<p>wow nlp, for someone who “attended, graduated, and loved their experience at BC” you sure seem determined to defend austin don’t you? (lol @ superstar’s poor attempt to ■■■■■).</p>
<p>anyways as i said above it is a factor irrelevant when looking at an institution strictly in the current and not the future.</p>
<p>UCBC can you post exactly where you found those instead of just posting what you found?</p>
<p>[National</a> Academy of Sciences:](<a href=“http://www.nasonline.org/site/Dir?sid=1011&view=basic&pg=srch]National”>http://www.nasonline.org/site/Dir?sid=1011&view=basic&pg=srch)
You have to type in the exact name of the institution…“University of Texas at Austin”
“Boston College” did not return any results.</p>
<p>National Academy of Engineering is easier:
[Members</a> By Parent Institution](<a href=“http://www.nae.edu/nae/naepub.nsf/members%20by%20parent%20institutionu?OpenView&Start=30]Members”>http://www.nae.edu/nae/naepub.nsf/members%20by%20parent%20institutionu?OpenView&Start=30)
[Members</a> By Parent Institution](<a href=“http://www.nae.edu/nae/naepub.nsf/Members+By+Parent+InstitutionB?OpenView]Members”>http://www.nae.edu/nae/naepub.nsf/Members+By+Parent+InstitutionB?OpenView)</p>
<p>Institute of medicine:
BC:4
UT:1</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Which points to one of the major flaws in the payscale.com methodology, and therefore in the Forbes ranking which is partially derived from payscale.com. The payscale.com data are not adjusted for regional differences in cost-of-living. Since most Texas grads stay in Texas, they’ll have a Texas-sized cost of living. Since most BC grads stay in the Northeast, they’ll have a Northeast-sized cost of living. According to one widely used cost-of-living comparison tool, Boston is on average 33% more expensive than Austin across the typical basket of goods and services that consumers use. Housing is the biggest difference—on average, housing in Boston is 52% more expensive than comparable housing in Austin. That means a newly minted college graduate earning $50,000 in Austin—the average entry-level salary for UT grads—would need to earn $66,361 to enjoy an identical standard of living in Boston. But $66,361 is about $15,000 more than the average Boston college grad makes—even though nominally, the BC grads looks to be slightly better off with a $51,5000 starting salary. In “real” dollars, taking into account purchasing price parity, the average UT grad is far better off financially than the average BC grad. A financial publication like Forbes ought to know better than to publish a ranking based on the kind of economic illiteracy propagated in payscale.com.</p>
<p>But what about mid-career salaries? Well, according to payscale.com, the average midcareer salary of UT grads (remember, undergrad degrees only, excluding anyone who went on to earn an advanced degree) is $91,300. An equivalent salary in high-priced Boston would be $121,176—or roughly $20,000/year more than the average BC grad earns at mid-career ($101,000). So once again, the UT grad is far better off than the BC grad financially—even though based strictly on nominal dollars and ignoring huge regional differences in the cost-of-living, BC comes out slightly ahead in payscale.com and, derivatively, Forbes.</p>
<p>So what does the BC grad get out of all this? Well, I suppose bragging rights among the economically illiterate who take payscale.com and Forbes at face value. And higher taxes, because income tax rates in this country are based on nominal wages without regard to regional differences in the cost of living. One can live very well in Austin on $91K/year. In Boston, $101K/year is going to be a struggle for a lot of people who will pay more for comparable housing (or more likely, pay more and get less), more for utilities, more for food, more for insurance, more in taxes, and have less left in truly disposable income—and what little they have left will buy less than in Austin. But hey, they’ll always have that Forbes ranking to boast about.</p>
<p>
[quote=]
Institute of medicine:
BC:4
UT:1
[/quote]
</p>
<p>that’s impressive considering UT doesn’t even have a medical school in Austin! (same for the NAS members)</p>
<p>
