<p>OK, the faculty and the students at UNL are just as good as those at Harvard–or at least, there’s no way to tell the difference. Boy, are those people paying for Harvard a bunch of suckers!</p>
<p>Seriously, I get that many people think that what you get at an elite private isn’t *enough *better than what you get at the flagship to justify paying a lot more for it. I myself wouldn’t buy a Rolex watch. But some of the arguments being put forward in this thread are a bit absurd, in my estimation.</p>
That’s a strawman. Nowhere do I say that the faculty at UNL are “just as good” as those at Harvard. Nowhere do I say that the students at UNL are “just as good” as those at Harvard. I agree with your statement that the elite school may not be enough better vs. the flagship. But unless you can actually show how much better the elite school is, you cannot meet the burden of being enough better. And that is never going to happen because these factors are so subjective.</p>
<p>What I do say is that the differences that do exist don’t have any broadly applicable impacts for prospective undergraduate students. The actual difference in experience will vary on a case-to-case basis; for example, a student majoring in engineering who enjoys watching football will see less advantage at Harvard compared to a future investment banker interested in a capella.</p>
<p>Why do I feel so strongly about this? Because too many families fail to pragmatically assess the actual differences between schools when deciding how to spend their money.</p>
<p>Clearly, not all schools are created equal, and therein lies the dilemma for a significant number of serious and motivated students and their families, who did not win the admissions lottery (or, who chose not to play that game) or who cannot easily afford a private university (or, increasingly, a good public university). Do they assume significant debt for what is promised to be a significant educational and economic advantage of attending a private university? Are the advantages as significant as they’ve heard? Can they even get a good education at their public university? Given some of the adverse educational factors associated with many public universities, if they attend the public university, is there a way to mitigate these? What are the best available options? What’s the best trade-off to get the best possible outcome? These are the realistic types of questions faced by thousands of students and their families. To ask and seek answers to these questions does not suggest that all schools are essentially the same; rather, these types of questions are a clear recognition that are not essentially the same.</p>
<p>My problem with state universities is the high concentration of really poor students. I think it probably is not as bad as it was when I attended, but it is still a problem. Tennessee, Iowa State, Indiana…even Texas. There is a really BAD bottom half. It is naive to think the top students are all going to cluster together and move through the 4 years as one smart mass. It just doesn’t work that way- honors college or not. I was absolutely shocked at how poorly prepared (ok- dumb) a lot of my freshman peers at Big State U were. Many of them didn’t make it past 1st semester or 1st year, of course. By the time you get into upper level classes and into your major, it gets better, but you are still surrounded by people who may not be nearly as bright or motivated as you are. This is different, probably, for a pre-med or an engineering major. I chose my Big State U for a particular major in which it was tops in the country, but I sure didn’t feel like I was with my intellectual peers. There were exceptions, of course. My kids report the same thing from friends who opted for state u for various reasons. They settled in and liked many things about their schools, but the complaint was the bottom half or 2/3 of the students. Trade offs to everything.</p>
<p>For some of us, it’s not about return on the dollar – any more than taking our families on (say) trips to Europe would be about return on the dollar. It’s about an experience, and I think there is a different experience in a community where (to borrow Hunt’s phrasing) there is a high concentration of students who want a high level education and a low concentration of students who aren’t that interested in a high-level education.</p>
<p>Of course anyone can study hard anywhere and get a good education, and of course anyone can slack off anywhere and not take in all that’s offered. That’s not in dispute. </p>
<p>If you (generic you) don’t find the elite private schools worth the dollar outlay for your family situation, well then so be it! You don’t need to apologize to anyone. But like Hunt, I don’t see why we have to pretend there is no difference. There is. That difference is worth it to some, and not worth it to others. It may certainly not be worth umpteen thousand in debt and / or jeopardizing a parent’s retirement. To Hunt’s point, a Rolex is, indeed, a finer watch than my $100 Fossil that I’m wearing. That difference isn’t worth it to me, but that doesn’t mean there is no difference. And yes, both of them tell me the time.</p>
