Forbes 2017 Rankings

College Search & Selection
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@tk21769 Personally, I’ve found that the types of students who attend elite schools are a key factor, if not the key factor in making these schools elite and keeping them as the elite. The elite schools tend to attract the best students - the hardest working, the overachievers, the status-conscious, the motivated and determined with a goal in mind, who are likely to bring their work ethic from school into the professional world, ensuring that they earn the highest salaries and bolster the rankings of where they graduated from. Plus, having successful and famous alumni gives the elite schools more bragging rights and another factor to win over prospective students. At an academic session I attended just a few days ago at Columbia GS, there was a reason why the advisor called Columbia CC students “AP high school students.” That’s not to take away from the resources and level of instruction provided at elite schools, but it’s always important to note that the hardest working students are almost guaranteed to earn the highest salaries simply because of who they are as a worker - and they just so happen to typically attend the most prestigious schools. Then again, being alongside the hardest working students is a factor in applying to a school - you want to be alongside quality peers, whom you can learn from and can help you out.

Unfortunately, when it comes to the types of students who attend elite schools, a big (and possibly the biggest) reason why they’re successful afterwards is simply because they came from a wealthy family. Connections are a top factor in post-graduate success and the wealthy have the most connections, guaranteeing they’ll pick up desirable salaries after they complete college. Well, that’s granted they do complete college, and at least have some degree of work ethnic - if they don’t, the hardest workers who truly want to the best will overtake. Regardless, the social elite will forever have advantages others don’t have, hence why they’re obviously the “elite.” And the elite schools will also forever have advantages and the name recognition, courtesy of having the hardest working students and the socially elite students - giving the elite schools the most connections in the process.

@stones3 Plus, TCNJ is regarded as one of the three best schools in the state and is currently the #2 NJ college on Forbes’ ranking. Stevens might be a STEM school with the apparent potential for higher salaries (last I checked, it was pretty high up on PayScale), but TCNJ is better regarded (particularly in regard to its peers / similar schools) and has a better reputation, which bolsters its placement in rankings. It attracts hard-workers with its status and has the added benefit of being less expensive. Also, it caters to more student interests, at least on the undergraduate level. For at least the hardest-working students in the state (since they’re the ones who get the tuition discount and they’re TCNJ’s target demographic), TCNJ is going to be one of their top choices, if not the top choice.

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@ExpertOnMistakes: Nah. Outside of alums, the vast majority of people honestly really don’t care if Columbia is ranked higher than Penn or Yale is ranked higher than Princeton in some ranking or another.

You say it is only human to care, but didn’t you yourself say earlier than you have trouble discerning what other humans are thinking? So why would you assume that you are right on this matter when so many people tell you that you are wrong?

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@ expertonmistakes (love the name!) - I wasn’t going to waste my time typing a rebuttal to you constant silly dissing of Stevens compared to TCNJ- but -

I’m laughing. Maybe you think TCNJ - a pedestrian, non-research state college - is more “highly regarded” than Stevens, but you are wrong. Forbes is really laughable. They claim to be basing their rankings on salary for example but Stevens has higher starting and mid-career salaries, and tuition ROI (despite having higher tuition) than TCNJ. TCNJ is an undergraduate liberal arts-based college. You cannot compare it to a 150 year old doctoral research university that overshadows it in virtually every academic and non-academic (salary, for example) statistic. Stevens is the most selective university in New Jersey (except for Princeton), has the highest SAT scores, and highest percentage of students from the top 10% of their high school classes.

In terms of alumni impact, Stevens has had two Nobel laureates (TCNJ has none), many Fortune 500 CEOs (two past of Verizon Wireless, GE, Pratt & Whitney, Sealed Air, for example among many others), founders of Fortune 500 companies (General Motors, Texas Instruments, and Sealed Air, among others), heads of major government agencies (NASA manned spaceflight center, an undersecretary of defense, a commissioner of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and more), a head of state (Ecuador), and of course many engineers and scientists who have created our current technological world (James Farber, the “grandfather of the Internet”, for example). There are even several (technical) Oscar and Emmy Award winners - one of the Emmy winners is an author of 9 best selling popular American history books and the host of a widely syndicated TV series on “American Experience”, among the alumni. Now tell me, which institution has a larger global reach or impact?

