<p>To me, that table has a lot of great information.</p>
<p>It makes me wonder what all is defined to be a member of what category, though. A number of the sciences seem to overlap- especially within the environmental sciences category (it’s essentially a mix of life, physical, and to a lesser extent, social sciences). </p>
<p>Not to mention, it divides the expenditures into category by major- but there were no environmental science majors at FSU in 2009; the programs didn’t start until the 2010-11 year. There was only the Environmental Studies program, which suggests to me that for that category, a number of majors are lumped into the environmental sciences group that may or may not belong. </p>
<p>It’s just things like that, where there seems to be no complete explanation for things, that kind of confuses me. It is, in my opinion, a very bad choice to divide the sciences up in the way that they did there.</p>
<p>It is a subjective call…What’s defined as environmental science at one school, could be very different at another. However, it does help give you a sense of how the (federal) research funding is being awarded for each school. </p>
<p>At FSU, it’s the Physical sciences (27%), Life Sciences (18%) and Engineering (16%). At FIU, it’s Engineering (30%) and Life Sciences (22%), while UCF is engineering (30%) and Physical sciences (26%). UF’s numbers include the med school, but removing that, the large areas would be Engineering, and Life Sciences (even without the med school).</p>
<p>Well yeah, that was sorta what I was getting at- it’s all subjective, so it’s tough to really gauge how “accurate” a lot of these precise numbers are. The larger picture though like you said is a great way to compare the schools. </p>
<p>I think the takeaway from those numbers is that if you’re in Engineering, any of those listed schools would be a good choice. ;)</p>