<p>At our house, there IS no other alternative use for that money. Any money that my kids don’t spend towards college gets plowed back into my retirement fund. I don’t believe in the concept that I should spend less on my kids’ education and give them the difference towards a house or travel. It does not compute for me. Of course, everyone else is free to run their financial lives differently, but for us, it is not “$25K for public school and $25K towards your house, or $50K for private school.” It’s “fund the best school you can get into, whether that’s $25K or $50K.”</p>
I think you mean some state universities - right?</p>
<ul>
<li>UCLA - </li>
<li>97% of students in the top 10% of the HS class (100% in the top 25%).</li>
<li><p>Average HS GPA - 4.25</p></li>
<li><p>UCSD - </p></li>
<li><p>100% of students in the top 10% of the HS class</p></li>
<li><p>Average HS GPA - 4.00</p></li>
<li><p>UCB - </p></li>
<li><p>98% of students in the top 10% of the HS class</p></li>
<li><p>Average HS GPA - 3.8</p></li>
</ul>
<p>My point is that I see a lot of bundling of the term "state U’ in discussions like this yet there’s a broad range of them when it comes to the academic qualifications of the students. If you randomly selected students at any of the 3 above I mentioned (3 I’m somewhat familiar with), as an example, they’d almost certainly all be very well qualified very capable students not terribly different in this regard than many of the students at the ivies (regardless of the financial status of their parents).</p>
<p>Back to the title of the thread - some state colleges (and not necessarily always flagships) obviously can be better for some students in some areas than some ivies and ivies can be better than state flagships in some areas. It’s been mentioned many times on CC by those very familiar with ivies that generally some state flagships are better than many ivies in some engineering disciplines, for example. But there’s also no denying that with the self-selection of the caliber of students at the ivies along with the resources of the ivies, they likely are outstanding choices for many of those who can manage to be admitted and can pay for them.</p>
<p>
I think that’s the crux of it for a lot of people depending on their personal situation and some people simply aren’t interested anyway - for example many people in the western part of the country simply don’t want to attend college in the east and don’t bother to apply. The question for many - is an ivy worth $100K more than UCB or UCLA for example? To make it more complicated, is the ivy worth more than $100K more than UCB/UCLA for a computer science student - an area where UCB/UCLA area very strong and not all ivies are? I think the answer just depends on the personal financial situation of the individual along with other personal factors.</p>
<p>Given that you chose BigStateU for a particular major, but found the school wanting in other respects…what kind of feasible alternatives would you have had at that time, in terms of your major field, affordability, admissions, and other considerations? If there were feasible alternatives, in retrospect, do you think any of those alternatives would have resulted in significantly greater benefits for you beyond their cost ? Were there any measures that either the school or you personally took to try to reduce the adverse impact of the less qualified students? </p>
<p>(Of course, for a lot of us, cost might have been less of a consideration back in the day than it is currently.)</p>
<p>This discussion is getting a bit surreal. Are we really debating whether the University of Nebraska at Lincoln offers undergraduate education comparable to (or better than) Harvard???</p>
<p>Thanks a bunch to ucbalumnus, zapfino and jc40 for your encouraging replies. Just logged in and saw your replies. Hope your children are in the places best for them and doing well. Yes, since my son’s ultimate goal as of now, is to do IP law, I feel finishing EE undergrad and Plan II from the less expensive, IS Texas flagship univ. is more cost-effective for us. When the times comes for grad/law school, “money-shelling” will have to be done anyway. We might as well try to stay tight until then! Only wishing, UT EE dept. would give some aid to make life easier. The problem at UT Austin being, like you correctly pointed out, jc40 that it is such a huge univ. that it is utterly and incredibly competitive, even for volunteering positions, let alone financial aid package in this age of dwindling aid. We will wait and see what we get. Thanks again.</p>
Again, you can use this lens to view more than just money. Let’s talk about a vacation. You might be able to choose between a Hyatt on the waterfront and a Hilton Garden Inn two blocks inland. In this scenario, I’m sure you would sit for a moment and ponder whether the additional cost of the Hyatt is worthwhile given the various intangible benefits an ocean view might offer your family. And that’s all I’m advocating for here: deciding whether a more expensive education is worthwhile for your family.
The issue is not whether differences exist but rather whether those differences amount to a “better” experience. A $50 bill is better than a $20 bill. But a Rolex is not necessarily better than a Fossil. It certainly is “finer” in the view of the status-conscious, but we cannot reach the conclusion that all Rolexes are more comfortable, more accurate, and more attractive for every single person than all Fossils. I don’t even think we can reach that conclusion for most people. The same logic applies to higher education.
