Massachusetts does pretty well on education overall and has for centuries. But that’s part of the equation. Why doesn’t Maine (pick any other state if you want) educate its poor well?
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Virginia does just fine with its mission. Its flagship is reserved for it most high performing students, but it offers a dozen other state universities for students at different academic levels, much like the UCs once did ( and may still do, I don’t know enough about them). Some of them, like Longwood and Radford, are essentially open access.
Everyone knows individual departments can shine even if a school overall does not. I would expect Alaska to be strong in Indigenous languages, given its location. To say its numbers overall “aren’t great” compared to its peers is the understatement of the day. It isnt a question of not showing up in the top 100. It is not showing up in the top 300.
I pointed out that an urban state has different challenges than a mostly rural state. Which to me is a likely contributor to why Maine doesn’t educate its poor well. A high potential kid in a low income elementary school in Boston, Worcester, Lowell (all cities in MA) has a much better chance of being identified (which leads to all sorts of educational goodies, enrichment, enhancements, etc. ) than a kid in Lewiston (urban) or Machias (rural, both places in Maine). Big and dense (talking population, not land area) attracts more attention than small (either dense or spread out).
My theory until someone posts a better analysis.
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Since Alaska is such a prickly topic, we could substitute UDC, with a 6 year grad rate of 25%. And yes, of course, it is just perfect for some students and some kids there are no doubt brilliant. But overall, yeah, the school is mediocre at best.
Of course that is not a rural population
How does someone knowing something about Alaska make it a prickly topic? Is the goal here to keep floating “mediocre” schools until you find one that no one knows enough about to defend?
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It is rather touching that no one wants to criticize any state school, even when, objectively and statistically, some are performing well below the norm of their peers, and perhaps below the norm of an acceptable standard. But heaven forbid we note their deficiencies or call them mediocre.
It might be more productive for us to acknowledge their shortcomings and send administrators out from UC Merced to offer guidance on how to run a highly ranked school despite FGLI students and other challenges
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However, it does look like both MA and ME have trouble on the college affordability front based on debt of graduates, according to Interactive Map - The Institute for College Access & Success . Affordability is typically the biggest constraint on college attendance and college choice for most students.
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I have played and studied poker for a long time. Poker is a series of decisions. People have written plenty of books helping people make those decisions. Some decisions in poker are easy and binary 0 or 1. But there are plenty that require more than just 0 or 1. What happened earlier in the night can affect the decision. Heck if you played your opponent often what happened two months ago can matter. In the end you go with the best assessment you can make based on the limited information that you have. A friend of mine started to say ‘well it depends…’ to many decisions.
Choosing a college for a kid is really personal and individualistic. There are a ton of factors that go into the decision. One example is how dedicated to a STEM degree is the student? If a student in not 100% sure about STEM then going to a college with little to offer besides STEM might not be a good idea. Another example is the funding for college and if the money is already set aside or not. Like say 4 year COA is $160K total. Mom & Dad have $50K in the bank for it and plan on cash flowing the rest. How likely will they be able to do that.
In the end everyone’s situation is different. What is a hard no for some is a yes/good idea for others and vice versa.
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What’s the point? Why is it so important to you to characterize many state flagships as mediocre? It doesn’t seem to have much of a valid purpose to me, given that what is right for a particular student really depends on the totality of their circumstance and not any USNWR rating. Dismissing them as “mediocre” isn’t “acknowledging their shortcomings” or assessing what they might do differently to better serve their mission. It is merely a petty and superficial swipe, especially when you know next to nothing about the schools beyond a quick glance at some statistic or another.
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So if a college isn’t “elite” it’s considered mediocre. I completely do no agree with this.
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Perhaps more to the point, what should a high performing student do if:
- They live in a state where the flagship and other state universities are “mediocre”.
- They cannot afford private or out-of-state public universities that are “better”.
?
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I never claimed that, and have grown tired of the discussion. Signing out
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MT, you make many valid points. So I’ll ask YOU- what is your interest in shutting down discussion? We are about to be hit with dozens and dozens of threads: "My kid can go to flagship U which is not UVA, U Michigan or similar for $200 per year vs. Private U for 50K per year. We have the money- but is it “worth it”?
And we will have a FLOOD of posts- it doesn’t matter where you go. You can get into med school from anywhere (despite the fact that the kid wants to study Poli Sci and work at a think tank), The only university worth paying for is Stanford so if it isn’t Stanford, Random Public U is just fine. As long as it’s ABET, it’s fine (again, ABET doesn’t care about poli sci). And a few posters bringing up the rear- “he should study nursing AND/OR neuroscience” since those are pretty popular majors on CC.
