Enrollment decline at Illinois directional

Parents Forum
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<p>State flagships in italic.</p>

<p>Best undergraduate engineering (per US News):

  1. MIT
  2. Stanford
  3. UC Berkeley
  4. Caltech
  5. Georgia Tech
  6. University of Illinois
  7. University of Michigan
  8. Carnegie Mellon
  9. Cornell
  10. *Purdue *
  11. Princeton
  12. University of Texas
    . . .
  13. Columbia
  14. Harvard
    . . .
  15. Penn
    . . .
  16. Brown
  17. Yale
    . . .
  18. Dartmouth</p>

<p>According to U.S. News, 22 public universities (including 7 public members of the Big Ten) have stronger undergraduate engineering programs than Yale. An eighth Big Ten public, Michigan State, ties with Yale and Brown for the #40 spot.</p>

<p>Best undergraduate business (per US News):

  1. Penn (Wharton)
  2. MIT
  3. UC Berkeley
  4. Michigan
  5. NYU
  6. UVA
  7. Carnegie Mellon
    7.* UNC Chapel Hill*
  8. Texas
  9. Cornell
    10.* Indiana*</p>

<p>Best philosophy faculties (per the Philosophical Gourmet):

  1. NYU
    2.* Rutgers*
  2. Princeton
  3. Pitt
  4. Michigan
  5. Harvard
  6. MIT
  7. Yale
  8. Stanford
    9.* UC Berkeley*
  9. UCLA
  10. UNC Chapel Hill
  11. Columbia
  12. Arizona</p>

<p>I could go on like this all day, but it’s too easy, like shooting fish in a barrel. This ought to be ample to show what a foolish and utterly ill-informed statement that was, quoted above.</p>

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<p>So, the attendance cost payback for a UIUC accting grad over one from EIU is about 2 years. Not many investments have that kind of return.</p>

<p>UW-the university of wanderers–maybe so but that’s not a bad thing either. They had a good story today about some UW wanderers.</p>

<p><a href=“Program to receive Spanish program visas – International Division – UW–Madison”>Program to receive Spanish program visas – International Division – UW–Madison;

<p>Maybe another thing that separates schools.</p>

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<p>Here’s a better return on investment: my nephew spent his first 2 years of college at EIU before transferring to UIUC to finish up his engineering degree. Saved a bundle and came out with a very nice entry-level job at Caterpillar, one of the stablest manufacturing firms in the nation (partly because there’s such an overseas demand for its heavy equipment). I’m not sure exactly what the costs were back then, but today a person doing that would save about $10,500/year for the first two years of college—enough to pay more than 2/3 of the cost of the third year at UIUC. Same degree, same job prospects, lower cost.</p>

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<p>If Ditka had to go over a DB that graduated from WI in order to catch the winning pass, who would win? WI DB
If Ditka had to block a LB that graduated from WI, who would win the battle? WI LB
If Ditka had to coach against another coach form UW, who would win the coaching battle? WI coach.
If Ditka met barrons in a bar brawl, who would win. Which one graduated from WI?</p>

<p>Enough said.</p>

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<p>Well, if USNews says so, then that settles it.</p>

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<p>wis75, don’t worry, I lived in Wisconsin for six years and was married to a UW Madison grad for 17 years. I know barrons is atypical of the the people of the state and of the alumni of UW; most of those I knew were wonderful human beings. I also think that as state flagships go, UW is probably near the top, although I generally don’t believe in ranking colleges at all. It’s just unfortunate that the most visible advocate for the university hereabouts seems to have this deep-seated psychological need to put everyone and everything else down.</p>

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<p>And would save even more if s/he went to a CC, all of whom (or at least all I know of) have articulation agreements with the UIUC College of Engineering.</p>

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<p>right now one of the larger for profit college companies is being sued by DOJ and several states in an 11 billion dollar fraud case.</p>

<p>[For-profit</a> college sued for fraud - York Dispatch](<a href=“http://www.yorkdispatch.com/business/ci_18645392]For-profit”>http://www.yorkdispatch.com/business/ci_18645392)</p>

<p>We know where the locus of the “worthless education, wasted money” issue is.</p>

<p>for some reason folks on CC tend to either want to focus on state schools, or on elite privates, depending on what their particular obsession is. The real educational scandals just arent as interesting.</p>

