented and well-trained people. Losing this talent will impact the State’s economy, its growth and quality of life in the future. We must turn this trend around.

Talented high school graduates in Maryland can choose to study anywhere. What keeps them in Maryland is smaller classes and personal contact with faculty, as well as special opportunities and programs. The ability of the University of Maryland to provide these opportunities is determined by the available funding per student. According to the State Funding Guideline, the operating funding was in deficit by $3,500 per student in FY08. For FY09 the Governor’s budget leads to a funding deficit of $3,400 per student. For about 30,000 full-time equivalent students the shortfall in annual operating funds exceeds $100 million.

This gap limits the University’s ability to provide innovative programs, reduces the amount of personal attention that faculty can provide and increases class size. All these factors affect the decisions for the most competitive applicants. Space is also increasingly constrained on the College Park campus. For years, we have sought funding for the University Teaching Center to replace several antiquated lecture hall spaces. We will continue to press for this essential building.