Hello Everyone! I have a question about the reputation of UW Madison. My basic concern is as to whether is it a good public university or not. I am a new student at UW Madison and I chose it over another good public university, Umich, largely because Umich was more expensive. I also thought that UW Madison was very comparable academically and especially for my major (economics). However, I’ve always been concerned about UW Madison’s reputation as a party school and how that will affect my job prospects/graduate school choices (I want to get an Econ PhD). When I ask people on the street and people on reddit, they hold Umich in much higher esteem than Madison. Everyone I met automatically assumes that everyone who goes to Umich must be necessarily smarter than Madison. This makes me feel tremendous regret for choosing UW Madison over Umich, despite the massive difference in price. After all, if everyone I know thinks that way, won’t hiring managers think that way too? It’s all just so confusing because UW Madison really does have an outstanding economics department, ranked as even better than Umich. UW seems to have many departments which are extremely comparable to UMich (like many stem programs, humanities, business) however because Umich tends to edge them out, Umich gets all the more attention. In short, right now it seems to me to be the reality that prestige is the only thing that matters, not academic quality. From my (somewhat panicking) perspective, it doesn’t matter how much material debt I would get from UMich (in the 100k range), because the immaterial benefits of prestige get me much closer to my goal of getting an Econ PhD. I’m basically wondering if anyone thinks I should make a transfer application to Umich to further my career prospects?
UW-Madison is an outstanding school. Michigan may generally rank as a top 5 public, but Madison generally ranks as a top 15 – that’s not an appreciable difference in terms of prestige. Madison has a great reputation.
Even if there were a huge disparity, prestige is not the only thing that matters, or even the main thing. Where you go and what you do after finishing your undergrad will depend on how you do during your undergrad years – whether you go to Michigan or Wisconsin will have no bearing. As far as the faculty and resources are concerned, both universities are top-notch – so get to know the Econ faculty at Madison, because they will be very important in helping you take your next step (if you stick with your current goals). FYI, I was a grad student at both schools (two different grad programs), and I didn’t see any difference between the undergrads I encountered. And actually, I enjoyed living in Madison more than I enjoyed living in Ann Arbor (though both were lovely).
EDIT TO ADD: You are wise not to accumulate a lot of debt for your undergrad degree if you plan to go on to a Ph.D. Even if you get full funding as a Ph.D. student, you won’t be making a real salary. So it will be awhile before you can make a significant dent in your undergrad student debt. It’s so much better to go into a grad program as debt-free as possible. So if there was a significant difference in the sticker prices of the two schools, you were wise to choose the less expensive option.
I agree with @Shelby_Balik. The University of Wisconsin is an excellent university.
Years ago I was involved in a software project at the University of Wisconsin, and got to visit a few times. I was very impressed by the quality of the students and faculty that I was dealing with, and with the quality of the work that they did. I have kept in touch with one of the students (for several decades since), who has done very well in industry (for good reasons).
I have also (on different occasions) got to visit the University of Michigan. Michigan is also very good. I consider these two schools to be comparable and essentially equal, at a very good and very academically strong level. You can get an excellent education at either of them, and do very well afterward (including going on to very good graduate programs).
For applying to graduate programs, I do not think that it will matter at all which of these very good universities you are attending.
“Prestige” does not matter when you are applying to graduate programs. What you do as an undergraduate student will matter.
And $100,000 in debt for a bachelor’s degree is way, way too much.
I might also mention that as a graduate student (studying a subfield of applied mathematics) I got to take one single elective (my schedule was otherwise full). I took econometrics. There is quite a bit of math in econometrics – and to me this makes sense. Quantitative economics allows you to at least try to verify that your economic theories actually work. Wisconsin is also very good for mathematics (the last time that I checked it was ranked in the top 10 in the US for mathematics). When studying econometrics, even as a math major I needed to go back and make sure that my foundation in linear algebra was solid (I spent a couple of Saturdays working on this and was happy with the result). You might want to take at least some math to help your study of economics, and Wisconsin can definitely give you this opportunity.
You are already at a great university. Congratulations! Take advantage of the many opportunities that you have there.
