<p>goldenboy, you are obsessed by Michigan. There has not been a single thread on the Michigan forum that points out a strength that you have not tried to discredit or downplay. In a way, it is flattering. This alone proves how threatened you are by Michigan. </p>
<p>“I maintain that as long as a professor is able to meaningfully engage a classroom in a small-group setting in discussions about the subject matter, give feedback whenever a student asks for it, and promptly answer emails to questions students have after class, then he is more than doing his/her job. However, this is anything but guaranteed at public schools where the professor has to sit in a lecture hall with 400 undergraduates and is unable to field questions from students real-time during the lecture since its impossible to hear anyone.”</p>
<p>A class that has 400 students at Michigan will likely have 300-400 students at any top private university. Like I said, class sizes at Michigan are roughly the same size as they are are top private universities. It’s not like a class with 400 students at Michigan would only have 50 or even 100 students at a private peer. My intermediate Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, Financial Econ and Econometrics classes had 150, 120, 90 and 60 students respectively. Several friends from high school took the same classes (in the case of Micro and Econometrics, using textbooks written by Hal Varian and Jan Kmenta, both my professors at Michigan at the time) at several private elites, and their classes in those subjects had roughly the same number of students (in some cases 10%-20% smaller, but in most cases, almost identical. By the way, those were the four largest Econ classes I took at Michigan (I was fortunate enough to place out of Econ 101 and 102). All of my remaining Econ classes had between 10 and 50 students. On average, my Econ classes had 30-40 students.</p>
<p>“So, you would only include the USWNR Peer Assessment ratings as part of your rankings and nothing else? That’s the only way that Cal and Michigan land in these ranges the use of almost any other measure such as selectivity, counselor rankings, class sizes, financial resources, etc. would cause these schools to tumble.”</p>
<p>Not at all. If properly, accurately and consistently measured, even if you include selectivity measures, class size, financial resources etc…, Cal would still be ranked between #6 and #9 (higher than Duke for sure) and Michigan between #10 and #17. I personally do not believe in the counsellor ratings. They are a complete joke. The majority of high school counsellors are not knowledgeable about universities. </p>
<p>But let us break down the USNWR:</p>
<ol>
<li>I have no idea how the USNWR measures financial resources, but it is pathetic and insulting to the intellect of any reader with half a brain. There are only two bottom line measures of financial resources; endowment and debt upon graduation. The rest can, and are, easily manipulated by private universities that do not answer to any authority as public universities do. </li>
</ol>
<p>As far as debt upon graduation is concerned, most elite universities (not including HYPSM, Caltech and Rice) average between $16,000 and $32,000. Cal, UCLA, UVa and UNC all average in the $16,000-$19,000 range (along with Dartmouth, Penn and Vanderbilt). Michigan’s average graduating debt is $27,000 (Brown, Cornell, Duke, Emory, Georgetown, JHU, Northwestern and several other private elites also have graduation debts averages in the $20,000-$26,000 range). Some private universities, like CMU, Notre Dame, USC and Wake Forest, have average graduation debts in the $30,000+ range. Chicago and Columbia do not provide graduation debt statistics. In short, when all smoke screens are eliminated, private or public elites provide similar financial resources to student aid. </p>
<p>As far as endowment goes, Michigan’s stands at $7.7 billion, the 6th or 7th largest in the nation, and that does not include the $300 million annual state funding that it receives. Adjusted to private university standards (they do not receive any state funding), Michigan’s endowment would be roughly equal to $13-$14 billion (only HYPS) would be larger. Even on a per student basis, Michigan would be among the top 10 or thereabout (not including LACs), with only HYPSM and perhaps Caltech and Rice having a significant edge. </p>
<p>The rest of the USNWR financial resources equation is a joke. It rewards universities that waste money and motivates private universities to resort to highly questionable and “creative” accounting practices. From a finances point of view, Michigan is definitely among the top 20, perhaps even among the top 15. </p>
<ol>
<li>Where selectivity is concerned, Cal us already one of the 15 most selective universities in the nation and Michigan is among the 25 most selective. With the way private universities “report” data, I would not be surprised if Cal were in fact among the 10 most selective universities and Michigan among the 20 most selective. And Michigan is gaining at the moment. It is one of the few universities with a rapidly growing applicant pool. However, the way private universities report data, superscoring and lying about SAT/ACT ranges, definitely hurts public universities. That fact that Michigan and Cal still manage to rank so highly on selectivity measures is impressive. </li>
</ol>
<p>Either way, financial resources and selectivity are not holding Cal and Michigan back…certainly if data is properly, accurately and consistently reported and calculated.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Faculty resources are certainly interesting. Again, until private and public universities report data the same way, it is pointless to compare. </p></li>
<li><p>Alumni donation rates, should not be considered a ranking variable since private and public universities approach it very differently. Private universities openly solicit alumni very aggressively while public universities may not. Secondly, private universities have been soliciting alumni since the late 19th and early 20th century. Public universities did not start taking alumni donations seriously until the 1980s because up to that point, public universities did not require additional financial assistance than tuition and state funding. Again, reporting data is an issue. Some private universities have “special donation plans” where alums are coaxed into giving a $5 donation to be reported over a 5 year period; $1 annually. Some private universities publicly embarrass alums who do not donate. Finally, the size of a university’s alumni body is a restriction. There is a reason why the majority of the top alumni donation rates belong to LACs. The smaller the alumni base, the easier it is to reach a larger segment of alums. Personally, I think alumni donations should be calculated on a donation/alum basis, and should not be used in a ranking, but much like the Teaching Quality Ranking, should be reported separately.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I have long suspected that private universities do not report data accurately or consistently. Whether as a result of deliberate unethical practices or internal university practices does not matter. The way S:F ratios are reported and the recent scandal with admissions data reporting at a couple of major colleges and universities prove that there is a problem with the way private universities report data across the board, whether it is in selectivity, faculty resources, financial resources or a number of other data. I stand by my opinion that Michigan would leap into the top 20 if all data were accurately, consistently and honestly.</p>