<p>Of course, the referenced study starts out with the assumption that no public university could be higher than “Tier 3”. “Tier 1” is about 40 private research universities (e.g. Syracuse), “Tier 2” is about 159 private LACs (e.g. Amherst and Wofford), “Tier 3” is a bunch of public research universities (e.g. Virginia), and “Tier 4” is everything else (e.g. Dartmouth).</p>