<p>What JHS is saying is the opposite view that Forbes has taken on determining its rankings. It chose to “focus on the things that matter the most to students: quality of teaching, great career prospects, high graduation rates and low-levels of debt. They do not attempt to assess a school’s reputation…”. This is clearly why the public schools, who have breadth and depth of faculty, strong graduate programs, sometimes strong reputations, are not favored. The things is is that you can view a school as what it is (such as number of faculty, well ranking fields, etc.) or by the educational opportunities and “career” services it provides (small classes, intimate student-faculty interaction, interaction with strong peers, connections at the college, etc.). For me, I believe undergraduate schools should be chosen based on the educational side, and so I am a great lover of LAC’s for this reason (other than their inherent lack of strong research, which should be a greater part of undergrad education, IMO), as well as strong private universities. They are for me what create a better academic environment where I am thriving, but that’s not to say that people can’t get equal educations from public schools, it just seems like a different beast.</p>