What are the best Public Universities or top public schools in the U.S.?

mom2collegekids · December 2, 2011, 12:28pm

*Outside of the USNWR top 100, you might as well not go to college and get a vocational degree instead in this economy. *

Misinformative…you are soooo wrong.

Are you saying that those who are attending a univ by my home (ranked over 100), which has a very good eng’g program AND the grads are immediately employed upon graduation is not worth attending and the students would be better off in voca schools? Are you serious?

Please apply some sanity checks from time to time.

Alexandre · December 2, 2011, 12:41pm

So goldenboy, according to you:

<ol>
<li>Elites such as Cal and Michigan, which are universally acknowleged to be top 20 universities in the World, are merely “good”.</li>
<li>Boston College, College of William and Mary, UIUC, University of Texas-Austin, University of Wisconsin-Madison etc…are “medicore”.</li>
<li>American University, Boston University, Indiana University-Bloomongton, Purdue University, University of Colorado-Boulder, University of Florida, University of Maryland, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities are all plain “bad”.</li>
<li>95% of US degrees are simply not worth getting. </li>
</ol>

So you would suggest that the majority of the people working in professional functions are better off not having gone to college?

noimagination · December 2, 2011, 1:29pm

Since you aren’t even bothering to define what it means to be ‘good’ or ‘bad’ or what standards we might use to evaluate that, I’m not sure what you expect anyone to make of this post.

beyphy · December 2, 2011, 1:34pm

Perhaps his post was too strong. I’d agree with a lot of what he’s saying if the students have to take out crazy loans to fund their education. It just isn’t worth it unless they’re going into a STEM field. Here are the reasons why.

1) Natioanl average debt after college is $25k

2) Most students aren’t engineering students (hence, why there are so many of these jobs available). And since most jobs are in STEM fields, there’s little point in going to a university if you’re not going into a STEM program (IF you have to take out thousands of dollars in debt to due so.)

i’m not trying to say that loans are never a good investment. Taking out 25k for UCLA might not be a bad investment There’s a poster on CC who took out over 100k in loans for a top 25 uni. That still might be worth it. But taking out 25k for AngeloState probably isn’t worth it.

goldenboy8784 · December 2, 2011, 1:40pm

Sorry Alexandre but the harsh truth is that Cal or Michigan are merely “good” schools.

Let me quote some articles to prove my point:

[How</a> Elite Firms Hire: The Inside Story, Bryan Caplan | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty](<a href=“http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2011/11/how_elite_firms.html]How”>How Elite Firms Hire: The Inside Story - Econlib)

[E]valuators drew strong distinctions between top four universities, schools that I term the super-elite, and other types of selective colleges and universities. So-called “public Ivies” such as University of Michigan and Berkeley were not considered elite or even prestigious…
Here Bryan Caplan is essentially alluding to the tier system I mentioned in the earlier post.

[Ivy</a> League is the best route to a job on Wall Street - Jun. 2, 2011](<a href=“Ivy League is the best route to a job on Wall Street - Jun. 2, 2011”>Ivy League is the best route to a job on Wall Street - Jun. 2, 2011)

Why spend effort looking for “that one needle in the haystack” at a “safety school” like the University of Michigan or, heavens forfend, Bowling Green, when the run-of-the-mill Yalie’s still a prince. Even “second-tier” Ivies like Brown, according to Rivera, are suspect for the top firms.
Michigan is considered a safety school according to the research done by Lauren Rivera, a professor at the Kellogg School of Management. Even Brown is “suspect” for the top firms.

[Education</a> - Image - NYTimes.com](<a href=“Education - Image - NYTimes.com”>Education - Image - NYTimes.com)
Again Cal is ranked #30 and Michigan is ranked #52 further illustrating my point. These aren’t top 20 world universities.

4. 95% of US degrees are simply not worth getting
Unless the degrees are technical from these lower-tier colleges, then know I would advise students to skip that route and find gainful employment in retail instead to start out and learn from the ground up.

barrons · December 2, 2011, 1:46pm

And exactly how many jobs out of millions of professional jobs do those handful of “elite” firms control? They have no control at all in high tech, most Fortune 1000, 99% of law firms, 99.9% of medical practices and hospitals, and probably 99.5% of all professional jobs. What unfounded drivel.

rjkofnovi · December 2, 2011, 2:01pm

I particularly enjoyed reading one person’s comment about Duke from one of the above articles posted by goldenboy:

“So why bother even looking at a school like Duke, and potentially getting a dummy, when you can guarantee filling the job with someone from Harvard? Also there’s a sense of why would someone smart enough to get into Harvard choose to go to Duke. It’s not only an intelligence issue, the bright Duke student isn’t perceived to be as ambitious.”

