<p>perhaps a Northeast state, or California? You pick it.</p>
<p>......please define your view of best & why</p>
<p>California and Virginia. Tough Call on which is better.</p>
<p>California- UC System led by Berkeley, UCLA and UCSD is very strong although one could argue that for undergraduates, it is overrated. Great grad schools.</p>
<p>Virginia- Led by Virginia Tech, UVa, William and Mary, Virginia has a very strong emphasis on undergraduate education. Not very strong in graduate education, especially in comparison to California.</p>
<p>North Carolina comes close to Virginia, but is a distant third. </p>
<p>The Northeast doesn't have a stellar system pf public higher education for undergraduates.</p>
<hr>
<p>let me clarify.....I meant ALL higher education, not just public.</p>
<p>For instance, Mass seems pretty strong to me with MIT, Williams, and Amherst.....& oh yea, I forgot....Harvard too.</p>
<p>Massachusetts has Harvard, MIT, Williams, Amherst, and Wellesley, while California has Stanford, Caltech, the UC's, and the Claremont colleges. Other notable states are New York (Columbia and Cornell), Illinois (Chicago, Northwestern, UIUC Engineering), Pennsylvania (Penn, Carnegie Mellon, Swarthmore, Haverford), and North Carolina (Duke and UNC). Florida probably has the worst colleges among the populous states.</p>
<p>I like my homestate of PA. Penn State isn't all to bad, plus there is Upenn, Carnegie Mellon, Lehigh. Plus all those great LACs; Swat, Haverford, Bryn Mawr, Bucknell...plus the other publics are pretty good like UPittsburgh.</p>
<p>California really is strong in ever way.
Private Universities: Stanford, California Institute of Technology, University of Southern California
Publics: Cal, UCLA, UCSD, UCI, UCSB all great schools
LACs: Claremont McKenna, Pomona, Harvey Mudd</p>
<p>i dunno if any other state really comes as close as cali =P</p>
<p>On the whole, I think California and Massachusetts win, followed by New York, Pennsylvania, and Illinois.</p>
<p>Considering state population, MA wins.</p>
<p>My vote is for California, it has the best public university system and public school (Cal Berkeley) in the nation. Also, there are excellent private colleges (see shrek2004's post). I may be a bit biased though...</p>
<p>Massachussets by far in terms of private colleges... that place is crawling with colleges and universities.</p>
<p>if we're just going by public, than california.</p>
<p>Massachusetts (my home state) wins definitely.
1.Harvard
2. MIT
3.Amherst
4.Williams
5.Wellesley
6. Tufts
7. Boston College
8. Brandeis
UMass (the flagship university) sucks though IMO. California is certainly a close second.</p>
<p>I think California wins when you look at how the education system works as a whole. You've got the UC system, which represents the best public schools in the nation because it's got the top public school (Berkeley) as well as an excellent SYSTEM backing it up (though I wouldn't consider UCLA as "backup" for Berk, but you know what I'm saying). So there's a lot of room for kids to get an affordable, strong education. (There're also CSU's and CC's for kids who fall through the cracks in HS, or for community members who want to take classes, which is nice... and often overlooked).</p>
<p>At the same time, California has some of the best examples of all the different flavors of private schools. We've got a top all-around school (Stanford), a top tech school (Caltech), and a bunch of good LACs (the Claremonts in particular stand out; they benefit from contact with each other, and they're able to specialize).</p>
<p>Basically, California provides a good deal of access to a high quality of education... plus, we've got excellent (arguably even the best) examples of every mainstream type of school (public, private, tech, LAC), so you can pretty much find whatever you want/need here.</p>
<p>Yay for California pride :)</p>
<p>Massachusetts and California are clear winners, with New York being a close third.</p>
<p>seems like Mass & California are duking it out......where are those New Yorkers & Pennsylvanians?</p>
<p>I definitely agree with entropicgirl; though I personally will not take advantage of the CSU or CC system, it makes getting a college degree unbelievably easy. The whole state public education system is so inter-connected, especially with the high schools, that there really is no excuse for not going to college here, financially or otherwise.</p>
<p>As far as an education system for the masses, California has got it covered. For fellow CCers, however, it may be considered lacking, with "only" Berkeley, Stanford, and the Claremont colleges.</p>
<p>at the risk of over simplifying & perpetuating stereotypes then california99, perhaps California is BEST for the masses, and Massachusetts is BEST for the elite....</p>
<p>agreed papachicken</p>
<p>there you go.</p>
<p>Mass wins by the number of schools-Harvard, MIT,Williams, Amherst,Wellesley,Smith,Mtholyoke,Tufts,Brandeis,and Holy Cross all highly ranked national schools.</p>
<p>Yeah agree papachicken.</p>
<p>Connecticut has the highest number of people with Ph.D.s of any state, as a % of the population. It also has the highest average teacher salaries, and a number of top-ranked high schools and colleges. UConn is one example, it's amazing that such a small state has such an excellent public university, easily the best of the public universities in New England. There's also Yale, which David Brooks (a UChicago grad and nation's most prominent intellectual) says is the best university in America. Although CT is smaller, it's probably the best state for education per capita, from a rational point of view. Massachusetts is also very good. </p>
<p>California, however, is overrated - you have to consider how big the state is before signaling out a couple of top-ranked universities as representative of the entire state. Remember, Cali is larger than the entire Northeast. Besides, UCLA, Berkeley, etc., really isn't as good as people think - it's huge (so it shows up in survey-based rankings that are always biased in favor of the bigger schools), but in terms of quality, it's pretty far behind the Ivies. Also, saying it's prestigious is like saying McDonald's is prestigious - of course it's well known, but that doesn't mean it has the best food. Anyways, by the way, UCSD is the best university in California.</p>