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<p>@wis75 - I never heard the term “directional” until I started hanging around CC, and I don’t think its use among CCers limited to Illinois. Missouri, Michigan, Iowa, and perhaps some other states have “directionals” - but not Wisconsin.</p>

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<p>NC,GA,FL,TN,KY all have “directional” state u’s.</p>

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<p>Well annassdad-when you got nothing I guess you go to the BS anecdotes. At least Haystack was funny.<br>
Obviously it is unlikely the worst not for profit public and private colleges won’t be sued like the for profits but are they really selling anything much different? And that is not about EIU which actually is far from the bottom which is more Chicago State territory. But it also is far from UIUC in the other direction and given a choice–go with the odds.</p>

<p>States are broke, Feds are broke. Time to take some real action and some sacred cows will have to go. If any college is not performing it needs to lose public support. Let them borrow and lend their own money and rely on having that money paid back to operate. See how long that lasts. That was the initial point of this thread.</p>

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<p>Some other universities with “directional” names:</p>

<p>AZ (Northern Arizona)
CT (Southern Connecticut State)
IA (Northern Iowa)
LA (Southeastern Louisiana)
MI (Central Michigan, Eastern Michigan, Northern Michigan, Western Michigan)
MS (Southern Mississippi)
OR (Eastern Oregon)
WA (Western Washington, Eastern Washington)</p>

<p>In CA, there is University of Southern California, but that is a private school. CA state universities are mostly named “University of California, [city]”, “California State University, [city, county, or other location description]”, or “[city] State University”.</p>

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<p>Oh, don’t like US News? Actually, the Philosophical Gourmet ranking (post #81) has nothing to do with US News; it’s based on a comprehensive survey of “philosophers throughout the English-speaking world.”</p>

<p>How about we ask faculty in some other fields? The National Research Council recently did. Some sample results (public universities in italic):</p>

<p>Top graduate programs, chemical engineering (in rank order): Caltech, UC Berkeley, UC Santa Barbara, Texas, MIT, Minnesota, Princeton, Stanford, Michigan, Northwestern</p>

<p>Top graduate programs, aerospace engineering: Caltech, Stanford, Michigan, Cornell, Minnesota, Texas A&M, U Colorado-Boulder, U Maryland-College Park, Georgia Tech, MIT</p>

<p>Top graduate programs, mechanical engineering: Caltech, Brown, Stanford, Northwestern, Princeton, Michigan, UC Berkeley, UC Santa Barbara, Caltech, Johns Hopkins </p>

<p>Top graduate programs, English: Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Michigan, Columbia, Penn State, Arizona State, Chicago, Penn, Vanderbilt</p>

<p>Top graduate programs, political science: Stanford, Harvard, Michigan, NYU, Penn State, Rice, Columbia, UC San Diego, Yale</p>

<p>Top graduate programs, anthropology: Penn State, Duke, Harvard, Stanford, Northwestern, UC Berkeley, UC San Francisco (medical anthropology), Stanford, Michigan, UC Irvine</p>

<p>Top graduate programs, math: Princeton, NYU, Stanford, Harvard, UC Berkeley, Caltech, MIT, Penn State, Michigan, Columbia</p>

<p>Top graduate programs, physics: Harvard, Princeton, Harvard (applied physics), UC Berkeley, U Hawaii, Caltech, UC Santa Barbara, MIT, Columbia, Penn State </p>

<p>Top graduate programs, genetics and genomics: MIT, Stanford, UC Berkeley, Columbia, Baylor (College of Medicine), UNC Chapel Hill, Yale, Michigan, U Washington, U Pittsburgh</p>

<p>Business Week, best undergrad business schools: Notre Dame, UVA, Emory, Penn (Wharton), Cornell, Michigan, Villanove, UNC Chapel Hill, MIT, Georgetown</p>

<p>Business Week, best MBA programs: Chicago, Harvard, Penn (Wharton), Northwestern, Stanford, Duke, Michigan, UC Berkeley, Columbia</p>

<p>Top law schools (consolidation of all published rankings): Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Chicago, NYU, Michigan, Penn, UC Berkeley, UVA</p>

<p>Top law schools, as ranked by judges & lawyers: Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Chicago, Columbia, UVA, Michigan, Penn,* UC Berkeley,* NYU, Duke</p>

