<p>Anyone know what Michigan ranks in the average salary department?</p>
<p>I’ve spent a lot of time searching through other college’s websites to try and find average starting salaries and haven’t come up with anything. I think most colleges (including UM LSA) don’t keep track of it. Though if someone can come up with some rough numbers that’d be great.</p>
<p>I found it. Dam the Ivy’s thwart State Universities big time when it comes to salaries.</p>
<p><a href=“http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-Salaries_for_Colleges_by_Type-sort.html[/url]”>http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-Salaries_for_Colleges_by_Type-sort.html</a></p>
<p>I’m not sure if this is what we were looking for. I’m guessing the university of Michigan includes all 3 schools. Because they only list one University of Michigan here.</p>
<p>This may be what your looking for</p>
<p>[Top</a> US Colleges ? Graduate Salary Statistics](<a href=“http://www.payscale.com/best-colleges/top-us-colleges-graduate-salary-statistics.asp]Top”>http://www.payscale.com/best-colleges/top-us-colleges-graduate-salary-statistics.asp)</p>
<p>UM is really good based on those lists. The median at UM Engineering (notice that most of the schools at the top are Engineering schools) was something like 60-61K a year. That ranks it amongst the best save CalTech, MIT, Harvey Mudd, Princeton, Stanford, and Harvard. The Wall Street Journal link didn’t list Stanford though?</p>
<p>The differences between UM and some of those top schools is pretty huge though. 15K difference between it and CalTech, 12K with MIT. Perhaps a large part of that is the area people get jobs in (people at Michigan being more likely to get jobs in the cheaper Mid-West, CalTech and MIT being more likely to get jobs in the more expensive coasts)? Considering that the difference between EMU and UMich is only about 12K, I can’t imagine there being that much of a difference between UMich and MIT or CalTech.</p>
<p>I also have trouble believing in the Payscale rankings, which claims the average starting salary at Michigan Tech is higher than at Michigan. Though that may be because they didn’t record any difference between Engineering at Michigan and Michigan as a whole.</p>
<p>I’m sure that Michigan Tech’s average starting salary is higher than Michigan’s…engineering positions pay more than the jobs that your average LSA major gets after graduating, regardless of the school.</p>
<p>It’s sad to see Michigan sliding in the rankings, although that slide is really only a drop from 24 when I was a freshman to 27. I agree with ring<em>of</em>fire that the administration really needs to care more about rankings. Contrast that with USC’s gaming attitude and it’s no wonder they slipped ahead this year. After that it’ll be Wake Forest, Tufts…Berkeley, UVA & UCLA aren’t safe either.</p>
<p>Cut undergrad enrollment to 10-15K, sell the Dearborn & Flint campuses, and go private. Probably will never happen, but one can dream.</p>
<p>I mean, according to the PayScale, Michigan Tech’s Engineering pays higher than Michigans Engineering. Surely you must agree that’s not right (especially since their numbers don’t match up at all with the numbers on Michigan’s Engineering site).</p>
<p>There are significant problems with the payscale rankings. Below is an article in time magazine about it. The first few paragraphs cover the major problems.</p>
<p>[PayScale:</a> Ranking Colleges Based on Alumni’s Salaries - TIME](<a href=“http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1914994,00.html]PayScale:”>http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1914994,00.html)</p>
<p>For example, in the case of Dartmouth which came in first, it was found that %80 of the alumni were attending grad school or planning to attend grad school. The payscale survey excludes anybody with a grad degree.</p>
<p>Are those salaries adjusted for geographic differences in where the graduates work? I assume alot of the Ivies, Berkeley, Stanford CIT, H. Mudd etc. end up working on the East or West Coast where it costs significantly more to live than say, the Midwest (even including Chicago). I’m from NJ and property taxes here are running 16K+ per year alone. So $100K goes alot further in locales outside the coasts. If you work on the East or West coast, you’d better be making siginficantly more money. Even w/the recent housing collapse you can’t buy a decent house for under $500K minimum. Now if they are comparing a UMich grad against/a Harvard grad, both of whom are working in NYC, and adjusting all their stats for geographic comparability I suppose their is some validity to the numbers. Even so, the income disparity is not huge . Ivy and elite West Coast grads also likely self-select for the highest paying jobs either to pay back debt, justify their college selection and parents and peers expectations, etc. Not to generalize, but I bet a UMich grad might be more inclined to take a teaching position, work in the public sector, etc.</p>
<p>Bottom line I bet a motivated UMich grad, choosing to work in the private sector on either coast matches pretty well w/most competition. Whatever you do, enjoy your life–you can’t take the money w/you when it’s over.</p>
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<p>I don’t know if this will reassure you or not, but the University does care to some extent. It cares about how the U is perceived and it cares about how this could affect applications and public perceptions. However, it is not going to lend credence to the rankings by making a big public brouhaha about them. Sometimes programs may boast about their ranking, and sometimes the communications office can’t help itself and will talk about a particularly flattering program ranking, but overall the U doesn’t have much to say that hasn’t already been said to USNews directly. </p>
