<p>900K SF of new STEM facilities is midweight. Top STEM schools have added over 2 million SF.</p>
<p>Also Bama latest available info book shows total academic resources/funding rating fell from 2000-2010 from 170 to 187th and the portion coming from tuition doubled while state share fell. (pages 97-105)</p>
<p>. <a href=“http://oira.ua.edu/d/sites/all/files/reports10/10_trend_data.pdf”>http://oira.ua.edu/d/sites/all/files/reports10/10_trend_data.pdf</a></p>
<p>“Also Bama latest available info book shows total academic resources/funding rating fell from 2000-2010 from 170 to 187th and the portion coming from tuition doubled while state share fell.”</p>
<p>The freebie scholarships with pay have to come from somewhere barrons. </p>
<p>I have seen UA’s facilities and have met some of the faculty. I do not think UA has had trouble recruiting great faculty. The University is very well managed and has strong leadership IMHO.</p>
<p>An engineering professor said UA hosted an international scientific meeting and professors from other universities were drooling over UA’s facilities; a MIT prof lamented that he has old facilities, half the research space that UA gives its profs, and he has to share his space when the UA profs have double space by themselves. Probably gives some fuel to MIT improving things for their faculty; after all MIT doesn’t have any trouble recruiting students willing to pay full costs - it had a #1 rating on a international college rating the last two years. When I saw that, I told my overseas contacts to look at US News for a little better rating system (more depth, better info). </p>
<p>Some scholarship students may find that their UA scholarships may mean their cost of attending UA is less expensive than their in-state public option(s). That is attractive for families struggling to fund more than one college education for multiple children. Is any cost difference beneficial is an important concern.</p>
<p>For OOS scholarship students, it is worth visiting to see how UA compares on what degree they are pursuing, check out the honors college program and other offerings specific to that student’s college pursuits. UA does have a spread of housing options, and some students rent off-campus keeping their housing costs down.</p>
<p>With an increase in STEM resources, UA’s engineering dept is gaining focus -gaining attention against Auburn (and GA Tech) that have a historical reputation. AU has the vet school, pharmacy school; UA is considered the flagship university.</p>
<p>Certainly each family and their student needs to evaluate the best ‘fit’ for them. </p>
<p>
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<p>Recruiting the best faculty has very little to do with money problems. The best faculty tend to teach at the best universities, which have significantly greater financial resources than Alabama does.</p>
<p>FWIW, I can’t say I’ve heard too many stories of Alabama stealing top faculty from other universities. That’s probably the case because the best faculty generally prefer prestigious universities. I think it can be said, uncontroversially, that Alabama is not a prestigious university. This is the case regardless of how successful some of Alabama’s alumni are, or how respected the university is by adcoms. </p>
<p>Alabama’s done well for itself in the past decade. But it’s still pretty far off from the big boys. Alabama’s current endowment is $600m; UCLA’s endowment is $2.6B. And since California’s a very rich state, I imagine UCLA gets quite a bit more than Alabama from state funding too, and that’s not even including the tuition of the university. And UCLA’s on the low end of the endowment pool. Schools like Virginia and Michigan have endowments of $5.2B and $9.1B respectively. Endowments of this size give these universities the luxury to buy top-of-the-line facilities and give faculty pay which is competitive enough to keep their top faculty.</p>
<p>In terms of pay, Alabama’s average pay for full professors is about $130,000; UCLA’s is $162,000, Berkeley’s is $154,000, and Michigan’s is about $149,000. And again, this is fairly on the low scale. Caltech’s average is $175,000 and Chicago’s is $198,000. It’s going to be tough to keep top faculty when there are more prestigious universities attempting to poach your faculty, which offer better pay, and the ability to live in, arguably, more desirable locations.</p>
<p>The best universities also tend to be in (or near) large cities. This would include Harvard, MIT, USC, UCLA, UCSD, Caltech, Berkeley, Stanford, NYU, Columbia, Penn, WUSTL, Chicago, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, and Michigan off the top of my head, It’s probably also pretty easy to get from Princeton and Yale to NYC, so they could arguably be included too. And I’m pretty sure I’m just scratching the surface.</p>
<p>Then there are departments. Older and richer universities tend to have better departments because the best faculty tended to go there where they won prestigious prizes. And that made the departments even more prestigious than they were originally. Historically, top faculty might have gone there because those universities were older (and richer) to begin with, or because those universities got tons of money from the state. Top faculty might want to go to prestigious departments because the departments have a rich history, because they want to work with other top faculty in those departments, or both. Unless competing departments have history or faculty like this as well, it’s very difficult to compete with universities that do.</p>
<p>Lastly, let’s talk about operations. I’m not sure what Alabama’s spends on its operations, but I’d assume that it’s significantly smaller than other prestigious universities. Virginia’s wiki said it spends like $2.5B on its operations and UCLA spent, I believe, about $5B on its operations in a recent fiscal year. (and it’s been spending pretty near that for quite some time.) Other universities like Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, etc. Are likely also on this level. I doubt that Alabama is.</p>
<p>So yes, Alabama’s a fine university, it’s respected by adcoms, and its alumni can do well if they work hard during college. But it’s not a prestigious university, there still a large gap between it and prestigious universities, and I’d bet that they have trouble recruiting (and retaining) top faculty they have which tend to find themselves there.</p>
