<p>how will the map of us colleges change in the next 50 years?
will top publics like berkeley and michigan become the most prestigious schools due to their world class faculty or will they fall behind smaller private schools like tufts and wake forest cause of the higher endowments of these privates?
will lacs like pomona and williams still retain their selectivity or will top students look more and more towards larger universities?
will the ivy league maintain its appeal to top students?
what colleges will rise and which ones will fall in the next century?
will america still have the worlds most desirable higher education system or will some other country surpass it?</p>
<p>i know these are difficult questions to answer, but it was something i was thinking about earlier today and i wanted to get other peoples opinions on it</p>
<p>The Ivy’s will still be the Ivy’s 50 years from now. Heck, Yale and Harvard were the tops in the 1700’s and they have pretty much held those positions since then so I’ll guess another 50 years won’t change anything there.</p>
<p>As to the rest I’d guess a good forecast could be made from projecting endowment money. More money = better facilities and professors and research = a better college. At least it does most of the time.</p>
<p>So if any of that is true then I would say a school like USC will continue to rise relative to it’s peers because it’s endowment funds are rising faster. There are many schools in similar situations, SC is just an example. </p>
<p>50 years is a long time, long enough for radical technology to change the nature of colleges. Maybe we’ll all be distance learners? Maybe a hybrid like I go to UPenn physically but I take half my classes from a variety of online colleges? Sorbonne online for my french class, MIT online for my engineering, and Yale online for my photography classes? Sign me up! Pretty far fetched but who knows?</p>
<p>Look for some states to almost require students who choose the public-school path to take their first 2 years at community colleges. Tenure-track faculty teaching intro courses at universities are as out-of-date as music that is actually enjoyable to listen to.</p>
<p>World rankings such as ARWU and THES place US universities ahead of their overseas counterparts. However, those rankings tend to reflect the quality of graduate education and research more so than undergraduate education.</p>
<p>I would say US colleges and universities are undoubtedly better funded than other higher learning institutions elsewhere in the world. The top US schools also have the ability to recruit a better pool of students, including internationals. As far as academics are concerned though, I tend to think US undergraduate education is somewhat shallow by European standards, mostly because of the liberal arts emphasis. At the graduate level however, as shown in the aforementioned international rankings, the US has a big edge over Europe and Asia.</p>