Preparation for PhD study in economics means taking much more math and statistics than typical bachelor’s degree programs in economics. For example, multivariable calculus, upper level linear algebra, real analysis, and calculus based probability theory would be desirable.
In terms of college ranking and prestige, to the extent it matters (varies by subject), it is the prestige of the department / major, rather than the school overall, that can matter for PhD program admission.
I promise you, there are TONS of kids who are at Wisconsin - and for the same reason as you - the price…tons that did or could have gotten into Michigan.
There’s likely little you can get or do at Michigan that you can’t from Wisconsin.
hmmmm - and if you want to talk about party schools and most are - they are both party schools - with both getting an A+ from niche.
If you want to find reasons not to like your school, you will. But you’ve chosen a mostly comparable university.
No, your job prospects or grad school prospects shouldn’t differ. There’s always certain jobs or organizations that may target a certain school - either one of them.
and btw - tons of kids choose schools that aren’t the highest ranked they got into. My son chose maybe the lowest ranked 8th or 9th of the 12 he got into and my daughter #16 of 17 rank wise - and both are doing fine - one with a fantastic job (works with Michigan kids) and the other interning at arguably the top think tank in DC this semester. It will be up to you - moreso than the school - how you finish up.
Why did both kids choose these schools ?- not for money although both were cheaper than alternatives - but because they preferred them.
Live your life - and don’t even give it a second thought - honestly. You chose Wisconsin - it’s great - and no, you’re not going to be disadvantaged later on.
And unless you are miserable at Wisconsin, then no you should not transfer.
And if you were miserable there, Michigan probably wouldn’t be the right fit…
You went to WIsconsin for a reason - take the $$ save - and life will be great!! Money is important - and saving and avoiding debt if that’s what you are doing is a HUGE LIFE WIN.
Wisconsin’s economics program has long had a high level of prestige. And since economists love data, there are a lot of rankings of econ programs by economists. You could refer to this one for example: “Ranking U.S. Economics Programs by Faculty and Graduate Publications: An Update Using 1994–2009 Data”
I would especially look at Table 5 (because Wisconsin is rated higher than Michigan there 
): “University Rankings Based on Pages in Top 48 Journals by Alumni: 1994-2009”. Wisconsin is #12 on that list.
For more recent data, see: https://ideas.repec.org/top/top.econdept.html
“Top 25% Economics Departments, all authors, all publication years,” October 2023.
Wisconsin is #30 on that list, slightly behind Michigan at #23.
All of this should be taken with the usual caveats that undergraduate educational quality does not necessarily accord with rankings based on faculty (and alumni) publication output—and, in fact, the former often suffers because of the emphasis of the latter, and better undergrad experiences can often be had at places that don’t show up high on these types of lists and aren’t as focused on professorial and graduate student research output as their top priority.
BUT, if you are concerned about the prestige of the program/department at Wisconsin, you shouldn’t be.
(Attending Wisconsin as an undergrad could be an issue if you wanted to attend a doctoral program there. That’s usually the case for any research university.)
I note according to this list, Michigan was sixth in terms of students who went on to PhDs in Economics with 34, and Wisconsin was 10th with 27:
https://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/dataverse/top-feeders-phd-programs#econ
This is not a material difference.
As others have noted, the really important thing at this point is not which such college you attend, but what you actually do there. Long story short, if you want to go on to a good Econ PhD program, you should try to be one of the outstanding students in Econ, and eventually develop the sorts of relationships with professors that will lead to the advice and recommendations you will need.
And if you succeed at that, you can become one of the people that goes from Wisconsin to a PhD program.
And no, asking “people on the street and people on reddit” what they think is not a good idea. Unless those people happen to be Econ PhDs themselves, they likely have no relevant knowledge about how admissions to Econ PhD programs actually works.
$100,000 is a lot of money for a hoodie. You made the right choice.
No one at a top graduate program will discount your application because you went to UW-Madison. If they do, it will be because you are under qualified compared to the rest of the applicant pool.
Stop asking Reddit A2C or r/college for meaningful advise. Most posters there are 16-19 year old prestige hungry teenagers that have limited real life experience.