The Business School graduates of 2016 from Stevens by the way started at an average salary of $65,600 compared to TCNJ’s at $52,100. In computer science, the average starting salary of those graduates that year was $83,100, one of the highest in the nation. Before you chant how Stevens is mostly STEM (i.e., high paying) majors, consider that the Music Technology, Visual Arts and Technology, and Social Science majors of Stevens had starting salaries of $65,300 that year - and those are traditionally low-paid majors in other schools.

On Payscale’s survey “What’s Your College Degree Worth”, Stevens ranks 12th out of 1,100 institutions of higher learning in the United States for starting salary and return on investment, across all majors (Payscale doesn’t separate the statistics by major).

Also on Payscale’s survey, Stevens comes in at 5th in Northeast engineering schools for salary. Now since engineering traditionally has been a high paid major (in most schools), that statistic eliminates pay as a variable (since only engineering majors were surveyed). Therefore, the high salary of Stevens engineers isn’t just because they are engineers, it is because their education which contains great depth and rigor in all the engineering disciplines, making them superior problem solvers in the “real world” is highly prized by industry.

“Apparent”! (ROFL!) Maybe “apparent” to you, not to industry, government, military, graduate, and professional schools. Every year at the two Stevens career fairs, some 400 employers come to campus to recruit graduating seniors. I will wager that fewer than that come to TCNJ’s recruitments.

So please, don’t make me laugh. Tell me, did you get rejected from Stevens and had to settle for TCNJ?

Cheers, Michael, Ph.D., P.E., Consulting Aerospace Engineer

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There are truly elite national universities and liberal arts colleges. There are elite specialty schools, including in the fine arts, engineering & computer science, and in nursing, to name a few areas. TCNJ is none of these. It is a State school, puffed up a bit by specious ratings in Bloomberg, presumably excelling in “business” related areas such as accounting, that is a moderately good deal for State residents. Relative to presumed expertise, it is nowhere in the league of Princeton or Stevens. While I presume TCNJ sends its share of accountants to firms in the big City, the school means next to nothing outside of NJ.

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As is true with all college lists, if you like this one, run with it. If you do not, criticize it. Or just ignore it and fine one with which you agree. There are plenty of lists out there to pick from.

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@PurpleTitan You previously said “no one in the real world cares”, now it’s just “the vast majority of people … outside of alums”? I know that’s a nitpick, but that goes right into why I care where Columbia is ranked in comparison to other Ivy League schools and why other students / graduates of Ivy League schools care. I’m technically not an alumni, but I do care because I was accepted to and intend to attend Columbia. We care about our schools for reasons I stated above, and we care about “minute differences” when they apply to our schools. I don’t mean to twist your words, but it appears you now agree with me on this.

I don’t remember saying I have problems discerning what other people are thinking - I assume you’re referring to my comment about being diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, since people with Asperger syndrome are thought to have trouble reading people’s minds. Well, that mainly applies to social environments where I am directly communicating with others, it’s difficult for me to pick up on social cues that others will recognize. When it’s instantaneous and on the spot, I have problems. When it comes to actions and words I witness, actions and words I have time to process and comprehend (such as when they’re in writing), I can discern what people are thinking just fine. It’s human to care because it’s human to want to be somebody and feel you have value. People feel like they have value in different ways. Not everyone obtains that value through rankings and the college they attended - I said it was only human for the ELITE, not everybody, to be the elite of the elite - but regardless, we want to feel like we have value somehow. Am I wrong on that? Am I really being told I am wrong? Because again, you appear to be saying I’m right on how people with connections to a school care about differences in rankings related to that school. The post below you perhaps best exemplifies that some people really do care.

