agreed, which is why I wrote: “Assuming your child likes multiple schools, equal price, distance, etc, how do parents advise their kids?” 
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I see that as well and do think it’s important. I’ve also seen the opposite at some schools, which gives me concern for their future reputations.
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Future reputations for what exactly?
If you had a kid interested in Paper Technology, you’d be guiding your kid to University of Maine (and another handful of colleges with the top reputations in that field).
In some fields, future reputation isn’t all that meaningful. In others, it’s critical.
So what are you trying to measure/predict?
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Right, but if you then visited U Maine and then visited some other up and coming university that had a good Paper Technology reputation, and found out that the other university had received a huge donation that was being invested in a world-class Paper Technology research center, you might think about whether U Maine would continue to hold its top spot in the future.
I think that’s the sort of question the OP is asking … and it sounded like a general question about “how can you evaluate a university’s future direction?” as well as a specific one for their child’s immediate college decision (but @PepperMilo can also chime in to explain 
).
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It’s going to take a decade for a college which just got a donation for a capital intensive field to establish ANY sort of reputation. I wouldn’t worry about it.
About 20 years ago I was working in a company which needed to quickly build a pipeline of more mathy new grads (specifically applied math). Someone got the idea that we should try recruiting at the “top ten” (it was actually 15) actuarial programs in the country, which was a big idea since the company didn’t hire actuaries at all, and so all those universities were brand new territory for us. We already had robust programs in place at some of the obvious places, but these would be fertile hunting ground.
There were a handful of programs that had actuary students on par with the math students we were used to seeing. The rest-- were tagged “up and coming” programs by their college’s administrations, eager to tout their fantastic new actuary programs. And yes, clearly “up and coming”. Which for us meant “not there yet”.
Georgia Tech investing in more Paper Technology labs and resources? Fantastic, and I’ll bet the program will scale quickly with high quality students and professors. Stonehill College or Albertus Magnus or University of New Haven gets $10 million for Paper Technology? Gonna take a while.
Predicting “what’s a college’s reputation going to be in five years” is about as tricky as “what’s the labor market going to look like in five years”. Answer- there are better ways to spend your time.
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Very hard question and very good question.
If I did not have a good sense, I would just work backwards gaining insights from people who are in that desired career.
I think admit % does influence reputation. I can’t tell you how many people have reached out confused about how IU can have an 80% admit rate and also have a top business school. I try to always consider the students past success “the company you keep” when determining “my ranking,” where many others do not feel as strongly. Certainly more meaningful to me than US News and Niche.
Finally, as far as recent investments go - I think of the stubbornness of a few traditional liberal arts colleges compared to Northeastern’s co-op. Maybe not an investment, but you can certainly see the where the puck is moving.
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Why - because society has dictated.
First off, Purdue is a well known flagship with top programs in the sciences, aviation and more.
Reputationally - Tampa isn’t. It’s a regional school, nice campus near downtown Tampa with tons of adjuncts.
For years, it bought kids in with a cheap price - although Purdue is also low cost.
In the end, it goes back to what’s best for your kid. If Tampa is best for them - the size, the vibe, the academics - etc - then that’s what matters.
There’s tons of kids who end up at schools that are lesser reputationally than others they got into - and it’s not always cost.
I had one who chose because he got his own room vs. likely being housed off campus due to over enrollment. I have another that just loves the city her school is in.
So cost often matters - depending on the family, but it could be a favorite sport team, a “known” major which is a strength of a school which doesn’t guarantee anything, a special enrichment program, a preferred location or environment…or a myriad of things.
Why is Purdue considered at a different prestige level? Likely due to its history, its rich history as a leader in many fields including being known as the cradle of astronauts, securing $613 million in research funding, and on and on. It’s one of 146 universities labeled an R1 university - high research activity. It’s also much more financially stable.
But guess what, there will be students who attend U of Tampa who outperform Purdue students just like there will be students at Hofstra that outperform Harvard grads in life.
So in the end, your student still has to find the right fit for them, for four years, day after day.
So in regards to your points - Quality of profs I can’t say - but UT is loaded with adjuncts. One person I call on was offered but turned it down. He’s a sales expert (a top sales guy). Purdue will have more staff professors - which doesn’t mean they are better teachers, btw.
More research grants - Purdue, yes. Academics or profile of students - Purdue, yes.
Job / salary / grad school - I’m guessing Purdue outperforms Tampa. Tampa was the first school my daughter dismissed - its admitted student facebook page was all about partying (not school) and that turned mine off. And the parent presentation was odd - as they had parents who talked about how wonderful the program was for their kids - but they were all parents of recent grads and not a single one had landed a job - so I was sort of mystified why they had those parents
My daughter’s friend is in dance at Tampa and is apparently having a wonderful experience - so I imagine for her, regardless of reputation, Tampa is the right place.
