“^should share some of the blame for what?”
For hyping lower tiered private colleges… what I am saying is that IMO and particularly (or perhaps exclusively
…) in the northeast people would pay a premium to send their kids to quite a number of inferior private schools just to avoid the stigma around the public institutions of the area. That alongside with gaming as in NE case helps create a sort of artificial educational bubble where prestige trumps real academics. If someone is no familiar with NE:
http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/article/2014/08/26/how-northeastern-gamed-the-college-rankings/
And I agree, there are ignorant people everywhere and that’s a huge factor here. But for the northeast public school system which don’t seem to (borrowing from @circuitrider: ) “gain any traction” just because they are public I think both ignorance and snobbery go hand in hand. Sure, I get that paying extra to attend any of the four LACS of the five colleges (fifth is UMass) consortium could make a lot of sense, at least it does to me… also of course Wes… But to shun out UMass and paying a huge premium for NE or say Michigan (talking about a Mass resident) expecting much more I think is kind of ridiculous.