<p>Hawkette, many private universities have large in-state populations. 55% of Rice students are in-staters. 50% of Stanford students are in-staters. 40% of Cornell are in-staters. The fact is, at most universities, private or public, ovder 50% of students will come from within a 400 mile radius. I am not suggesting that private universities with large in-state student populations should be treated as public universities because cost of attendance is, as you point out, discounted for in-staters at public universities. However, as in most instances, it is impossble to draw an educated conclusion by comparing statistics between public and private universities. That is my main issue with using statistics to determine institutional quality, and that is why most educated people have a problem with rankings that depend too heavily on statistical data, such as the USNWR. I don’t need to remind you of what Gerhard Casper said regarding ranking universities statistically. It is not possible to draw SAT results, Faculty and Financial resources comparisons between public and privates because those institutions measure, weigh and report data very differently. Any comparison of data between public universities and private universities will result in an apple to orange comparison.</p>