One of the greatest things about the USA is that we all have the freedom to use the money we earn as we see fit, at least for the most part. I can’t tell you how to spend your money, just as I can’t tell a frantic student which school they have to attend or tell a friend not to drop out of school for a life in the circus. But I think there is educational value available for everyone on CC from the discussion of our respective choices.</p>
<p>What I don’t see is why educational choices should be treated differently from other expenditures. Let’s return to a trip to Europe. As you note, there are a variety of benefits for a family who can share the experience of travel on the European continent. There are also benefits to visiting Australia, or China, or the Canadian Rockies, or taking a road trip in the US. Some of these are the same - family bonding, exposure to other ways of life, appreciation for remarkable natural and man-made achievements, etc. Others are different - chamber music in Vienna vs. wandering the Forbidden City, backpacking in the Alps or canoeing on Lake Louise, etc.</p>
<p>With careful research, your family could probably determine that a certain vacation might offer a “better” experience. This won’t be better for everyone, but it will be for you. However, some of the other destinations might come pretty darn close. At this point, I guarantee you that a high enough price differential would tip you toward the less expensive option even if you could theoretically afford the most desired trip. Why? Because you know that the saved money could be used on a variety of other experiences that might confer more benefits overall instead of blowing it all on one European extravaganza.</p>
<p>The exact same logic should apply to higher education. If you have enough resources available, you may decide that a $200k price difference is very worthwhile given the specific situation in your family. And that’s wonderful. But even for most very well-to-do families, that’s a significant piece of change. And I think it makes very little sense to pretend that the situation will end up identically regardless of which decision is made, because it won’t.</p>
That isn’t really what I think the issue is here, but if you’d like to have that discussion you can be my guest. Feel free to explain to me why UNL provides a universally inferior educational experience when compared to Harvard. I eagerly await your reply.</p>
<p>MOWC, I don’t dispute that a percentage of students at most public universities should have found something else to do with their time and tax-payer funds, but I don’t think the number is as high as you suggest at most flagship or equivalent universities. Not today, anyway. When you and I started college (I think we are the same age), a fair number of our classmates were choosing between college and the rice paddies of SE Asia. They didn’t have to work very hard to stay there because a lot of professors were reluctant to be the cause of a change in their draft status. On top of that, public unis were a heck of a lot cheaper at that time. I put myself through Big Flaship U. (a different one than yours.) In sum, a larger percentage of students were not serious about academics when they arrived, they were not forced to get serious after they arrived, and their parents weren’t trading retirement for college so they didn’t make a stink, either.</p>
<p>I suggest it may a different story today, at least at the major institutions in most states. (I’m no fan of most of the non-flagship schools in my own state, however.) Sure, some intro. level courses have too many goof-off or academically inadequate students in them, but their number is greatly reduced by sophomore year. Honors courses help with the intro. courses.</p>
<p>amm2009,Please be careful in reading MomofWildChild’s last post 264 on this page that references Texas! Good luck to your son with getting a good financial aid package.</p>
I’d just like to point out that my advocacy cuts both ways. For a very low-income student, Harvard may be markedly cheaper than UNL with out-of-state tuition. And, in that scenario, I believe that even a student who felt UNL was a better fit would need to take a long hard look at the financial reality of the situation.</p>
<p>Yawn … wake me up when UK and UNL start getting half their students from OOS. (Or as my D said when I suggested UK, “When I said I wanted to go to school with people from all over, I DIDN’T mean from all over Kentucky.”)</p>
<p>On the issue of faculty quality at less prestigious universities, some of you seem not to realize that for the last five years or more, a lot of PhDs from the very top-ranked programs have been more than happy to accept tenure-track assistant professorships at universities they would have dismissed as unworthy at the beginning of their graduate studies. It is a matter of arithmetic; graduate programs churn them out, and there are only so many slots at the big name programs. </p>
<p>The educational pedigree of younger faculty in most departments at Big State Us is not what it was a generation, or even a decade, ago. And, since they are the new hires, they are likely to be found teaching undergraduate courses.</p>
<p>I like the analogy. There are people who would always choose the Hilton Garden Inn. For them, the Hyatt is just unaffordable. Others would always choose the Hyatt. For them, the convenience and view are not negotiable. Only a subset would be torn between the choices. Perhaps this thread is addressed only to that subset.</p>