<p>But getting back to the point of this thread, unless you REALLY love Alabama and feel like its the perfect university, there’s little reason to pick it over OU. It will likely have few advantages, and will likely cost more.</p>
<p>""But advocating paying full freight for Umich is insane <em>when the family would need to take on loans.</em> Especially when the family has 4 kids. ( How do you see that conversation? “Oh, sorry, we remortgaged the house for your big sister, so now you other kids just figure college out on your own, too bad she was our favorite and we’re broke.”)</p>
<p>==========================</p>
<p>Very well said. and yet the above sadly actually does happen. Parents are sometimes so excited when Child 1 is applying to colleges or are very naive about paying for college (assuming massive aid will come) that when spring comes they agree to selling their left arm “to make it happen”. They dont look down the road nor do they do the math. Then when Child 2 or 3 or whatever come along, the well is dry. My SIL did this…paid OOS at UCSD for Child 1, then Child 2 had to commute to local state school since they were still burdened with Plus Loans. </p>
<p>Nobody is claiming that Bama is in the same league as UMich. </p>
<p>The choice is really now between UOhio and Bama, not Bama and UMich. </p>
<h1>"“Top STEM schools have added over 2 million SF.”"</h1>
<p>Out of curiosity, which schools have very RECENTLY added 2M SF of new STEM (only) space to their existing STEM bldgs. </p>
<p>(Just to be clear, the 900,000 sq ft that Bama recently added is exclusively STEM and was added to its existing STEM bldgs…Bama has about 1.6M sq ft of STEM space. The new STEM space wasn’t counting the 40 other non-STEM bldgs that were recently built and added. </p>
<p>I highly doubt OhioU has added anything like these numbers in recent years…which again, is the only school other than Bama that can reasonably be chosen at this point.</p>
<p>Honestly, between UO and UA, the choice is equal and rests on personal preferences for OP.</p>
<p>“Nobody is claiming that Bama is in the same league as UMich.”</p>
<p>Finally, something we can all agree on!</p>
<p>While it may be true…the differences between ‘top schools’ and lower tier schools is much less than many would= have you believe. In the real world, it means something for a few years after graduation in some fields, but ultimately will mean very little other than as a topic of curiosity. Highly intelligent, motivated students will do well at any reputable school. </p>
<p>One of the big factors in ‘rating’ colleges is spending. For many reasons, that is,frankly, stupid. If for no other reason than the economies of the different states. A dollar in California does not go as far as a dollar in Alabama. They also put a lot of stock in the salary of professors. I would argue that many higher paid professors are so checked out as to be of no use to the vast majority of students. Another thing to remember is that at Michigan, your student will rarely see an actual professor until Junior year. At the ‘lower’ colleges, they actually get qualified people to teach Freshman.</p>
<p>" Another thing to remember is that at Michigan, your student will rarely see an actual professor until Junior year. At the ‘lower’ colleges, they actually get qualified people to teach Freshman."</p>
<p>So incredibly wrong. “In the real world” making silly generalized statements like the one above will not serve you very well. </p>
<p>Well, the choices arent really equal</p>
<p>the upper quartile at UO is only an ACT 27+</p>
<p>at Bama it’s an ACT 31+…and Bama is a bigger school, so lots more smarter students.</p>
<p>UO has a very high acceptance rate…about 75%…nearly everyone gets in.</p>
<p>Bama’s acceptance rate is about 47%</p>
<p>and, as mentioned earlier, Bama has more diversity…tons of OOS kids, kids from all 50 states. UO is nearly all instate.</p>
<p>and I highly doubt that UO has made anywhere near the improvements, constructed the new buildings, etc that Bama has recently done.</p>
<p>and few schools maintain their campuses as Bama does…beauty is also nice to be around. </p>
<p>Overall, the key point is that UA is the state’s flagship, whereas OU is 3rd best in OH, just above a directional. But still for OP other factors will come in: being close to family, weather (some prefer cold and dry, others prefer hot and humid), size of campus (some prefer very large, some don’t), environment (type of college town/surrounding area, proximity to city/internship/beach/mountains/hiking…) etc. It’s all subjective at that point.
One issue that may be a deal breaker and that OP must absolutely investigate is how many “tutorials” or honors courses comprise the regular freshman and sophomore schedule in the Tutorial College. If it’s just 1 out of 5, it’s not worth it and UA is the best option . If it’s more, it’s back to the subjective.</p>
<p>“beauty is also nice to be around”</p>
<p>At Bama, this applies to the students as much as the campus.</p>
<p>^^
lol…that is sooooo true. I’ve never seen a collection of more gorgeous people…and I’m from California where supposedly all the beautiful people are…lol.</p>
<p>It appears the hotter coeds go to that other instate school:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.popcrunch.com/hottest-student-bodies-the-50-best-colleges-ranked-by-looks-1-10/”>http://www.popcrunch.com/hottest-student-bodies-the-50-best-colleges-ranked-by-looks-1-10/</a></p>
<p>Go War Eagle!</p>
<p>no way…I’ve been on both campuses many times. Auburn has some good looking students, but no way compares to the incredible-looking students at Bama.</p>
<p>I’ll defer to the expert. ;-)</p>
<p>I was on the BAMA campus not long ago (to eat at Dreamland BBQ mostly) and was deeply disappointed by the quality of the SB. Many more Goobers than beauties. Really surprising to me. Maybe higher stds are sending the best talent to AU and Ole Miss…And it was a football weekend so most kids were around. Also had breakfast at Waysider which was fun.on game day. </p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>Well if it was a gameday, then who knows who you were seeing…fans, the other school’s fans, etc. There’s a reason why the Student Body gets an A for looks. I don’t know who the goobers were, but they certainly weren’t students…the students aren’t red-neck in the least. On the other hand, the Bama students might be deeply disappointed by the looks of the guy standing by the VW. ;)</p>
<p>Is that a picture of you barrons? If so, I would say it was taken at least 30 years ago, if not more. </p>
<p>nah, that’s Lee Harvey Oswald.</p>