In terms of academic reputation, UW-Madison is very strong. UW-Madison is probably behind only Cal-Berkeley, UVA, and Michigan among US public schools. Maybe UNC and UCLA, though their reputations are probably staked as much on selectivity as they are on actual academic and research quality/output. UW’s direct peers would be schools like Washington, Illinois, Texas, UCSD, Georgia Tech. And UCLA/UNC if we’re looking at pure academics. In some areas, UW is stronger. For instance, UW’s STEM offerings tend to be much stronger overall than UNC’s.
Many, if not most, programs at UW are ranked among the best in the country (T25, T10, even some in the T5).
UW often places as strongly in international rankings as they do in the USNews ranking, on the strength of their global grad/PhD and research reputation.
Graduating from Wisconsin v. Michigan will make zero difference to employers or grad schools. Both are known to be topnotch.
For a PHD in Econ your math background is more important than your econ background (though obviously you need to be among the best in the Econ classes you took) and you should have a minimum of a math minor though close to a math major would be better.
Btw you can’t do your PHD where you got your undergrad (for cross pollination of ideas) so you can aim at getting into UmIch for your PHD and having them pay you to attend 
Economics courses will be helpful in confirming your interest in the subject and help you explore subareas of the field.
Some pages on math and statistics recommendations for pre-PhD economics students:
Wisconsin is a fabulous and amazing school. I’ve always thought of it as one of America’s top 10 or so public universities without trying to parse out where it exactly fits in some (inherently problematic) hierarchy of those universities.
I was with you about Wisconsin being a great school, but this part about UCLA’s reputation being based on selectivity as much as academics? UCLA’s grad programs are fantastic across the board and have been long before it became as competitive as it is today. For instance, it’s long been in the top 20 or so in global rankings (which you mentioned), which don’t account for selectivity. It’s especially strong in the arts and humanities, which people tend to overlook in favor of professional schools and STEM-oriented grad programs. Finally, as a 1999 Rose Bowl attendee, Ron Dayne can go straight to hell. 
Whether your college is a party school or not will have zero impact on job and grad school choices in the future. What WILL matter are your grades, and what else you have on your applications.
Wisconsin is an excellent flagship university. It’s up to you to get the most out of your time there.
I was there too (1999 Rose Bowl). That was a great game.
UCLA has come a long way in the last hundred years or so. Wisc is a much older school and has had more time to build an academic reputation. Doing things like discovering Vitamin A (and I think B, though I’m not sure of that), winning 26 Nobels and 41 Pulitzers, and a bunch of less noteworthy achievements, is how we have done it. In the seminal USNews ranking, UW was like 11th or so. The formula has changed quite a bit since then obviously. hehe
FWIW, I have a high stat kid that also got into Michigan and attended Wisconsin that recently graduated. Would have cost us 3X as much. Got a 6 figure job sitting next to ivy grads. Has peers launched to all manner of grad programs including top programs. He may go onto grad school at some point. No shortage of highly motivated peers. Was not a partier at all, but had a great social group.
I really think in terms of grad schools or employers, this is a wash. Students often have a list of “known” schools in their head and don’t have a big picture view.
UW Madison has the most Fortune 500 CEOs in the country. Good choice.
Another data point that speaks in favor of UW–Madison: 1 in 8 professors in US got their PhDs from 5 schools: Berkeley, Harvard, Michigan, UW–Madison, and Stanford.
To be on this list, a school needs to be large (Caltech won’t make it), very well-rounded (Purdue who is strong mostly in STEM won’t), and have been excellent/respected for a long time (since professors at various stages of their careers were counted).
I hope OP comes back to read about the wonderful opportunities ahead of him.
Graduate schools are more interested in what you did in college. If your grades are top notch, then you get into top graduate schools. It’s not going to matter which school you went to. But please DON’T go to a school that will give you $100,000 in debt…for a bachelors degree. That’s financial suicide. If you’re going to take out that much debt, the degree should say M.D. next to it. Even lawyers have a hard time paying back that much debt. My advice…you’re doing great. Keep it up. Love your school. Be happy.