<p>Bigjake,
Yes, I am also stuck with the SUNYs which I will never consider. The original intent of SUNY was to geographically place 4 major universities throughout the state. None of the four would be flagship university of the state. Add zero athletic scholarships and the result; decent education but not known outside of NY. It would be nice to have a top 50 university in NY. Our taxes certainly warrant it!</p>
<p>Exactly...its all about mass education...average kids leaving high school go to the state schools, whose job is just to put them on the assembly line and graduate them. Each class can only be as good as its weakest member. There will always be the excellent kids who got screwed for whatever reason and belong in Ivys, but, for the most part, the level of intellect permeating the campus will be minimal.</p>
<p>To most reputable rankings, the top publics are already as good as the top privates. You will find public schools in every decile of the top 50. How exactly are they considered inferior?</p>
<p>Chelsea2005, not all state schools have the mission you describe of giving as many students as possible a solid-education. California, forex, has a multi-tiered system of more than 100 Community Colleges, something like 27(?) Cal States, and the (now) 10 UC's, plus the two polytechnic campuses. The goals and mission of the UC's are up there with all the private universities and at least five--one mom recently corrected me and said six...she's probably right, I'm too lazy on this point to check--of the UC's are members of the American Association of Universities.
California is the only state that has so many public U's...it's not all that large an organization...but I bet the flagship campuses of Virginia, Michigan, Texas, North Carolina, and Wisconsin all make that cut. The bottom line is: not all state U's are created equal and one should be wary of over-generalizing.</p>
<p>speaking of the association of american universities, the original members are: columbia, cornell, harvard, johns hopkins, princeton, stanford, UC BERKELEY, u chicago, U MICHIGAN, u pennsylvania, and yale. </p>
<p>hmm looks like the perennial top 2 publics already made the elite list A LONG TIME AGO!</p>
<p>You left out one--the University of Wisconsin. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.aau.edu/aau/aaufact.cfm%5B/url%5D">http://www.aau.edu/aau/aaufact.cfm</a></p>
<p>Hopeful1, don't forget in addition to the Universities at Albany, Binghampton, Buffalo, and Stony Brook, New York State Residents get breaks at the Public Colleges at Cornell.</p>
<p>California, New York and other states that have multi-tiered education platforms are in a position to create a more academically selective University System. But as it has already been mentioned, being in the same system doesn't mean they are all producing the same quality, and going to a name school may not be the best choice for every student.</p>
<p>You are absolutely correct. Cornell is an excellent option; however the state affiliated programs are limited to specific degrees. I have a friend who attended the ILR program and became an attorney. He received his IVY education but was unhappy taking certain mandatory courses in labor and human resources. This Cornell program has a cost approximately midway between Cornell private tuition and S.U.N.Y.</p>
<p>Pre-meds take the ag science (I believe) program and save a bundle also.</p>
<p>thanks barrons. so yea, berkeley, michigan, and wisconsin already made the aau a long long time ago. =)</p>
<p>I'd never go so far as to say the majority of U-M students have the same undergrad educational experience as the majority of students at an Ivy or other top private - but the cream of the class absolutely can get a really fine education at a good state like Michigan. (I know of a "genius" student who was admitted to Michigan and took graduate-level math classes in his freshman year.) In certain specialties - Engineering, for one - Michigan and Berkeley are better than the Ivies. Undergrad business is up there with Penn and MIT. At the grad level, many state schools are right up there with the top Ivies - better in some fields - and better than many of the lesser Ivies. So I'm not seeing a huge gap between the best publics and the Ivies.<br>
Most state universities are required to accept a certain percentage of in-state students. At Michigan, they try to hold out-of-state admits to about 30-35%, and there is sometimes pressure from state legislature to accept more. Another mission of many state universities - or at least the ones with big research budgets like Michigan - is to help the state's economy - the University spins off technology to start companies, brings in federal money for high-paying research jobs, there are advantages to having an educated workforce, good healthcare from a major research hospital is attractive to prospective employers, etc. Public colleges and universities don't need to be concerned about such things.