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@Engineer80 My “constant silly dissing of Stevens compared to TCNJ”? That’s interesting (and thanks for the username compliment, by the way - see, I think it’s important to poke fun at yourself) because I haven’t made mention of Stevens in over a year, while virtually all of your posts are about Stevens and how great it is. The last time I said anything about Stevens was when we had a little scuffle on another thread about TCNJ vs. Stevens over a year ago (make fun of me for that if you will), and it appears you didn’t learn anything from that. You say you weren’t going to “waste (your) time typing a rebuttal”, but you did anyways and I think you were going to do that no matter what once you saw a seemingly-negative comment directed at Stevens (not to mention, you decided to add this little detail about not wasting your time AFTER you posted your message). I see you’re continuing to do what I said I try not to do - boast about my school and try to put other schools down. Because you don’t make you and your school look good when you do that - you just make you and your school look bad.

My post didn’t even say TCNJ is better than Stevens, I said TCNJ is simply better regarded and has a better reputation (which I don’t see how that is a diss) - doesn’t mean it actually is better, and we can always establish way to discredit rankings. If that brings laughter to you, I have to question why. The rankings do seem to indicate I’m right on TCNJ being better regarded, even if the rankings are a joke and Stevens could very well be better than TCNJ. But you’ve decided to once again take it upon yourself to boast about how great Stevens is and how bad TCNJ is. You say Forbes is laughable, but rather than dismiss it (and my passing mention of your beloved Alma mater), you’ve spared no expense in trying to prove that the rankings are wrong, the unquestionable genius of Stevens and its alumni, and why it is superior to TCNJ in every category. To which I say, does that really matter? Does TCNJ’s very presence offend Stevens?

You call TCNJ “pedestrian” without reason to describe it as such. You go after it for being “non-research”, when that designation usually applies to requirements for the teachers, not what the students are required to learn. And you insult it for being a “state college”, so does that mean state colleges are bad and the students who can only afford state colleges are unintelligent? You also seem to insult TCNJ for being “undergraduate” when that’s all students trying to get by need (and it still does have a graduate school, even if that’s not a big focus), and being “liberal arts-based” - does that mean liberal arts schools are also bad? Plus, didn’t we establish that TCNJ teaches business too? You call Stevens “a 150 year old doctoral research university”, overlooking the fact that TCNJ is older, and since the state school Montclair is also a “doctoral research university”, is it also on a similar level? The higher salaries and ROI of Stevens compared to TCNJ (even with tuition factored in) ultimately do come down to it being a STEM-centered school and STEM students have the opportunity to receive the highest paying jobs. More on this later since I know you’re trying to discredit this notion. But as I said before, not everyone’s specialty lies in STEM and just because their salary isn’t as high doesn’t mean they’re not successful.

TCNJ does at least have Stevens beat in graduation rates (and before you again try to justify that, I’ll again point to the superior graduation rates of MIT and CalTech discredit your explanation of Stevens’ rates). As long as you’re doing what you love and what you’re best at, overall salary isn’t a big deal. Selectivity isn’t necessarily a measure of a university’s prestige as that’s also determined by the amount of applicants and the quality of the applicants - as I said back then, the state school Brooklyn College has an acceptance rate in the 30s. The SAT scores and the percentage of students in the 10% of their high school classes also means little because we’re not talking about high school any longer, we’re talking about college. It’s great that they did well before high school, but how will they do in college and how will they do post-college? Those stats alone don’t determine their future. “Glory Days” is now playing in my head for some reason.

I didn’t say anything about which institution has a larger global reach or impact and I have no stance on that issue because that doesn’t impact me or my future. I didn’t say which school had more famous alumni either, but you decided to list all of them anyways. It’s great that all of those people attended Stevens - but we’re not them. Just because they were successful doesn’t mean everyone who graduates from Stevens will reach that same level of success. Only they can determine how successful they will be, where they attended college isn’t the be all, end all factor. And just because you didn’t become famous doesn’t mean you weren’t successful. TCNJ alumnus or Stevens alumnus - all that matters is that you were able to make a sustainable living for yourself and were happy with what you were doing.

