<p>It is always interesting to see Michigan doing better in world rankings (as it generally does) than it does in its domestic ranking. </p>
<p>QS rankings make the Brits feel better. </p>
<p>I was about to post this. The 11 US colleges on that list ahead of Michigan includes, MIT, Caltech, Stanford, and Ivies.</p>
<p>This is one of the few rankings where Michigan does better than UCLA, and Berkeley for that matter. But it’s rankings season! the THE rankings come out next month :)</p>
<p>^^^^^Based on what I have read, it’s the only one that is accurate. ;-). Seriously, all of these rankings are mostly beauty contests playing to parochial attitudes of their readership. Just look at the number of British/Commonwealth universities at the top</p>
<p>I find it amusing that within four hours of this getting posted people from both berkley and ucla had to come chime in on a ranking that puts Michigan above them.</p>
<p>@maizeandblue21 </p>
<p>Well, it’s not shocking to see Michigan above UCLA here, as it sometimes beats UCLA in the rankings. </p>
<p>But Michigan being placed ahead of Berkeley? I wonder how.</p>
<p>It probably has a lot to do with the huge underfunding of the UC system at a time when UofM is completely cash flush in the wake of its best fundraising effort of all time. Also, since joining the common app four years ago Michigan’s acceptance rate has dropped 10% and the ACT range is up to 29-33. It shouldn’t be shocking at all to see it placed above Berkley.</p>
<p>Nah. This ranking is suspect. All of them are. </p>
<p>@maizeandblue21 </p>
<p>Living in the state of California, I can tell you that the funding situation has stabilized and has been stable for a while now. In fact, I don’t think Berkeley sustained very much damage from the funding cuts as many people outside of California were led to believe. One has to also keep in mind that schools like Berkeley can rely on their donors to get them through the rough times that the economy goes through every now and then.</p>
<p>It did raise its tuition, yes, but its academic programs didn’t really suffer a loss of prestige or anything. All of this can also be said of UCLA: it too has many wealthy donors it can rely on in times of difficulty. It too hasn’t really suffered a loss of prestige. But like Berkeley(And like all UC schools), it raised its tuition.</p>
<p>But I will admit that U of M weathered the past recession very well.</p>
<p>Wrong thread!</p>
<p><a href=“QS World University Rankings: Top global universities | Top Universities”>http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2008</a></p>
<p>The QS rankings from 2008. UCLA here is ranked ahead of Berkeley. </p>
<p>I love my school and all, and I genuinely believe it has the potential to tie with Berkeley in the next 20 years or so in numerous ranking systems(Or perhaps even beat it!), but to rank it above Berkeley now, let alone 6 years ago, is kind of absurd.</p>
<p>This ranking is suspect.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Your first statement is correct. But it’s mostly due to two factors: 1) raising tuition and 2) increasing the proportion of OOS / international students. Your second statement I believe is incorrect. Alumni donations at public universities tend to be pretty low (think they’re both in the single digits for UCLA and Berkeley) and wealthy donations are typically restricted to what the donors want. It’s pretty rare for donors to give the schools a bunch of money without restrictions.</p>
<p>And the reason Berkeley didn’t suffer a loss of prestige is because prestige largely comes from graduate programs, and the budget cuts didn’t affect Berkeley with regard to these programs. Prestige also increases and decreases very slowly. So Berkeley isn’t going to lose its prestige over a few years of budget cuts.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The same thing I said about Berkeley’s donors can also be said of UCLA. (Although I believe UCLA has more wealthy donors and it does a better job of getting donations out of them.) For example, I think UCLA’s recent flooding is a perfect example of a ‘time of difficulty’ the university is having. Yet they only raised a laughable 5% for the Chancellor’s Emergency Flood Relief Fund, as you can see here.</p>
<p><a href=“https://spark.ucla.edu/project/53d92dfe09206575ad619585”>https://spark.ucla.edu/project/53d92dfe09206575ad619585</a></p>
<p>On the other end of the spectrum, UCLA was able to raise $40m in 6 months for its new athletic facility; and David Geffen donated $100m to the school of medicine named after him for scholarships to medical students. So unless it’s for some big project related to sports or medicine or the like, neither UCLA nor Berkeley see that kind of money. And when they do see it, it’s generally restricted, although there are exceptions (I think Geffen’s original donation to UCLA was unrestricted, and perhaps also the assets to UCLA from the Lincy foundation.)</p>
<p>Furthermore, I think UCLA somewhat damaged its relationship with donors by trying to sell things like the Hannah Carter Japanese Garden, which was essentially a work of art. In their preparation for selling it, they moved several statues, forever altering the work from the way it had been created by its Japanese designers. Although their actions had some legal basis, they basically showed that if things like that were donated to the university, they won’t hesitate to sell them in difficult times. Stories like that aren’t exactly good for increasing donations.</p>
<p>@beyphy </p>
<p>You make good points.</p>
<p>I should add, though, that UCLA’s centennial campaign is going very well and they seem to be slightly ahead of schedule with regards to how much money they’ve raised. They still have five years left to go.</p>
<p>I don’t know as much about UC Berkeley’s ability to raise money, but I doubt they struggle too much to do so(As compared to UCLA, anyway). What I worry about is how the lesser-known UC schools will endure budget cuts; they’re not as well funded and don’t have the alumni networks that UCLA and Berkeley have.</p>
<p>@Beyphy</p>
<p>Actually, UCLA is 500 million dollars ahead of their 2014 goal. Their 2014 goal was to raise 500 million dollars, and they’ve raised a little over $1,110,000,000.</p>
<p>We’re doing pretty good! :D</p>
<p>Michigan is working on its four billion dollar goal.</p>
<p>@rjkofnovi </p>
<p>UCLA also has a 4 billion dollar campaign goal. It’s to be accomplished by 2019.</p>
<p>Best of luck to our universities.</p>
<p>If UCLA can meet the goal, that would be great. It was $2.8 billion in endowment around a year ago.</p>
<p>@billcsho </p>
<p>UCLA’s chancellor stated that he wants UCLA’s endowment to be much larger because state funding has become rather unreliable.</p>
<p>This campaign is meant to meet, at least in part, that goal. Given how far ahead of schedule the campaign is, and given how much success UCLA’s enjoyed with these kinds of fundraising campaigns in the past, I’m optimistic that our endowment will be much larger in the years to come if we keep up our efforts.</p>
<p>^^^It needs to be. Michigan learned a long time ago that for it to maintain its excellence, it cannot rely mostly on state funding. California has been very fortunate that its economy never tanked as badly as Michigan’s for an extended period of time. I’m anticipating, with a decent economy, that the endowment of The University of Michigan should be at least 15 billion by the end of the decade. </p>