@boneh3ad : Apparently they’re trying to “raise the bar” of Purdue Engineering, so the admission requirements are being raised. Apparently they look for a 3.9 GPA and 2000+ SAT score (so I’ve heard from professors)… Unfortunately, this is leading to some problems… But maybe this will increase the graduation rate?
You might imagine it would. I suppose we will find out. Their hands will still be tied to some degree, bein a state school, of course.
Is Purdue worth the cost? I am a Purdue alumnus (grad school). Just today I was looking at a student apartment company’s offerings at Purdue. Nice 1 bedroom apartments, $1200-1400 A MONTH. And SOLD OUT. They even had a section written in, ehem, foreign languages 
describing the place to parents I suppose. So, if they can sell out and on top of that Purdue gets their rather high OOS tuition, I would say yea, it’s worth it.
The department I was in had a large number of ‘brand name’ faculty, people that you would know if you were in the field.Facilities were usually great - and lots of new buildings have been added since my days. Just be aware that grades are not handed out as easily as in other schools, and in undergraduate, there are notorious classes that make life challenging to say the least. As an undergraduate, you also have to deal with the notorious ‘enrollment management’ system.
What really impressed me with Purdue tho was that the caliber of students I encountered was uniformly very good. I also thought we did very good quality projects. Then 15 years later I had the opportunity to review some semester projects for a class similar to the one I took. To say I was blown away by the quality of work would be an understatement. Not only these kids ‘got it’ but they also had the time and energy to put it down on paper in as professional form as it gets.