<p>EPTR–I think that ranking you are citing is for public schools K-12 and the only reason Maryland is ranked number one is because the counties around Washington bring up the state. That ranking is partially based on how much is spent per pupil and how many AP tests are taken, which means that the higher income states are going to consistantly be near the top. And of course, Baltimore throws lots of moeny into its awful schools. It is not a very good study although everyone in Maryland likes to throw it around.</p>
<p>I am definitely bias against state schools. I live in PA. For me it is price & environment. Academics is secondary.</p>
<p>We have 2 types of state schools – “true” state schools and “affiliated” state schools – Penn State, Temple and Pitt are all affiliates. These affiliates are double the price of the true state schools (approx. $13,500-$15,500 tuition a year/R & B equiv. to privates) and offer little in FA/merit combo for my income bracket. </p>
<p>Given the large number of privates in PA, a “solid” student, especially one who is middle class, often finds the “affilated” schools and the privates come out to close to the same price after all FA & merit is accounted.</p>
<p>Our true state schools are mainly in rural areas (and drinking is the focus of social life). Most focus (at least in the original founding) on teaching. A handful do have an honors college, but not all. The average SAT/GPA of entering freshmen is much lower. The 4 yr graduation rate is low in comparison to the privates (which of course brings the prices more in line).</p>
<p>Now – if I lived in a state when in-state tuition for flagships was $10,000 or less per year I’d have a much different opinion!</p>
<p>longhaul…agree that the affiliated state schools in PA are WAY too expensive. If you’re an excellent student, there is merit available however. I know a few kids at Pitt who are getting free tuition. One at Temple with a free ride. And my son got multiple scholarships and had friends who had most of their tuition paid for at Penn State (room and board is not very expensive compared to urban schools. So there is some merit available but it’s not widespread. And I know PSU, in particular, does not hand out much FA. </p>
<p>All in all, I’d rather be in North Carolina!</p>
<p>
Longhaul:
From your post it looks like you might not really be biased against (all) state schools - and that you actually prefer the private/affiliated options in Pa to the publics available in Pa. There is a different mix of public/private options available in different states/regions.</p>
<p>Post #300: “I also wonder whether part of the issue with New England’s public universities is this: Many public university systems were originally funded in the 19th Century by federal land grants or other state-owned public resources. New England, though, was almost entirely settled prior to that; it had no public lands to speak of (and no mineral wealth or oil reserves, either). Could that have had something to do with its underdeveloped public higher educations systems? Someone here on CC probably knows the answer.”</p>
<p>In New England, some of the funds intended for landgrant universities were given to private universities. So, MIT received some and I believe that Harvard did, too.
(At one time, both Harvard and Yale started their own ag schools, but I don’t think those were funded by federal landgrants.)</p>
<p>I also know that Cornell was given landgrants in Wisconsin since there were no more federal lands in NY State at the time Cornell was designated the NY landgrant university. Apparently, the lands allocated to Cornell were much better than those that the University or Wisconsin received, or at any rate, they yielded a much higher return.</p>
<p>Re: Post #300—Yale, Brown, and Dartmouth got the landgrant proceeds for their respective states. I’m not sure if the actual lands were located in other states as they were for Cornell.</p>
<p>I believe some of the Western states also got federal land grants to establish mining colleges in addition to those given for the usual landgrant universities.</p>
<p>So if the proceeds were to be invested at 5%, I think it’s only fair that Brown, Yale, MIT, and Dartmouth should reimburse URI, UConn, UMass, and UNH with interest since Brown et al. are not using the money for its intended purpose!</p>