Everyone has their opinion.

Alexandre · December 2, 2011, 2:36pm

goldenboy, you can choose to believe whatever you wish. There are articles and rankings that support all points of views. It is up to the individual to decide what is true and what is not. You seem to believe that Penn is not considered a top 20 university by corporate heards. That is your prerogative. All your links do is prove that only a handful of universities are trully priviledged and that the rest are suspect. They lump private elites such as Brown with public elites and hardly distinguish between them, and hint that none of those universities are looked upon favorably.

Your Wall Street report rates Penn and Dartmouth around #25, not much higher than Cal. Schools like USC, Notre Dame, Rice and WUSTL all do well but lower than expected. Clearly, the gap separating most of those universities is negligible. I would bet that most universities on that rating save the top 4 or 5 are separated by a tiny margin.
Clearly, many of those polled confused Michigan State for Michigan and Penn State for Penn. Either that, or the majority of the people surveyed work for logistics companies!

Thankfully, the majority of well read and intelligent peole know better and would ridicule such a narrow and ignorant point of view.

beyphy · December 2, 2011, 3:01pm

what would you say about UCLA being in spot 11 then? (not trying to argue against you, just wondering lol)

mom2collegekids · December 2, 2011, 3:38pm

*You assume there is a normal distribution for the reputation of American universities.

Here is how the social, corporate and academic elite classify “prestige”:

Excellent: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT and Caltech

Very Good: Dartmouth, Brown, Penn, Cornell, Duke, Chicago, Columbia, Johns Hopkins and Northwestern

Good: the rest of the USNWR top 30 and NYU

Mediocre: the rest of the USNWR top 50

Bad: the rest of the USNWR top 100

Outside of the USNWR top 100, you might as well not go to college and get a vocational degree instead in this economy. *

And…what about the schools that aren’t in the national univs ranking like Santa Clara? Are those degrees worthless, too?

beyphy quote:

*Perhaps his post was too strong. I’d agree with a lot of what he’s saying if the students have to take out crazy loans to fund their education. It just isn’t worth it unless they’re going into a STEM field. Here are the reasons why.

*

I don’t think HIS issue is loans. His issue is more about rankings, prestige, and whether a degree (even without debt) is worth it.

Few people here advocate taking on significant debt for undergrad, so that’s unlikely the issue.

*And exactly how many jobs out of millions of professional jobs do those handful of “elite” firms control? They have no control at all in high tech, most Fortune 1000, 99% of law firms, 99.9% of medical practices and hospitals, and probably 99.5% of all professional jobs. What unfounded drivel. *

Exactly!! So, the college-bound millions are all supposed to have the attitude of “elite school or bust” just to have a chance at the few elite firm jobs??? Crazy. 
What about the millions who DON’T WANT THOSE jobs controlled by a few elite companies?

goldenboy8784 · December 2, 2011, 3:48pm

It’s somewhat strange Alexandre but Penn is almost considered a completely separate entity than Wharton abroad. Only in high school did I know that Wharton was part of Penn and I grew up here in the States. At the MBA level, it is simply called Wharton and not Penn’s business school while Fuqua is still referred as “Duke” and Stanford/Columbia GSB are still referred to “Stanford” and “Columbia” respectively. Michigan’s Business School is referred to as “Ross” as well and UVA’s business school is called “Darden”.

The reason is that Wharton is a better brand than Penn, Stern is a better brand than NYU, Ross is a better brand than Michigan, Haas is a better brand than UCB and Darden is a better brand overall than UVA. This is what business executives think at least. Other business schools like Fuqua, GSB ans SOM benefit from their relationship from Duke, Stanford and Yale since the overall brand of the school is superior

The Wall Street study is measuring overall brand which is why UCLA, Yale, Duke, Northwestern, etc. do so well. Penn’s overall brand is strong but not as strong as it would be if it was synonymous with Wharton

Besides UCLA, Brown beats out every American public school by a mile. What are you talking about? Europeans go crazy about Brown-a lot of French, German and Spanish captains of industry have sent their kids there.

Penn State is at #75 so I doubt it affected Penn that much which is way up at #24. That’s not a bad rating by the way-obviously some European executives are going to prefer international elite schools like HEC Paris and McGill.

Theses schools aren’t even that prestigious in the United States LOL. Also, none of them have strong business schools.

