<p>“Out of state tuition at UMich isn’t 50k, it’s 36k.”</p>
<p>Yeah, but I am accounting Room and board, which U-Mich estimates to be another 10K, and the other needs add up to 53K</p>
<p>e5volcano, that’s fine, but you’re mixing apples and oranges then. UW charges for room and board too! The total estimated cost for UW for 2010-2011 is $37,717 according to its website. Add an extra semester or two to graduating and you’re not talking about all that much of a difference.</p>
<p>And now that you mention it I’m kinda surprised how high UW’s in state tuition is. All this talk about U-Va being so much more expensive when in fact in state costs are essentially the same. Out of state costs run higher at U-Va, but when the extra time to graduate is factored in it’s better than even. Maybe that’s why U-Va consistently tops UW on “best buy” lists. Note that UMIch also has a far better financial aid program than UW (not that you need to worry about that, e5vocano).</p>
<p>Don’t factor in extra years that may not be needed- another “apples/oranges” situation.</p>
<p>There is no need to add an extra semester or two if you don’t want to do a co-op or take an extra major/minor. They have a 4 year grad plan for all engineering students. Again people are just making up crap. Many engineering students at UM also take some extra time if they do a co-op or another major. Just try to find their 4 year engineering grad rate. They only show the 6 year rate.</p>
<p>UIUC and Michigan have much larger undergrad engineering enrollments than UW, many students of which also participate in co-op plans for both the experience (educational and professional) and to earn money for school, and those schools graduate much higher percentages of their students in 4 years.</p>
<p>Michigan: 70.3%
UIUC: 63.7%
UW: 49.7%</p>
<p>UW has an engineering student on this forum specifically telling us that students can’t get into the classes they need, which causes them to waste semesters. But feel free to ignore what the students say, watch UW’s 4-year graduation rate continue to lag the rest of UW’s peers, and watch UW’s undergrad reputation and ranking continue to slide. UW’s call.</p>
<p>The overall four year graduation rate at Michigan is 73 percent, 21 points higher than Wisconsin. Their engineering program would have to be awfully small for its graduation rate to be anywhere near as low as UW’s engineering program given this overall high rate. Numbers don’t lie.</p>
<p>Note to JiffsMom: here are the latest numbers for Michigan and Wisconsin:</p>
<p><a href=“Office of Budget and Planning”>Office of Budget and Planning;
<p><a href=“http://apa.wisc.edu/RetGrad/Students_RetnGrad_All.pdf[/url]”>http://apa.wisc.edu/RetGrad/Students_RetnGrad_All.pdf</a></p>
<p>Thanks novaparent. :)</p>
<p>I’ve been quoting the information provided here:
[College</a> Results Online](<a href=“http://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/search_group.aspx]College”>http://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/search_group.aspx)
About the data - [College</a> Results Online](<a href=“http://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/aboutthedata.aspx]College”>http://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/aboutthedata.aspx)</p>
<p>The latest data available is the 2008 4-year graduation rate. </p>
<p>Interesting data points:
Student Related Expenditures (instruction, student services, and academic support) seem to be unrelated to 4-year graduation rates.</p>
<p>Michigan SRE: $22,288 — 4-year grad rate: 70.3%
UIUC SRE: $11,978 — 4-year grad rate: 63.7%
UW SRE: $14,669 — 4-year grad rate: 49.7%</p>
<p>Same for Educational and General Expenditures (includes the instructional expenditures listed above, plus expenditures for research, public service, institutional support, plant operation and maintenance, plus scholarships).</p>
<p>Michigan EGE: $53,845
UIUC EGE: $34,418
UW EGE: $45,650</p>
<p>And yes, indeed. Numbers don’t lie.</p>
<p>You have nothing on the graduation rates for engineering, do you? No, you don’t.</p>
<p>You don’t seem to understand that if graduating in 4 years from either Michigan or UIUC with an engineering degree were a problem, the MUCH LARGER engineering undergrad enrollments at those schools would have an even greater impact on those schools’ 4-year graduation rates than does UW’s engineering enrollment on UW’s rates. </p>
<p>You do understand that a larger percentage would have a greater impact, right?</p>
<p>The fact remians that UW’s 4-year graduation rate is significantly BELOW either of those schools even though UW has a much smaller undergrad engineering enrollment.</p>
<p>UIUC, MI, and UW are all great schools for engineering. I think you’d enjoy any of them.</p>
<p>15% of Mich. undergrads and 10% of WI undergrads choose engineering. You’d be a fool to draw conclusions about engineering graduation rates using the entire school’s graduation rate. </p>
<p>Both UW and MI could have 0% of engineering students graduate in 4 years and still have their respective holistic graduation rates. Likewise, both engineering college could have 100% graduation rates, or anything in between. We can’t know without more data.</p>
<p>You all remind me of how the tobacco industry denied the obvious for years and years by saying “we need more data.” You don’t need any more data to concede that Michigan kicks the snot out of UW when it comes to four year graduation rates, and it would be a real statistical aberration if it turned out that this was only the case when it comes to non-engineering majors. </p>
