@perazziman last time I looked A&M has over a 100 majors outside of engineering and the four year graduation rate was less than 50%, coupled with about 23k in student debt. Yale, 99% graduation with literally no student loan debt whatsoever, as all aid is made through grants. And finally, at least for me, probably the most glaring feature is A&M is one of the least diverse campuses anywhere, and ranks near the bottom in my most every ranking in this area…
^ Perhaps. But one doesn’t have to be able to walk on water in order to get into TAMU.
Do you think the U.S. would be a strong nation if the only educational opportunities for its citizens were the elite schools reserved for a small percentage of the population?
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Sorry, first I don't know any Harvard admits that take classes at Walden U, that's like Tom Brady taking tips at a pop warner clinic-<<
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And how many of the 60,000 admits at TAMU do you know are taking Digital Signal Processing or any other engineering course at TAMU’s College of Engineering without being admitted to the College of Engineering?
By the way, how many Harvard admits do you know? The lectures could be quite good and some admits might be watching them. How do you know they are not? After all, it is a Harvard facility and top Harvard profs teach the courses.
Same goes for MIT courseware.
How many–many. My middle daughter is at Y, and I previously held an appointment at the school as well. While, I can’t speak with an absolute accuracy to how many students watch MOOCs, why would they when they can get the actual professor, with real time interaction and Qs and As. For all the potential of MOOCS, and it is vast, they remain very marginal in terms of actually moving the needle as it applies to degrees. One example, less than 10% of people complete said courses…so, in short, I stand by my original statement, a Harvard student has neither the time, nor inclination to taking such classes.
While this is a fun topic to debate, the truth is, they both serve their purpose and do it well. My irritation comes when the assertion is that one is just as good as the other. So, obviously it depends what you want out of the experience, but the total educational experience is starkly different.
I have degrees from both type of institutions, and I can say, one can feel the difference, on an almost daily basis, the distinction in the breath of education. From faculty student ratios, to quality of instruction, facilities, fellowship opportunities, cohorts, and professional opportunities…So, like most any car can get you to the same destination, how you get there is something all together different.
How does a student not know that s/he hasn’t met graduation requirements unless s/he never took the time to understand the curriculum and never helped others navigate the opaque system at TAMU?
The grown ups at TAMU represent TAMU’s interest not the student’s. To find grownups who help students, one joins private organized groups, such as a churches, synagogues, masjids or frats or other groups that have seniors with knowledge to navigate the opaque TAMU system (with its scholarship, curriculum and GPA requirements). Without belonging to such groups, survival here can be difficult. The secular support that one expects from college staff in the northeast is not in place. So, TAMU students are compelled to network and socialize by joining groups and developing appropriate social skills that require showing up to scheduled meetings and sending thank you letters for helping etc. Then, eventually, they lean to read the fine print in curriculum catalogs and contracts for themselves and pass down this info to the next generation of new students.
In my opinion, unless you graduated in the last 5 or even 10 years from this “type” of institution, it is unlikely you have any feel for schools such as UT and TAMU of today. There was a time when the Ivy League schools were completely different than state schools such as these, but time has not stood still. I too can remember a time in the late 70s and early 80s when tuition at TAMU was a couple of hundred dollars and an Ivy charged $5,000+ a year; when a student could get into TAMU with a combined SAT score of 800 (M+V) but needed a 1200 to get into a lesser Ivy. http://www.archives.upenn.edu/histy/features/imagepenn/undergrad1.html
However, all that has changed now. TAMU and UT have university wide SAT scores in the same range as the lesser ivies of the late 70s and early 80s. In addition, competitive colleges within state universities such as Business Schools, Colleges of Engineering and Honor Colleges etc have averages that rival the regular old ivy league schools. In addition, it can cost real money to attend these type of schools.
Once again, in 1978 the average SAT score at U Penn was 1230
Today the average SAT score at TAMU is 1220 https://www.tamu.edu/admissions/
At UT is a little over 1230 (so higher than U Penn in 78) http://admissions.utexas.edu/explore/freshman-profile
So, its unlikely you attended these “type” of universities unless you attended an Ivy league university in the 70s and 80s in my opinion.
I’m a dad of three daughters–one in medical residency, one in New Haven and one will be at Westwood this fall. So, by way chronology, I indeed attended both types of universities in the 80s.
Which state universities had an average SAT (Q+V) of 1220 -1230 in the early 80s?
College admissions on a whole took entire paradigm shifts during the 1908s, for instance CAL applications exponentially grew by over 40% in less than 10 years, during that period.Unless you are applying some form of metric that can quantify this on a national basis, I’m unsure that your posit achieves anything…
Well if you attended some college before a paradigm shift then you cannot claim to know what it is like after such shift.
So, having attended a large state university, and subsequently obtaining two advanced degrees from Ivy schools, having a former appointment at an IVY, taught at several state universities, and having a D, presently at an Ivy, I got no background to make an educated guess at the topic?
Tell you what smart guy, I give you the crown of expert and sage on these topics…
Make all the guesses you want, but don’t expect others to agree. It is obvious to me you have not been to A&M recently, so you don’t know what is going on here. Your experience at some state university in the early 80s doesn’t qualify to know what is going on at A&M today.
