<p>“1. That Michigan is not as selective as its peers. You will have forgive me for now understanding what selectivity and academic excellence have to do with each other. And even if they were somewhat perfectly correlated, can you prove that Michigan’s private peers are honestly representing their admissions data in a manner that is identical to the way Michigan represents its admissions data? We have seen how those private universities creatively calculate their student to faculty ratios, and we have also seen CMC, George Washington and Emory get caught lying about SAT ranges. Private universities have so much as stake with rankings that they have no choice but to colorfully publish data. You will have to forgive me for not believing the data that private universities publish.”</p>
<p>Burden of proof is on you to prove that every or majority of school systematically falsely report data. </p>
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<li>That Michigan has a racist agenda. While I do not agree with Michigan’s approach to admitting diversity, I do not think the problem is racist in nature. </li>
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<p>That is your opinion. I have my opinion drawn from facts. You have your opinion drawn from the same facts. My analysis/opinion is at worst equal to yours.</p>
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<li>Misuse of resources. This is not fact, it is opinion. Universities, private or public, are non-profit organizations. I do not think (and this is my opinion) that the University should be expected to turn a profit. As for increasing tuition and raising money, how is that different from what other universities do? Even in the private sector, the price of goods and services are constantly increasing.</li>
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<p>Right, and opinions are drawn from facts. Facts are useless unless you can process and analyse it. Universities are not expected to make profits, because there’s nowhere for profits to flow; but that’s completely besides the point. What I am getting at is that when the university needs money to spend, it simply asks for more, while the private sector counterpart would try to both raise price (revenue), but at the same time cut cost, due to the governance of the shareholders. The university has no incentive in doing so.</p>
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<li>Monetization of brand. In many instances, Michigan has some valuable and interesting interdisciplinary programs, but I must unfortunately agree that this latest Business School graduate program is gimmicky.</li>
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<p>Gimmicky is being nice. It’s predatory.</p>
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<li>Glad to see we agree. Great flip flopping on your part though. Mr. “Jury is not out on Hoke, he is clearly the right man for the job” Alexandre. I hope you will flip flop on your other points at some point in the future.</li>
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<p>“6. Keynesian economics. This is obviously a question of ideology. Is there a perfect (or even better) system? Try telling the Nordic states of Europe that big government doesn’t work. Their employees and companies are among the most high-earning/profitable on earth, unemployment is under control, population living below or at the poverty line almost non-existent, very little corruption, unfairly high salaries curbed (very few unjustified bonuses or criminally high CEO salaries) great medical and education systems available to all, long life-span, low crime rates, overall happy populations etc…”
How did that work out for the awesome Nordic State of Iceland? Those junk Icelandic Bonds sure were trading at attractive yield. In fact, I was just pitched a bunch of Glitner claims a couple days ago. Let’s face it, every economy in the world are built on a deck of cards. btw, that balance budgets of Nordic states would not be so balanced without the implied military protection of NATO, backed by the US military out of the US budget. Basically all European countries maybe outside of France and UK are getting a free ride that would have been a significant weight on their budget. But then in return everyone recognizes the USD as reserve currency so the US can print out of the wazzu so I really don’t know who is the biggest beneficiary here. Again, deck of cards.</p>
<p>“But it is logical to donate $300 million or $110 million to a university that you do not believe in? Ross and Munger are donating their money to Michigan because they believe in its mission and vision.”
Again, smart people dont work in binary modes. I don’t know how much better I can explain that. In fact, they both earmarked their donations for specific causes to make sure the university don’t misuse their funds. I have donated plenty (in the form of PSD and to the COE), and I have my issues with the university. I am sure my donation as % of networth drawfs any of the other 2 who are parting way with small proportion of their networth.</p>