So, no cite?
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No, I think there has been a shift of taste in colleges. Why–televised sports. More info on job recruitment at colleges. The rise of tech and related jobs. There have been several articles on the subject.
Just so you know, college sports have been on TV for a long time.
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https://www.chronicle.com/newsletter/daily-briefing/2023-02-15?sra=true&cid=gen_sign_in
https://www.chronicle.com/article/flagships-prosper-while-regionals-suffer
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It was tightly controlled until the great expansion after a court case in the 80s. You cannot compare today with Major networks, ESPN, Fox, Conference networks and others carrying nearly every major conference game to even 20 years ago. But I am sure your snark knew that too.
Not sure I can agree with that, @ucbalumnus, since The average college size is 6,354 students, according to a 2020 survey by the U.S. News & World Report.
( meant to tag @ucbalumnus )
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I’m not sure I understand what that means, but 1980 court cases and 20 years ago? This trend goes that far back? I’m afraid you’ve lost me.
The chronicle of higher ed link is behind a paywall, but I recall you trying to make this point in another thread about regional vs. flagship. Seems like a slightly different discussion. Aside from that, was it a fair comparison to begin with insofar as you’re saying non-elite LACs are losing market share to the top publics? How are they doing against the non-top publics?
The Forbes article is a good one; I’ve previously read it. But I’m not sure it quite supports your original claim:
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The nationalization trend, which is hurting regional colleges given declining overall enrollment, and the humanities to STEM shift, are both real and recent issues, but they are not limited to regional LACs. Indeed, the one article appears to be specifically about regional public universities, and then there are various universities, mostly private, that also do little or no engineering.
So as I mentioned before, I think we are likely going to see some consolidation, but I think most of the impact will actually be in universities, many of them public but not flagship universities.
Interestingly, the part that really depends on attending a college is going to the games live, which of course was how most people watched college sports for a long time.
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Don’t forget, there are LACs with computer science, math, even business schools.
Carleton - CS is #1
Colby - Econ and Math are #2, 3
Dickinson - International Business and Economics
Grinnell has more CS grads than other majors (using Niche as the source),
Hamilton - Econ and Math are the top two
Harvey Mudd - Engineering and CS
Pomona - the top two are Econ and CS
Puget Sound - Business
Rhodes - Business
Richmond - Business
W&L - business and econ are the top two
I think some/many LACs have shifted/ added programs to keep pace with the market and keep relevance.
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Wow. nearly 400 posts in 1 day. I haven’t read the previous posts, so I may be repeating. It looks like there are some changes, with dozens of criteria in the formula. Many low weight criteria have been added, including things typically associated with grad school, such as citation and publication impact. Several criteria have also been removed, include ones that Columbia was caught lying about. The highest weighed criteria are:
1 . Admin Marginal/Distinguished Survey – 20%
2a. 6-Year Graduation Rate, if >50% Submit Scores – 16%
2b. 6-Year Graduation Rate, if <50% Submit Scores – 21%
3. Whether Grad Rate is High/Low Based on Typical for SES – 10%
4. Financial Resources Per Student – 8%
5. Faculty Salary – 6%
6. Average Debt of Fed Loan Recipients – 5%
6. % of Fed Loan Recipients Earning More than $32k/year (>= 90% = perfect) – 5%
6. Freshmen Retention Rate – 5%
6a. Test scores if >50% submit scores – 5%
6b. Test scores if <50% submit scores – 0%
The total of above is 80%. The remaining 20% is split among many low weighted categories, ranging from 0.5% to 3%. ’
While the weighting have changed and they’ve added some new categories, I expect the same type of HYPSM… high endowment per student colleges to appear on top. I doubt USNWR would choose weightings for any other outcome. The marginal/distinguished survey largely perpetuates expectation based on past results. Graduation rate favors colleges that are selective enough to admit kids that are likely to graduate, and high endowment per student colleges usually have good enough financial aid to minimize failing to graduate for financial reasons. Financial resources per student and faculty salary are more directly correlated with endowment per student. Average debt and quality of grant based FA is linked to endowment per student. I could continue.
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Yes the S and M in STEM have always been part of the liberal arts and sciences curriculum, and CS can be included in S.
It is really the T and E where you see a significant difference on average between research universities and LACs.
Of course that is just averages. There are a few LACs that offer engineering, and even more who offer some sort of 3-2 or 2-1-1-1 program (where you get an engineering degree from a partner university).
And conversely, there are some universities that offer little or no engineering to undergrads.
Still, the real engineering powerhouses in the US, in the sense of training a lot of engineers, are the public engineering colleges. A few private universities are in the mix, but usually in terms of actual numbers, the big public programs are churning out by far the most working engineers.
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Like most places that allow anonymous reviews, I find the Niche reviews hit and miss. Many times someone has a specific chip on their shoulder and instead of presenting a balanced criticism, distorts an issue way out or proportion or context. It’s still worth a read but I take both the superlative and highly negative review with a large grain of salt.
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Seems like USN is in a no win situation then since they have been under pressure specifically to change their methodology meaningfully, including pressure from major colleges and education officials. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
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when I look at that list of criteria I see very few that really impact my kid’s education or quality of his/her experience, or quality of his/her peers.
also- what 6 year graduation rate? why not 4, or 5 at the most? how many kids really take 6 years? that seems like an outlier but I may be wrong…
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For students doing coops and such, the 6 year graduation rate is more accurate. Even though coops don’t add classroom time/costs, it does change the graduation year.
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Once you get past the elite private schools where many students come from wealth or have adequate aid, some students take longer than 4-5 years to graduate because life happens. They have to work, take breaks to help family, etc. if they shortened the graduation window it would bias toward elite privates and against public’s, and for affluent kids other less privileged ones.
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here is an interesting article about the 6 year grad rate thing. I’m not saying I agree but it says the 4 year graduation could be seen as the goal and we are letting the colleges off easy by measuring the 6 year rate as the standard.
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I think you’re conflating the pursuit of a liberal arts degree with attending a small college. There are thousands of universities, including many competing in D1 sports programs, that nevertheless cling to the fig leaf that they are also providing a rigorous liberal arts curriculum. I don’t think they teach organic chemistry any differently at those locations than they do at Berea or Spelman or Kalamazoo.
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I was looking at that too an it looked like schools with higher percentages of engineering students had lower four-year grad rate. I was just looking at a random cross section of schools bc I too was interested in why 6 years, but it made me want to know about how students are able to get through the often long list of engineering and math prereq courses and finish other distributional requirements, if they don’t come in with a lot of AP/other college credit.
And here I was, sending DS23 to Tulane based on USNWR’s ranking! How could I have been duped so easy. 
FWIW he was a EA deferred to RD and accepted.
Feels like most people here would agree with “rankings are meaningless” and at an individual level they should be. Clearly it matters to the institution since there’s $$ and bragging rights at play.
Any consumer using rank - be it College or any other product without seeing if the underlying criteria aligns with their thinking deserves what they get.
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