BTW, I too have a family member who attended undergrad and grad school at MIT, authored books including one that is used at MIT, who is a tenured faculty member and whose videos are used by Walden U. I’d rather you didn’t personalize the debate in this fashion. Sorry to make you feel like someone is stealing your crown.
Here is the bottom-line, as it appears that you want to A&M to be mentioned in the same breath of HYPSM…and it is just not so—While some programs are top notch, if one is considering the totality of education, especially as applied to the undergraduate level and all majors, well, stats say otherwise.
So, you mention that A&M is has a combination of endowment (although on a per capita basis for undergraduate support, Yale is worth about 10 times more) and state support–correct? Well, if that is so, why is the average debt for students close to 25K? Yale–about 0. Further, outside of engineering, 4 year graduation rates are less than 50%, Yale 99%. These are two distinct type of educational institutions, and they really serve rather stark portions of the population, e.g. Texas state residents versus a global audience with already delineated academic performance. So, I am not sure to what end this discussion needs to be rehashed…
Further, when you factor in two other significant categories such as attrition and diversity, or about 1% versus about 20%, and Yale ranks near the top of Ivies for diversity, and A&M near the bottom nationally, well, again, it is obvious we are talking about two very different type of universities from both a mission and outcomes standpoint.
Actually that is not what I was saying. I was pointing out how it is unlikely that you know much about institutions such as A&M through your personal experience in response to your claim “I have degrees from both type of institutions, and I can say, one can feel the difference, on an almost daily basis, the distinction in the breath of education”. Please see post 67. So, unless you attended and are comparing these flagships to the Berkeley of the early 80s, I doubt you understand these universities.
You have now raised valid points about diversity etc that we can discuss. However, in your initial comment you defined the breadth of education as, “faculty student ratios, to quality of instruction, facilities, fellowship opportunities, cohorts, and professional opportunities…”. Now you are talking about total debt and graduation rates etc.
When it comes to diversity
At TAMU
Whites are about 62% of the student population.
Hispanic, Black, and American Indian’ comprise 21% or approx. (11,000) of the entire student population.
International student enrollment is about 5,000 or 10%.
Women form about 47 or 48% of the student body.
Seems balanced and diverse to me.
DROP OUT RATES:
Yes, it is true only 80% of students who started in 2007 finished college within 6 years at TAMU. However, that was for the class that started about 8 years ago. There is good reason to believe that even a higher percentage will graduate from the class that enters now. After all, SAT scores have been steadily rising. There is already evidence that the freshman retention rate at TAMU is now 92%. To put that into perspective Harvard has a freshman retention rate of 97%. NYU and Boston University have 92%, same as TAMU. However, lets stick with the 80% for now and ask how is that a terrible rate?
The national average for colleges with open admissions is about 34% finishing in 6 years. In other words, 2/3 will drop out. This would be pretty bad since most of the kids will drop out.
At the average state university 58% complete a degree within 6 years. So, almost half of them drop out. So, I could see why you might think this is pretty bad too.
At the average PRIVATE non profit university about 65% finish within 6 years. So, only a third drop out, a good majority go on to finish college. Thus the average private tends to be better than the average state university. However, by this yardstick, schools such as UT and TAMU with over 80% graduating in 6 years are far better than the average private university. If anything, these rates suggest that TAMU and UT are still giving a small academically weak minority of kids an opportunity to succeed in college. How is that a terribly bad thing or creating a bad atmosphere in a college?
How’s this then, I don’t know diddly about TAMU, but I know it’s not Yale. If you were to ask any parent, if they could choose a school that has a 98% chance of graduating in 4 years without taking on ANY student debt for the student, with a name value that would be recognizable anywhere in the world, and have a mid-career salary 3 times that of any state university (a Harvard study recently quantified the value of such degrees-- without any further education past BA) which one do you think they would choose?
None of HYPSM… colleges have anything near a 98% 4-year graduation rate. According to IPEDS, the colleges with the top 4-year graduation rate are below. Yale is probably higher than HPSM largely due to the lower portion of engineering/CS majors (at S, the large percentage of co-terms also contributes). This probably also relates to why LACs top the 4-year grad rate list.
91% – Pomona, Haverford, Swarthmore, Julliard
90% – Georgetown, Notre Dame
89% – Holy Cross, Morrsion (closed in 2014), Williams, Duke, Yale
In 2013 15% of students took on debt to pay tuition. 15% isn’t that high, but it’s still a significant portion of students. Also note that the student body at Yale averages a much higher family income than the state schools you are comparing to, which relates to the portion of students that struggle financially.
In the Payscale survey, the highest mid career salary for bachelor degree holders at a state school was $121k at SUNY Maritime, which was above Yale. Yale’s mid career salary was not 3 times any of the 1000+ schools in the list. Of course such stats are going to be heavily influenced by major selection, which relates to why SUNY Maritime does so well.
When evaluating such numbers, it is important to consider how much the individual student contributed and how much the college contributed. For example, if you have a student who is stellar enough to be accepted at Yale and decides to go to a less selective public college instead, it’s very likely that the student will do exceptionally well there and have an extremely high chance of graduation. They won’t have the same expected chance of graduation as the typical less selective admit, so looking at the overall graduation rate is misleading. The same idea applies for looking at salary and other grad outcomes. It’s likely that financial reasons including a large scholarship contributed to the decision to attend the state school, so I also wouldn’t assume a greater chance of taking on debt for a particular student.