<p>A lot of highly-ranked Universities feel the same way. If you look I doubt many of the top ten institutions have smacked the U.S. News logo and a “we’re #1” declaration on their homepages. </p>
<p>What the University does is keep an eye on the rankings, analyze them, understands why the U gets ranked where it does. This is useful for responding to the media, to alumni, etc. It is also useful when we participate in the national conversation about rankings. </p>
<p>Ultimately, you want your University to do what it feels is best for the institution. Sometimes its decisions may end up improving our ranking, but that’s just a sideline benefit. The day the U starts making decisions with the main or sole goal of boosting our rankings, I’ll be really disappointed. USNews should not drive the University’s direction.</p>
<p>I agree with you hoedown…to an extent. I am proud of the fact that Michigan can go through the most stringent of audits and pass with flying colors. I also don’t think Michigan should drastically alter its operating model to suit some ranking. </p>
<p>However, there are things that make no sense. The University’s instance of continuously enrolling freshmen classes with 6,000 students instead of 4,000 students for example…or the fact that 65% of Michigan undergrads are in-state students instead of 40% or 50% at the most. .</p>
<p>^^ U-M definitely needs to decrease its freshman enrollment size to 4,000. It’s one of several factors that persuaded me to attend NU. I also agree that the university should lower its in-state population to around 50%. They can receive additional revenue with more OOS students without having to consider privatization. This policy is common at the graduate level (both my master’s programs are 45-55% Michigan residents). The people of the state of Michigan can complain all they want, but the state is very fortunate to have such a top-ranked and internationally renowned institution within its borders. Most college-bound MI high school seniors do not attend U-M.</p>
<p>6000 to 4000 and 65% to 40%? That’s a huge difference. Perhaps they don’t want to do things that would go along with that (fire professors, other administrators and employees, sell buildings, possibly accecpt less government money). The idea that a business wants to shrink when they’re financially sound also just sounds awkward to me. </p>
<p>Well, if they had done that I’d be going to a community college in the fall, so I’m glad they’re not. </p>
<p>Why the sudden change of claiming the optimal class size should be 4000 from 5000? And a suggestion of 40% when you had always said 50%?</p>
<p>^^ How would the university fire faculty and staff if they increase its OOS enrollment? The last time I checked, OOS students pay higher tuition (1 OOS student is almost equivalent to 2 in-state students).</p>
<p>That would have to go along with decreased government money. I also assume more aid would have to be given.</p>
<p>Actually Qwertykey, I have said many times in the past that Michigan should have no more than 20,000 undergrads (including transfers). That would mean a freshman class of 4,500 or 4,600. And that’s at the most. I think 16,000 undergrads would be even better.</p>
<p>And I have always said that Michigan residents should not make up more than 25% of the undergraduate student population. When I say 50%, I am being very liberal.</p>
<p>Qwertykey, the reason why the University of Michigan should enroll fewer residents is because the state is not pulling its weight.</p>
<p>Personally, I think the state should cease giving the University of Michigan money and that Michigan should go private, limit in-state students to 25% of the student body, increase tuition by 15% to match private university tuition, charge all students out of state fees…and provide 100% need-based aid to all students, regardless of state residence.</p>
<p>Alex, </p>
<p>Can you do a cost benefit analysis for UM losing tuition revenue by cutting 2,000 undergrads to your ego boost with UM’s potential USNWR ranking rise?</p>
<p>:D</p>
<p>…and Michigan should accept the common application too.</p>
<p>Alex,</p>
<p>While not judging whether your vision of Umich is a good or bad one, I would like to mention the mission statement for the University of Michigan.</p>
<p>[Office</a> of the President - University Mission](<a href=“http://www.umich.edu/pres/mission.html]Office”>http://www.umich.edu/pres/mission.html)</p>
<p>It starts out by saying “The mission of the University of Michigan is to serve the people of Michigan…”</p>
<p>In my opinion, your vision of the University of Michigan would require a radical change from its present mission. I would wonder if you see any way of realizing your vision with Umich’s present mission.</p>
<p>The only way I would see anything like what you describe is a complete privatization. The thread about privatization being either inevitable or a pipedream was an interesting one. I don’t honestly think that privatization is a pipedream, but I would wonder about the possible scenerios that would allow privatization to happen. If I were an in-state resident(I’m not), I would fight like hell to keep Michigan public and I wouldn’t care if my state was pulling its weight or not. It would just be interesting to speculate about possible scenerios that would allow Michigan to go private.</p>
<p>…and yes, if Michigan went private and followed the direction you describe, it would probably be in the top 5 or 10 National Universities in USnews within 4 to 5 years.</p>