USC Marshall vs. UMichigan Ross

vinceh
Wed, 30 Mar 2011 09:00:11 +0000

Some facts are in order. Michigan has roughly 27,000 undergrads and 15,000 grad students - not anywhere near 50,000 undergrads. USC has approximately 16,500 undergrads and 19,500 grad students. In total Michigan has 42,000 students to USC’s 36,000 - if Michigan is “HUGE” then USC is certainly on the “pudgy” side.

While it’s true that the state of Michigan has been harder hit over the years than California what it really has done is forced the University of Michigan to handle its business affairs more efficiently than many other states. UMichigan gets less than 10% of its funding from the state (I believe this year it will be down to 7%); so the state of the immediately surrounding economy actually has very little impact on the running of the university. If anything, the moribund Michigan economy results in talented people being available to work at lower salaries than their California counterparts. Same or higher quality people costing less money. Furthermore, while not truly relevant to this discussion since USC is a private school, the UC system just raised in-state tuition levels to those approaching in-state Michigan levels. Levels that have been in force for years now. We here in Michigan dealt with and adjusted to the current pain being suffered in the UC system a decade ago. There are many things wrong with the state of Michigan, but Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan aren’t high among them.

USC feels smaller and I suspect will have smaller class sizes overall, though I think that once you’re out of freshman intro classes that normalizes no matter where you go. Both give you an opportunity for a great education. If you care about such things, Michigan-Ross has been consistently rated in the top ten undergraduate business programs for years. The new business school building is a mini-Xanadu complete with mind-numbing technology, it’s own cafe and a b-school only workout facility.

USC is a great school that can stand on its own - denigrating Michigan using incorrect facts and tired stereotypes is unnecessary and ultimately reflects poorly on USC. Make the decision that’s right for you.