<p>goldenboy, I think the reputation of public universities in this country has declined sharply over the past 20 years, roughly since the introduction of the USNWR rankings, whose formula devalues what public universities do, i.e. educating a broad range of students for a broad range of careers without a lot of luxuries. But state legislatures have contributed mightily to the decline, too. For most of the top public universities, state funding represents a comparatively small percentage of their budgets, but the constant political controversies about funding levels, and constant cut-backs, both create an impression of instability and crisis, and in many cases put public universities at a competitive disadvantage for attracting the top faculty and students, both at the graduate level and the undergraduate level. (My favorite current PhD student chose her second-choice program, a private university, over her first-choice program, a public one, in large part because the private university could offer a somewhat better economic deal and could guarantee it for multiple years. The two universities are tops in her field – and she was a hot property as an applicant – but the public university won’t be able to stay on top indefinitely if it can’t compete for the best students.) Political pressure to hold down in-state tuition and to expand class sizes hasn’t helped, either.</p>
<p>I also suspect that, in part because of their greater social diversity, public universities were far more traumatized by the upheavals of the Vietnam era. And if you want to see a decline in a public university’s reputation far sharper than Madison’s, take a look at the Sorbonne.</p>
<p>In the end, though, high academic prestige is very much an elitist luxury, and democratic institutions aren’t so great at nurturing elitist luxuries. Once upon a time, state governments had such an advantage in capital formation over the private sector that they could simply muscle their way to the forefront, but in the modern world it is the private sector that can raise almost unlimited capital, and the public institutions that are undercapitalized. </p>
<p>(William and Mary is really a very different case than Wisconsin, however. I think its reputation now is higher than it has ever been, at least during my lifetime. Unlike Wisconsin, it was never a player in the Great Research University game, and it has benefited mightily from Virginia’s increasing prosperity and secondary education quality, combined with UVa’s tiny size compared to most other state flagships and the relative paucity of private institutions in the Old South.)</p>