<p>Though we should not put too much weight into rankings, I think they can also be used by schools to compare each other and identify areas to improve. It does seem like CPPs been on a relative slide the last decade despite upping their admissions requirements, becoming a more traditional residential campus, and increasing endowment funding. Why they’re sliding relative to the likes of Chico, Fullerton and Long Beach is beyond me. Let’s look at the following:</p>
<p>VS Long Beach,</p>
<p>CPP has higher admissions standards, same graduation rate, higher endowment (even for being a much smaller university), and academic reputation. CSULB has a lover STF ration (21 compare to 26 to 1 at CPP) and about the same graduation rate.</p>
<p>VS Fullerton,
CPP has way higher admissions standards, endowment and academic reputation and about the same STF (25 compared to 26 to 1)</p>
<p>VS Chico
CPP has higher admission standards and academic reputation and about the same endowment. Chico has a lower STF (23 compared to 26 to 1).</p>
<p>Despite CPP being a better school in reality and mostly on paper, it does become obvious that CPP is suffering in the rankings due to it’s relatively high student to faculty ratio. 26 is pretty high even for a CSU. I do question if this is just a difference in the way CPP computes this number. All CSUs get the same amount of funding per FTE (full time equivalent) number of students enrolled. I can’t see the big discrepancy with CSULBs 1 to 21 (which I believe has been artificially bumping them up in the rankings recently). Weather my suspicion is true or not, this is a good indication for CPP to look into this statistic a little more carefully and hopefully improve it. Aside from CP SLO, in which students are heavily subsidizing funding, CSUs should not have such a big discrepancy in faculty resources. </p>
<p>CPP and all CSUs could also do a better job graduating students in 4 years. I am hoping that the higher admissions standards the last few years will be reflected in the years to come.</p>