<p>I really and truly don’t get all the protests here. The university itself is on record, and has been for years, that it needs to up its graduation rate for the sake of students, parents, and the public interest in making more room for more students. It’s part of the reason for the Madison Initiative that barrons lauds and that has driven some families such as JIffsMom’s to go to school elsewhere. Yet, the Wisconsin CC board is overrun with UW boosters who either bury their heads in the sand or insist that the university is actually doing students a favor by contributing to the low rate or that the low rate is really just a reflection of how superior and free-thinking the typical UW student is over everyone else. C’mon now, wake and smell the coffee. Let’s get back to arguing over things where there is legitimate room for disagreement, shall we?</p>
<p>There’s nothing to argue. You, and particularly Jill, are pulling stats and theories out of your ass and we’re calling you out on it.</p>
<p>4 year grad rates are low. The average time to graduation is 4.2 years, and it’s higher for engineering majors–hovering around 4.5 or so. Those are the facts. The rest is crap–there’s no comparison between UM engineering and UW engineering to be made. The fact is that they’re both great programs.</p>
<p>Not my fault if your kid can’t get into Madison, or Jill didn’t get the financial aid you expected. Your kids will be fine without your trying to tarnish a large, prestigious university with a few forum posts that less than 100 people will ever read.</p>
<p>We are producing verifiable stats to support our and others’ statements. You and the other UW ‘cheerleaders’ on this forum are merely stating wishful thinking opinions.</p>
<p>And once again, we never asked for financial aid. Is that another one of your made up opinions? The issue was being blindsided with the extra $7,500 tuition surcharge ON TOP OF a tuition increase AFTER the May 1st decision deadline.</p>
<p>We provided a study that isolated the reasons some UW students take longer to graduate which was that they chose to take off some time to do whatever–travel, work, gaze at the stars. Maybe UW attracts a slightly different student than UM does. There is nothing particularly good or bad about that although some leading academic thinkers thought it was a good idea. BTW when you take off you are not paying tuition so the presumption that going away for a semester or a year will cost you much more is also not correct. It really depends what you do with that time. Other than taking longer to get into the workforce for the next 40-45 years (and trust me–after working full-time 35 years I’m more than ready to stop) exactly what is the harm in graduating in 4.5 years rather than 4 years?? Please provide citations and documentation–not just your personal opinion.</p>
<p>Like I said earlier, the 4.5 year differential does not bother me, my brother graduated UC Berkeley engineering in 5 years.</p>
<p>However, nova, thanks for the point that it would actually cost more doing 4.5 years, but I still think it will cost less than Michigan. Mainly I am worrying purely on the academics and record UW-M has in the job placement era. Living on the west coast, I only know a few people(teachers, engineers, students) who actually know that U-Mich/UIUC engineering depts, but no one has heard UW-M.</p>
<p>One kid in school actually asked me if UW-M was a good school. lol</p>
<p>e5volcano there’s no question that the people who matter will recognize the quality of a UW engineering degree. I wouldn’t give that a moment’s thought. It is without question a top-notch program so long as you recognize that it will likely take extra time to get through it.</p>
<p>As for justotalk, all I can tell you is that my kids have gone to U-Va. If you want to tell yourself that the typical U-Va student couldn’t or didn’t get into UW, go right ahead. We all know, of course, that in reality the opposite is true.</p>
<p>The UW Eng School maintains a large comprehensive job placement office just for engineers. There are lists of where grads go (10-11% West-4% California) salaries by major, and recruiting companies.</p>
<p><a href=“Engineering Career Services – College of Engineering – UW–Madison”>Engineering Career Services – College of Engineering – UW–Madison;
<p><a href=“Engineering Career Services – College of Engineering – UW–Madison”>Engineering Career Services – College of Engineering – UW–Madison;
<p>Don’t dwell too much on graduation rates. Check out the programs of interest to you, your individual chances (based on your own credentials) of getting into the program and other factors that matter to you. Everyone is provincial- I don’t expect HS students in California to know that much about schools in other regions. I also don’t expect students here to know much about CA schools. One reason to leave one’s area is to experience the differences in climate and culture. You can’t have everything- you will need to choose among many variations. You have many good programs available to you. Spend some time researching the campuses and visit those that interest you most. Then choose the one that seems to fit you best. None of us can do that for you. This is the UW board so of course the general bias is for UW. Check other school’s boards for their take on the subject.</p>
<p>Obviously I disagree with wis75 on graduation rates. They obviously mean something or UW itself wouldn’t be so worried about them. Bizarre advice from wis75 under the circumstances.</p>
<p>Nice article on UW Mech Eng grad.</p>
<p>[Doerger:</a> Football skills fit engineer’s job | cincinnati.com | nky.com](<a href=“News Northern Kentucky | The Enquirer | cincinnati.com”>News Northern Kentucky | The Enquirer | cincinnati.com)</p>