And Tampa had housing shortages the other year where they were bribing kids to take a gap year - so clearly plenty of families desire the school.
That’s why it’s so important that every student find wherever is “home” for them…at least in my opinion.
Hope that sort of answers your question.
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Yes. School reputations have changed quite a bit over the last few decades, but not always for solid reasons – popular sports teams, weather, low admit rates, etc. So if you are to look at a university like a stock, potentially a 400k one at that, how do you value it?
We visited one school we thought we’d like, but the messaging from the admin felt myopic, out of touch, and disconnected to the changes in industry. Looking back on it, I disagree on what they are investing in, and so we moved on. At another, I was happy to see new dorms being built - a growing school needs housing – but are they also investing in majors that are marketable and relevant, etc.
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Agreed.
Yes. I’ve known many broke Harvard/Princeton grads, and an equal # of wealthy w/o college degrees.
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So hopefully all these schools made the application list because they were not just affordable, but they also offered the sorts of academic programs that the applicant was potentially interested in (which could be specific majors, but also could be curriculums that make exploration easy, or a combination of both).
But at the admitted stage, the applicant could consider diving even deeper into that. What is the term structure? The core/distributional requirements? What do the requirements look like for possible majors? The upper level courses?
And there are “next level” versions of really everything that could have been considered at the application list phase. Exactly what does the housing and dining situation look like–first year? After that? What do people really do for fun? How are any clubs or activities the applicant might be interested in structured, and what do they typically do? What would transportation look like? And so on.
At a high level, my point is I don’t think the sorts of things I would encourage my kid to consider would change, but at the application list stage you have to balance all that against the need to make sure you have a reasonable chance of getting into these colleges–and all that is after making sure you can comfortably afford them.
But assuming you are down just to colleges that have actually admitted you and are comfortably affordable (and there is no big financial difference), then you can really just choose the one that seems like the absolute best option in terms of anything over which you have preferences.
As far as rankings, acceptance rates, and so on are concerned, I have always discouraged my S24 from taking those very seriously per se. But I do think it can be interesting to ask WHY that is happening.
Like, look at the rankings formula. What is it measuring, and how is that weighted? Which (if any) of those factors are meaningful to you? Would you measure and weight them the same way?
Or ask why the acceptance rate is what it is. At a high level, an acceptance rate is a function of the number of enrollment slots, the number of people who apply, and the yield of the people who are admitted. So, for a given college, why might more or fewer people apply? What are their application options (in terms of ED, EA, and RD), and how might that affect yield? Is a college trying to yield protect, or fighting for yield with merit? That sort of thing.
I note at a high level, it is a bit of a puzzle why a college would have a really low acceptance rate. People can and do choose where to apply based on where they are actually competitive for admissions. This is part of why the acceptance rates for many publics are pretty meaningless–the top students in the state apply to the flagship (where a few states have more than one), the next level of students apply the next level down, and so on. Even students in neighboring states looking at OOS will tend to do the same. So most publics don’t get a lot of frivolous applications, meaning uncompetitive applications that drive down admittance rates.
A lot of privates including LACs actually function this way too. People sort of know the hierarchy of privates in their state/region, and apply only where they are actually competitive.
So why are a few privates, and even fewer publics, or sometimes just a few schools/majors at a public, getting so many uncompetitive applications? Are a lot of people having trouble realistically evaluating their strength as an applicant? Are a lot of people treating certain colleges basically like lottery tickets? Why those particular colleges? Is it actually possible there is a feedback loop, where the low acceptance rate creates a sense of scarcity which creates a sense of perceived value?
Again, my point is an applicant can look at all that, really try to understand what is happening, and then not necessarily think lower acceptance rate = more valuable to me.
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We didn’t. Once the acceptances were in, our kids did the choosing.
Having said that, if all things were equal, we likely would have suggested to look for things that could help them eliminate schools…since all seemed fine. Weather? Size? Options in case they wanted to switch majors? Location? Whatever.
If the kid likes everything equally, then they need to dive deeper into anything they don’t like…because likely that hasn’t been their focus.
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That’s a very good point. I really feel all my value added was in helping my kid find good options to consider for his list. At this last phase, I am still happy to provide answers when asked specific questions, but at this point it is really entirely his show.
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My son is a music major so rankings for his major were factored in a bit. We decided our sons success was mostly going to be up to him and his mojo and work ethic over school name. In the end, my son did choose fit over major rankings.
He got into Baldwin Wallace free tuition and Indiana U with minimal oos merit and both were ranked quite highly for music. He chose Cuse (also free tuition) because he felt most at home there and that he could explore other interests beyond music as well.
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