So I don’t think shutting down this conversation is healthy. We are about to see inside the belly of the beast-- those who believe that the goal is to pay as little as possible for a generic Bachelor’s from anywhere USA, and those who believe that in many instances, you get what you pay for, and those who believe that SOME colleges are grossly overrated, and those who believe that nothing is worth studying unless there is a clear economic ROI attached to it-- and everything in between…
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I am not an expert on this, but I will have to say the question of “mediocrity” of ANY higher ed institution takes a back-burner to the cost. If money is no object to the student/their family, and the student gets into a “top” school that’s a good fit for them, then they should consider it.
Now that we are looking down the barrel of multiple tuitions, immediately and in the near future, the costs are simply staggering for some of these schools. We’re somewhat fortunate because we did some planning, but I cannot imagine how many can even consider these schools unless the financial aid or merit aid is very good.
I saw a lot of references to “CC” upthread, including in some posts where the acronym was used to refer to both community colleges and College Confidential! Quite confusing. Anyone who knows anything about CA community colleges knows that they are excellent. They provide a meaningful route for many students to do two years in a community college and then transfer (e.g., to a UC) depending on performance. I thank our lucky stars we have so many options for higher ed in CA.
I am also a firm believer that a top student taking a rigorous course at a state school, flagship, mediocre, or otherwise, will likely be a top student at many schools, including the “top” schools.
One downside that I see for state schools is the very large class size. But for some students, that’s actually a positive.
“Love the school that loves you back”…isn’t that what we often say to students? And we also say “life is what you make it.” I believe both are highly relevant to this discussion.
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A psychologist would have a field day with this. We somehow all agree that many public K12 schools are mediocre, even poor. In fact, some here have characterized entire states with thousands of schools ( not just one college) as poor. And we accept and even celebrate open access to higher ed. But somehow when it is schools our own kids could attend, nothing is mediocre anymore, even if all those poor K12 schools lead directly to open access State U. All State U’s are solid.
If only
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As mediocre as LSU appears to be for some, it’s produced 14 Rhodes Scholars, among other prestigious awards/scholarships to its students:
https://lsufoundation.planmylegacy.org/lsu-impressive-record
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Indigenous languages (as mentioned downthread), wildlife biology and ecology, and geophysics. There are probably more, but those are the first that come to mind. I wouldn’t hesitate to send my OOS very strong academics kid there to study those majors if he were interested in them. If we lived in-state, I would encourage him to consider many more majors in the U Alaska system. If my “mediocre” kid wanted to study there OOS, I’d be quite open to it if he liked the environment.
Plenty of bright Alaskans stay there and get good educations. Especially at the graduate level, people come there from around the globe to study in the strong niche fields.
It may be fair to call UAF “mediocre” overall in the context of all US colleges. But to a large number of their students, it offers either an objectively good education, or the best education they can get given their constraints.
And they truly do have some world-class researchers. But it’s only experts and people willing to look beyond their assumptions about such backwater places that will be able to see and appreciate that.
I think this is true of some other “mediocre” flagships as well. To answer one of OP’s questions, I do think that investing in niche fields of strength is a smart move for these schools.
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Why is the notion that some colleges may be mediocre even controversial? There’re mediocrities in every segment of the population, every type of product/service, every sector, every society, and so on, why are colleges the exceptions? Just as we may have different standards to measure mediocrities in other products/services, each of us may have a different standard to measure mediocrity in colleges. It would be a serious defect, not a good feature, if colleges were all the same in terms of quality.
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How’s this for U of Alaska, Fairbanks anecdata? My son’s good friend from here in sunny CA picked Fairbanks over some other presumably (per rankings, for whatever they are worth) “better” schools, partly because he wanted to study something that is reputed to be quite good there and partly because he’s just an adventurous and kind of quirky kid who wanted to go to Alaska! Within a week he was randomly jamming with some locals at a jazz bar in town. And within two weeks he lost the very tip of a finger due to frostbite (but overall seems no worse for wear and otherwise happy). So if you do go to Alaska, go prepared!
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My interest is in the opposite. From my perspective, dismissing large swaths of higher education as mediocre or unworthy because they aren’t high enough on the ratings is what shuts down the discussion, because it doesn’t reflect reality for most families, and it discourages most families from even participating in the discussion. Who wants to come here for college advice only to read that one’s best and perhaps only option is mediocre based on USNWR or graduation rates, and to hear over and over that unattainable school X is much more elite?
There is nothing wrong with discussing why one college may be a better fit for whatever reason (including costs, rigor, peers, athletic facility, location, diversity, etc) but shouldn’t such advice be tailored to the student/family who is seeking advice? Surely it isn’t all that hard to have these discussions without taking superficial and condescending potshots at every school we don’t consider elite. Yet some posters take such shots even at high schools.
And it works the other direction as well. Low cost college A and/or major B may be the perfect option for some, but it isn’t a good fit for everyone, and discussions might be more productive if people didn’t assume that their viewpoint on these issues was universal.
In this regard, I think we could all learn a lot from the OP in this thread. @AustenNut obviously isn’t here to push or affirm their particular perspective. They listen to what the student/family wants, and try to advise accordingly, without condescension or judgment. That fosters discussion.
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