I don’t know where you’re getting TCNJ’s average business salary from, but the salary averages from Stevens you’re citing appear to come from the school’s very own website. It’s great that they post that information themselves, but what verifiable source are they getting that information from? From their website, it sounds like they do it themselves, which gives some not so great implications. In anticipation of my impending STEM point about the salaries, you point to “traditionally low-paid majors in other schools” - that all happen to be STEM-related. Which only proves my point about how being a STEM school plays a factor in the high salaries. You also don’t provide salaries in comparison to demonstrate how Music Technology, Visual Arts and Technology, and Social Science majors are “traditionally low-paid”. In other words, what are they expected to make? And they’re low-paid in comparison to what? Other STEM majors?

I know Stevens’ standing on PayScale all too well. First of all, it’s 12th only for return on investment; for starting salary, it’s 17th. I know PayScale doesn’t separate the statistics by major and I say, why does it matter? Stevens’ PayScale standing just reiterates the point I’ve made from the beginning; STEM occupations garnish the highest salaries. All of jobs listed on PayScale for Stevens just so happen to all be STEM occupations.

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@Engineer80 (continued)

Now for the engineering schools list (and to give Stevens credit where credit is due, that list appears to be for all engineering schools, not just the northeast), I don’t see how that eliminates pay as a variable because the focus is still on pay. I recognize that the point you’re trying to make is by comparison to other engineering schools, Stevens engineers make more. For starters, that still backs up my point that a key reason why the Stevens salaries are high is because they’re STEM majors, which not everybody can be. In any case, you cite this as evidence of the value of a Stevens education, as if all Stevens engineers are the same and a Stevens degree alone makes them prized by the industry. To which I say that we as the students are the ones who have to take advantage of the education we receive and we all take this information differently (and not always succeed), a degree alone doesn’t demonstrate competency (hence why we have interviews), and the industry values actual work experience more because that’s closer what they’re really looking for. Regardless, that list doesn’t make Stevens look as impressive as you claim - the average salaries at Stevens are still a lot lower than those at MIT, Harvey Mudd, and the Naval Academy, and to top it off, only 46% of alumni say their work makes the world a better place. Anyways, one could argue that TCNJ and Stevens aren’t really comparable, hence why they’re on different lists on US News, which is why I made reference to TCNJ being better in regard to its peers / similar schools; small regionals, as opposed to engineering-centered. You could argue engineering-centered schools are a simply stronger category than regionals, but engineering-centered schools don’t apply to everyone’s strengths (and finances), and TCNJ stands higher in its category than Stevens does.

Unfortunately, the potential for a higher salary is simply apparent. You’re not going find employment or acceptance from industry, government, military, graduate, and professional schools with only a degree from Stevens. You still need to demonstrate how you can handle a professional environment, which isn’t quite the same as an educational one. If you think your degree alone will get you hired, you’re going to get the same response Steven received from Mike on Twin Peaks. Do you have a citation for how many employers come to Stevens’ career fairs and how that number compares to other school’s career fairs? Do you intend to research how many employer’s come to TCNJ’s recruitments? Are you saying you can’t get a good job, or are unlikely to get one, if you attended TCNJ?

The only person laughing is yourself and why you laugh is going to be questioned. You then feel the need to take another personal shot at TCNJ and at myself, when if you read any of my other posts instead of just one where I said “Stevens,” I made it pretty clear where I previously attended school and where I’m currently heading. Seriously, “settle” for TCNJ? I’m pretty certain the bulk of TCNJ applicants don’t consider Stevens simply because it’s not for them.

I apologize if I offended any other Stevens students and alumni with your comments. I am not trying to put down your school. However, Engineer80 has taken it upon himself to put down TCNJ and emphasize the greatness of Stevens, which only hurts the school in the process. If the school is so great, you shouldn’t feel the need to reiterate how great it is. It’s great that you’re proud of where you attended college, but that doesn’t mean your school is among the greatest for everyone, and other schools are necessarily inferior; we all fit differently at different places. And no, I’m not referring to academic quality - I’m talking about cost, location, majors offered, and ultimately, where you feel the most comfortable and ready to be successful in the future. I can’t say I’m offended by your comments because I didn’t attend TCNJ, but TCNJ students and alumni have every right to be bothered by them.

