<p>"i agree. this is definitely a good "rebranding" strategy for a school like CAS. "</p>
<p>Well then, IMO you should also agree that your prior issue of per capita this and that is a non-sequitor, since they apply only to a synthetic aggregate of Cornell's individual separate colleges. This is not some gimmick or marketing device, it is in fact the appropriate thing to do; the appropriate comparison to make. Each school having separate admissions and (largely)separate curricula ought to be evaluated primarily on its own merits. Whether they are individually better or worse, they are different.</p>
<p>I don't see this as "rebranding" so much as "truth in advertising". It benefits all the colleges in that they are accurately portrayed and assessed on their individual actual merits.</p>
<p>Once again, the faculty compensation thing is a red herring I believe. It is unrealistic to expect an employer, in any industry, to overpay based on regional economics. Whatever the difference in comp. may be, those Berkeley profs. probably still can't afford to buy a comparable house . I just moved from the midwest to NYC area, and paid 3.5 times the amount for a 1,000 sq. ft. smaller house. Salaries, in our non-professorial profession , are more than double in the NYc area vs. our prior area, and we're still behind the eight ball financially. When the appropriate analysis is made it may be the case that it is these other schools that need to raise their salaries to compete economically with Cornell. If US News, or whoever, doesn't recognize this, then that's a flaw on them, not on all the schools residing in areas that have lower cost of living. Nobody is going to overpay.</p>
<p>I do agree that Cornell generally would be better if class sizes were reduced. But the importance of doing this probably differs among the colleges. I also agree that financial aid packages could be enhanced, with more grants and fewer loans. Although again, this is an issue for some of the colleges and a non-issue for others of them. The colleges really are not all the same in many regards. The endowment could be increased of course, but remember Cornell gets a boatload of cash every year from NYS that is on top of the endowment numbers.</p>
<p>The other thing I would say is, just because you play football with someone should not mean anyone should think you are the same. Each of Cornell's colleges is great and unique in its own way. There are many great instititutions of higher learing in this country: University of Chicago, Georgetown, Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, etc. I don't see the same level of comparisons to Harvard at these other places.</p>
<p>I think the individual college data should be externally distributed, as it used to be, and, as before, aggregate university-wide data should not even be released. But the goal for me would not be to make any individual college be HYPS. Rather it would be to have each individual college (re-)recognized for what it actually, in reality, is.</p>
<p>Once again, this is not some revolutionary idea, this is in fact how Cornell used to report information to the guide books. Maybe the change had something to do with this US News stuff, either difficulty in disaggregation or getting more inappoporiate applications to various colleges so they could reject more applicants. But whatever the cause, IMO it was a bad decision. Anything that reduces clarity to consumers is a bad thing.</p>