<p>Top law schools, as ranked by law professors: Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Columbia, Chicago, Michigan, UC Berkeley, NYU, UVA, Penn</p>

<p>But I suppose you’re still sticking to your inane comment that “to claim that any state flagship is equivalent to a top-ranked private in any measure other than size and athletic budget is simply ludicrous.” It just so happens that the experts uniformly disagree with you.</p>

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<p>At least 29 states—more than half— have “directional” universities (East/Eastern, West/Western, South/Southern, North/Northern, Central, Middle, Southeast/Southeastern, etc), not including privates like the University of Southern California or Ohio Northern or directions as part of state names (University of South Dakota, West Virginia University, etc.):</p>

<p>AK, AL, AR, AZ, CO, CT, FL, GA, IA, IL, IN, KY, LA, ME, MI, MN, MO, MS, MT, NC, NM, NV, OH, OK, OR, TN, TX, UT, WA </p>

<p>Idaho (College of Southern Idaho, College of Western Idaho, North Idaho College), California (Southwestern College), and Wisconsin (Western Technical College) have directional community colleges. If you include them it’s at least 32.</p>

<p>And that’s not including Upstate Medical University or Downstate Medical Center in New York, although “upstate” and “downstate” are in a sense directional.</p>

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<p>Absolutely, if you have a choice between UIUC and EIU (or other non-flagship public), go to UIUC - if you can get in, and if you can afford it. If you can’t get into UIUC or you can’t afford it, you can get a perfectly good education at an EIU-class university. It’s also a good strategy to go to a CC first, then transfer - to UIUC, if you can get in and if you can afford it, or to EIU etc. otherwise.</p>

<p>But that doesn’t make your representation that a degree from a third-tier public is worthless any less ridiculous.</p>

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<p>bclintok, all those rankings you cite are graduate programs, save one. We’re talking about undergrad programs.</p>

<p>If the flagship undergrad programs are so great, where are all the applicants who are applying to UW/UIUC/TOSU/PSU/IU/UM etc. as top choices and with Harvard, Yale, and Princeton as safeties - or even JHU, CMU, WashU, Northwestern, UChicago etc.?</p>

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<p>The rankings are of graduate programs because there are very few credible rankings of undergrad programs. You don’t like US News. I don’t either. But I’m not going to start citing Forbes or Gourman or Ruggs or the Washington Monthly, because their undergrad rankings are even less credible than US News.</p>

<p>But in any event, your comment wasn’t confined to undergrad programs. Here’s what you said:</p>

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<p>I’m pointing out that’s simply and egregiously false. Among other things, the fact that the top public flagships rank so high in so many graduate programs means their faculties are equal to, or better than, those of many top privates. We can quibble about the relevance of that fact for undergrads. I think in a great many disciplines it matters enormously, though in some fields the strength of the flagships’ faculty is diluted by large class sizes and high student/faculty ratios. But I think I’ve made my point: it’s more than in “size and athletic budget” that the top flagships more than hold their own against the top privates. It’s in faculty quality as well. And research budgets. And in many other measures.</p>

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<p>No one applies to HYP or even the other private schools you mention as “safeties,” but it may surprise you to know that there are more 1470+ SAT CR+M scorers at UC Berkeley than at Harvard, and for a very large number of those at UC Berkeley it was their first choice college. </p>

<p>The world really doesn’t revolve around HYP. Not even the academic world.</p>

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Admittedly, graduate program strength does indicate the strengths of the undergraduate schools, but there are crucial differences as at the undergrad level the smaller class sizes at private schools commonly offer a better experience than overbooked classes at state flagships.</p>

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<p>Okay, I’ll revise my statement:</p>

<p>And to claim that any state flagship is equivalent to a top-ranked private for undergraduate programs in any measure other than size and athletic budget is simply ludicrous.</p>

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<p>You still have nothing but a very uninformed opinion. At least BC and myself have SOME basis for our opinions. In the sciences at any level Wisconsin kicks the crap out of many “elite” privates. So does Michigan, Illinois, and several other flagships. Same for engineering and even many areas in the liberal arts. UW has among the very best sociology, psychology, economics, foreign languages depts bar none. So does UM and many several other flagships. UW has invested about $2 Billion in new science facilities over the last 10 years. Not even many top privates can match that.</p>

<p>It’s not a completely worthless degree yet–just worth less.</p>