Thanks for informing me of your credentials. It’s nice knowing that a consulting aerospace engineer and P.E. with a PhD took time out of his busy day to focus on a peon like me.

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The ROI element is what this is known for and it’s why I put fairly little stock in the Forbes ranking, given the obvious problems of using ROI to evaluate the quality of a school.

  • Salary is largely based on major and the standard of living of the job's location, both of which are chosen by the student.
  • Salary, per se, does not necessarily reflect the quality of teaching. It does, perhaps, reflect the quality of the Career Services department at the school and the reputation of the school among employers in a specific industry or location.
  • If they wanted to do this right, they should break down ROI by major and by region.
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@BrooklynRye I don’t understand the stigma towards state colleges. TCNJ is a good college that strives to provide an affordable and effective education to in-state students. Do I believe it is an elite college? No. I said it’s regarded as one of the three best schools in the state, not the country, and a lot of people might be quick to criticize the overall quality of NJ schools. But I do believe it is a good college and a viable option for those who need a school they can afford, and those who simply fit right in.

Princeton, Stevens, and TCNJ are all simply geared towards demographics and a lot of their reputation stems from how they compare to their peers in that demographic. For TCNJ, it’s a good option as a small and affordable state college. I don’t believe it has a lot of presence outside of NJ myself, but it at least has a good reputation in the state.

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@ExpertOnMistakes, this is not (at least not strictly) about stigma. State schools serve a purpose which, at first blush, is about providing a reasonable education at a reasonable price. In addition, State schools may provide options for students at a particular academic level, targeting careers that are not enhanced by elite private schools, and for those who wish to remain closer to home. I agree with everything you say to the extent to which schools such as TCNJ are what they are. However, recognizing this, there is no reasonable up-step to national status or expertise beyond the truly best schools in applicable areas. As much as TCNJ is not Princeton or Yale, it is also not UVA or UMichigan. It is one of the top 3 schools in NJ. If this works for some, by all means have at it, but meeting the needs of the demographic you cite, does not raise the status of the school on a national level.

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@BrooklynRye I figured that’s the stance on stage schools, just wanted to be clear on that, and it appears we’re on the same page when it comes to state schools and TCNJ. I agree that its status in NJ and how it meets the needs of its target demographic doesn’t raise its national status, and it’s not on the same level as UVA and UMichigan. In fact, as a small state school, I don’t believe it’s really comparable to UVA and Michigan either. It’s your standard “regional” university, good for those in the region, but likely to be ignored by those outside of the region.

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@ExpertOnMistakes, you caring about minute differences in ranking is akin to saying “I like the color blue”. All well and good, but it doesn’t actually matter in the eyes of almost anyone other than you.

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@PurpleTitan Well, I did say from the beginning that those were my “personal” thoughts on the rankings. For most, minute differences don’t mater, but for some, they do - particularly if they concern a school or something else those people have a connection too.

And besides, who doesn’t like the color blue?

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I feel these rankings tell part of the story, and specifically a part of the story that is important to many students/parents but USNews fails to capture. (i.e… which schools are strong in fields that lead to high-paying careers, which schools are good at preparing students to be highly successful in the professional world / have a very strong reputation in the professional world).

Combining this with USNews for national universities yields the more or less established ranking in public opinion.

(0.5USNews+0.5Forbes):

Top 1 - 5: HYPSM (scores 1.5-6)

Top 6-10: Caltech, Penn, Columbia, Chicago, Duke (scores 7.5 - 9)

Top 11-14: Dartmouth, Brown, Cornell, Northwestern (scores 10.5 - 13.5)

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This year’s Forbes seems particularly crazy, but Cali represents! There is something inherently off about putting LACs with mega-research U’s. Scripps next to USC is like a putting a Honda CRF450 next to an “all-options” Escalade and asking “which is the better vehicle…” Uh… for what?