The last couple of years have been difficult for state institutions - most have been hit with budget cuts and pressures to keep tuition down at the same time. The last time this happened, Michigan explored going private - doubt it will ever happen.</p>
<p>Topcat, I would make a small correction to your statement:</p>
<p>"I'd never go so far as to say the majority of U-M students have the same undergrad educational experience as the majority of students at an Ivy or other top private - but the cream of the class absolutely can get a really fine education at a good state like Michigan."</p>
<p>I agree that, say 90% of Michigan's student do not get the same quality of education as 90% of Ivy League students. However, I would not limit it merely to the "cream of the class" either. I would say that 60%-70% of Michigan students get the same quality education qas 90% of Ivy League students. And considering that 60%-70% of Michigan means 15,000-18,000 undergrads, that's pretty amazing.</p>
<p>Secondly, although I agree that Michigan will never go private (being public is a huge part of Michigan's identity), I believe that over time, Michigan is going to start changing its 30%-35% out of state standard for undergrads to 50%-60% out of state.</p>
<p>if michigan (or any other state school) changes to 50-60% undergrads, would it still be considered a state school? wouldnt it become a lot more tougher for michigan residents to get into their state school, thus causing many more students to go to other schools around the area (and so michigan wouldnt fulfill a state school's goal of providing education for in-state students as #1 priority). hmm, just trying to imagine if that happened</p>
<p>Topcat, Alexandre, and kfc... the issue is being explored heavily and pushed for in Virginia by UVA, WM, and V Tech.</p>
<p>from UVA:
<a href="http://www.virginia.edu/chartereduniversities/%5B/url%5D">http://www.virginia.edu/chartereduniversities/</a></p>
<p>from WM:
<a href="http://www.wm.edu/charter/index.php%5B/url%5D">http://www.wm.edu/charter/index.php</a></p>
<p>Since 1980, the proportion of William and Mary's total budget funded by the state has slipped from 42 to 18 percent this year.
William and Mary now ranks 6th among national public universities in terms of quality, but 124th in terms of financial resources </p>
<p>from VT:
<a href="http://www.vt.edu/charter/%5B/url%5D">http://www.vt.edu/charter/</a></p>
<p>for MOST state schools, their objective is to provide a solid education for as many students as possible. it seems to me that this is a worthy cause, and, therefore, they should not try to compete with ivy leagues. also, you will get as much out of a school as you put in it. a state school graduate who works hard will receive a much better education than an ivy league graduate who slacks off.</p>
<p>UCLA is historically an excellent school. As of this very moment, so is UCSD.</p>
<p>Guess as an UCSD alum, I have to second Westside ;)</p>
<p>I'm also inclined to agree with West Side... :)</p>
<p>speaking of UCSD, i see that UCSD is rising in the rankings and in overall reputation. whats the cause behind this? overflow of talented students who are enticed by scholarships and then decided to enroll at SD instead of cal or LA? improvement in faculty?</p>
<p>The cause of UCSD's rise, in my opinion, is an influx of students who are already of UCLA/UCB caliber. Due to the rather capricious nature of admission at UCLA and UCB and restricted enrollments due to budget cuts, thousands are being rejected despite meeting or exceeding the SAT and GPA scores to be admitted; consequently, these students simply trickle down to the next best UC in the system, which in this case is UCSD. This higher-quality freshman class augments UCSD's already growing reputation for being a study-intensive university. When UCSD someday becomes as selective and prestigious as UCLA/UCB, then the trickle-down effect will self-propagate down to the next tier of UCs, and so on.</p>
<p>yea thats what seems to be happening. i also hear that UCSD has a lot more merit scholarships than ucb and ucla and thus try to entice some of the ucb/ucla admits away. or at least thats what it seemed with my graduating class, while ucb and ucla had the attitude of "more than enough students will want to come here anyway, even without scholarship offers"</p>