I imagine the average utility cost for the Austin-dweller will be quite high this summer, unfortunately. ;)</p>
<p>those rankings=l.o.l. worthy</p>
<p>
I never said they were bad schools, but they aren’t significantly better than the ones I listed. I agree that Forbes is doing a good thing by highlighting smaller schools and less heard of LACs. They are shooting themselves in the foot though because they lose credibility when very prestigious colleges are in the 200s. For all I know Forbes might be 100% truth and US News might be complete garbage, but because US News has all the Ivies in the top 20 and all the top publics in the top 50-60 it is able to seem credible while slowly turning people over to realize that those southern and midwestern privates are really as good as the top north eastern privates. All Forbes had to do was bump the Ivies up to top 50 and throw the top publics in the top 100-150. You still get to throw in your no name LACs in very high spots, but people will be more willing to accept that maybe these LACs are great schools rather than the entire list being garbage with Cornell 100 spots bellow Cornell College.</p>
<p>
Balanced out by the savings in heating oil in the long New England winter.</p>
<p>
I don’t think Forbes counted NAS and NAE memberships. Otherwise, UC-Berkeley would fare a lot better than #73.</p>
<p>National Academy of Engineering:
UC-Berkeley: 75
Boston College: 0</p>
<p>National Academy of Science:
UC-Berkeley: 130
Boston College: 0</p>
<p>Modestmelody, ah, I didn’t write post #158.</p>
<p>in case you were wondering, Boston College has no engineering programs which would explain at least one of the 0 numbers</p>
<p>Exactly, Pierre.</p>
<p>NCAA hockey championships:
Boston College: 3
Texas: 0</p>
<p>Students, faculty, and staff named Billy Bob:
BC: 2
Texas: 22,301</p>
<p>Again, the quantitative results don’t go a long way to proving qualitative conclusions.</p>
<p>My bad, I meant post 152.</p>
<p>The point is that BC, Michigan, UT, all of these schools are all excellent colleges and fighting over which is better gets you nowhere. It’s like red sox fans and yankees fans trying to persuade each other that their team is better :p</p>
<p>rofl @goblue for randomly bring UC-berkely into the thread -_-.</p>
<p>@bcclintonk-that logic is also flawed:who said graduates from bc HAVE to live in boston? same for texas? I’m sure a large amount of texas grads move to bigger cities where the cost of living is much higher, while alot of bc students move to smaller towns where the cost of living is much lower.</p>
<p>unless you can find a different ranking stop trying to refute ranking systems i have posted with flawed logic.</p>
<p>^^It just once again proves how ridiculous Forbes ratings are.</p>
<p>Show me a better one then please? A starting salary ranking that has UT above BC?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I concur with you. I think Forbes is actually stepping in the right direction with its methodology, but it still has a lot of work to do. Now, if it can get more credible sources to back it up, then the results would be a bit better.</p>
<p>What if Forbes did something like this:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The percent of National Merit Finalists in the student population (5%). </p></li>
<li><p>The median SAT score (over 1600) (5%).</p></li>
<li><p>Student happiness (PR surveys) (15%)</p></li>
<li><p>Average percent of financial need met by scholarships/grants (12.5%)</p></li>
<li><p>Four year graduation rate (8.75%)</p></li>
<li><p>Six year graduation rate (3.75%)</p></li>
<li><p>Average starting salary over average state starting salary (7.5%)</p></li>
<li><p>Average mid-year salary over average state mid-year salary (5%)</p></li>
<li><p>Percent of students getting a job offer by graduation (6.25%)</p></li>
<li><p>Percent of students going to graduate/professional school after graduation (6.25%)</p></li>
<li><p>Average class size (10%)</p></li>
<li><p>Student satisfaction with academic advising and career services, conducted through its own student survey (Forbes has to gather its own data somehow) (10%)</p></li>
<li><p>Percent of students who won nationally recognized awards (Putnam, Rhodes, Marshall, Fulbright, Goldwater, etc.) (5%)</p></li>
</ol>