Nonetheless, always fun to fight about them! Has anyone amalgamated all the rankings into a good chart? Then we could really argue…

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https://www.forbes.com/sites/schifrin/2017/08/08/turnaround-university-quant-school-on-the-hudson/2/#1bf935204500

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@CaliDad2020, here is one amalgamation effort (for research universities), although it looks like the Forbes column needs to be updated:

https://plexuss.com/ranking/listing

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What’s with discrediting a source, then using it to support a point? In many ways, going up several spots from a previous year is better than being ranked higher than certain schools anyways, because it demonstrates progress and the potential to move up even further (beating those certain schools in the process) - although if you believe the education you received at your institution of higher learning was beneficial to you and helped you succeed professionally, no ranking list can take that away from you.

It was probably best said earlier about our reactions to college lists - we run with them if we like them, we criticize them if we don’t, or we just ignore them and find the list or lists we do agree with. No list will ever be perfect in our eyes, because they will always have aspects we don’t agree with (like Forbes’ ROI) and of course, just a simple difference of opinion, but there’s probably at least one (since there are quite a few out there) that we’ll consider to be superior.

Personally, I appreciate how the lists use a different methodology to determine their rankings (whether it be Forbes’ ROI or the Princeton Review’s surveys) because it presents a different outlook on the value of the schools and the methodology that holds the most weight to a prospective student assists in determining which ranking is the most accurate to them, and in turn, which school is right for them. Plus, if a school consistently does well on different lists with different criteria, that speaks well to the school. But let’s face it, for a lot of us, the list we find the best typically has little to do with the methodology - we find the list the best simply because we agree with the order (especially with how our own school is ordered).

It’s good to compare these lists to get a better overall consensus, although a comparison between (what I assume are) the main ones isn’t quite possible since Forbes is the only one that does a straight ranking, while US News breaks them up into categories and the Princeton Review doesn’t even rank them. We can get an idea of a consensus by combining just the US News’ National Universities with how those schools rank on Forbes, but that of course only paints part of the picture because it leaves out the LACs and Regionals, which have schools scoring higher than the Nationals on the Forbes list. Hence why we can’t get a full amalgamation of the lists.

Still, I appreciate that Forbes does put all the schools together, even if LACs and research universities are barely, if at all comparable, because US News already has the category separation covered. If you believe schools in certain categories truly aren’t comparable and better off compared to their peers, US News has you covered. If you’d rather see how all schools compare to each other in general, Forbes has you covered. Which goes back to what I said at the start - the number of lists out there makes it easy for us to find one we at least agree with more than the others, and subsequently disregard those others.

For me, I’d like to see all the schools in a straight ranking, as absurd as a comparison between some might be, because it’s straightforward and easy to digest. Incidentally, none of the main three rankings do this for me because of the Princeton Review’s aforementioned lack of an actual ranking, the US News’ category separation, and the fact that Forbes flat-out omits schools with no information provided on the ones that couldn’t make the cut, whereas the Princeton Review and US News at least have entries for the schools they don’t consider to be the best. A ranking that does include all schools in the country and puts them in a straight list is College Factual’s - but I have to disagree with College Factual, because not only does it rank Columbia as the lowest of the Ivy League, it ranks Columbia as the lowest by far - putting Columbia at ONLY #25 while six of the eight Ivy League schools make up the top 10 and the second-lowest (Dartmouth) is #11, and putting on Columbia the THIRD page, while those six are all on the first page and Dartmouth is the first school on the second page. How dare they.

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@Expertonmistakes - (And I still love the name!) - The reputation of Stevens and Princeton do not stem only from their local demographics. Both universities are widely represented by alumni in positions of influence in industry, academia, government, and military. Both have faculty that are sought after by industry and government as consultants and advisors, and their students come from many states of the US and foreign countries. TCNJ is primarily as you say, an institution with primarily local recognition and influence, but the other two have national and global recognition and influence. I don’t disagree with you that it is a decent choice for an in-state student who plans his/her career in the local area. Comparing it however with Stevens and Princeton, well, really, that is an apples to oranges comparison. By the way “pedestrian” isn’t meant as a derogatory remark, it simply echoes what you said - CNJ is primarily a New Jersey institution and known primarily in the local demographic.