UCLA is mad prestigious in Europe so I’m only a little surprised. I would have ranked it a bit lower but these are international business execs we’re talking about here-who am I suggest otherwise?:D

mom2collegekids · December 2, 2011, 3:56pm

Why do a couple of these “elite or bust” fans think that the only successful and worthwhile jobs out there are int’l business, Wall St related, and similar?

What if you want to be a nurse, business owner, doctor, engineer, physical therapist, or whatever? The majority of America doesn’t WANT a job working for an elite company.

rjkofnovi · December 2, 2011, 4:00pm

Today goldenboy says:

“It’s somewhat strange Alexandre but Penn is almost considered a completely separate entity than Wharton abroad. Only in high school did I know that Wharton was part of Penn and I grew up here in the States.”

…and in a thread a few days ago he said:

"Penn and Penn State only get mixed up by uneducated people. No business executive here or abroad would ever mix up the “University of Pennsylvania” with "Penn State University. I mean, look where Penn is listed in that survey.

So can we take it that these business executives, many of whom don’t speak English as a primary language, might also not know that Wharton is a part of Penn? They must be uneducated people according to you.

rjkofnovi · December 2, 2011, 4:15pm

Other business schools like Fuqua, GSB ans SOM benefit from their relationship from Duke, Stanford and Yale since the overall brand of the school is superior."

It that tells me is that Fuqua is not strong enough to stand on it’s own, unlike the other schools. Also don’t kid yourself, Nobody ever thinks of Duke when Stanford and Yale are mentioned. You Dukies are the only ones who consistantly do that.

rjkofnovi · December 2, 2011, 4:18pm

“Penn State is at #75 so I doubt it affected Penn that much which is way up at #24.”

Well if those brilliant executives didn’t know that Wharton is a part of Penn, which is what you inferred, why should I trust their knowledge about Penn State?

goldenboy8784 · December 2, 2011, 6:04pm

No, that just means that many of their hires came directly from the Wharton MBA program and not necessarily from Penn undergrad or at least not from Penn CAS. Since Wharton has its own undergraduate professional program that’s the most famous of its kind in the world along with an esteemed MBA program, its appropriate to view it as a separate entity. Stern, Ross and Darden are not as established so I doubt they would help NYU, Michigan and UVA that much if they were presented to the respondents instead.

No, Fuqua is well-recognized but not as universally known as Duke so people just say I went to business school at Duke. In the business world, Duke is a bigger name than Yale. Only recently has Yale’s School of Management been thought of as elite and no one certainly views it as being superior to Fuqua. It might be on par at best.

They know that Wharton is part of Penn probably but they don’t associate it with Penn. It’s not like these European and North American chairmen and business executives were thinking about this survey for a day. They gave their first impressions and these initial thoughts often give us a glimpse into the true strength of a name brand. Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Columbia, MIT, Cambridge, Oxford and Duke spring more easily to mind than NYU, Michigan, Michigan State, Dartmouth and the like since their overall brand is elite, they get recruited heavily at the undergraduate level and their business schools’s are very strong. UCLA is an anomaly but it has great name recognition in Europe as does Brown.

rjkofnovi · December 2, 2011, 6:25pm

“Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Columbia, MIT, Cambridge, Oxford and Duke”

Which one of these eight doesn’t seem to fit?

rjkofnovi · December 2, 2011, 6:28pm

“NYU, Michigan, Michigan State, Dartmouth”

Which one of these four doesn’t seem to fit?

morrismm · December 2, 2011, 9:26pm

To the OP–You have not actually responded to this thread, to date. I think, from your original post, you are looking for a state school in the northeast, especially in the NY and NJ area.

Of the schools you mentioned, probably Binghamton has the highest ranking. Stony Brook is a research institution and has a good reputation. Rutgers is a decent NJ state school.

But northeastern (especially SUNY) state schools do not have the reputation of other big state schools such as California. One of the reasons is because many of the top ranked schools in the nation are located in the northeast and state schools can’t, or opt not to, compete.

All of the Ivy’s and many/most of the top LAC’s are all in the northeast. Also, others such as MIT, Johns Hopkins, NYU, Georgetown, etc, are located in the northeast.

For a state school to try to compete be on a level or better than these outstanding private schools would be cost prohibitive.

So your choices were good. Do not expect them to be at the tippy top. Other states, as many cc respondents have noted, have great state schools that you should consider.

beyphy · December 3, 2011, 12:04am

No, the big reason is a lack of funding. The UC system was exceptionally funded, which was why our state universities are among the best in the US (2/3 in the top 3; 5/10 in the top 10.) California was booming with taxes in a way that no other state really was in the 40s/50s, and this helped fund the Master Plan, and hence, the california schools.

What are the best Public Universities or top public schools in the U.S.?

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