Kind of self-explanatory.
If we’re talking about ALL state schools and not just the flagships: New Jersey, Alaska, Wyoming, the Dakotas, Montana, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi etc.
“My State” - Everyone (except for NC, and Cal, I guess. Maybe throw Texas in?)
@hungryteenager New York has pretty good state schools too. I’m not as familiar with the directionals in the South, but Florida also has some very strong state schools.
Brilliant @hungryteenager !
@Snowybuny the SUNYs aren’t very good at all haha
@hungryteenager, you really think University of Michigan and UVA aren’t worthwhile? And I disagree about Rutgers. I know people from NJ like to bash it, but it is a perfectly respectable state flagship.
@LBad96 I thought the Texas unis were pretty well regarded?
For good state schools–
UVA – amazing
UFlorida Gainesville – well recognized as an excellent flagship in my part of the world.
UMich–Ann Arbor–come on! This is a great school!
UMinnesota–another very good state school that gets overlooked by many, but not by all OOSers.
UIllinois–please don’t tell everyone, but this one also is good for many fields. Respected at faculty level as excellent research institution for many fields
UWisconsin Madison–No need to advertise it more than it already has been. Excellent flagship but funding is dropping because of state politics, sadly, and because Walker basically got rid of tenure (panels appointed by him can randomly decide to fire professors now) many left and recruiting for new ones is harder. The best profs may go elsewhere, it seems.
The UCs
UNC–few OOSers can get in. Amazing good school imo and Asheville is a nice oft-overlooked public LAC
UIndiana Bloomington–Another quiet and quite good school, and the campus is pretty. What I love about this school, among many things, are the self-defined majors that have turned into fun great careers for people, also the theater program. I could go on . . .
Rutgers: for those outside of NJ, many I’ve spoken to think that it’s quite a good school. I’d send my children there in a heartbeat if they didn’t want smaller places. A close friend swears by it and urges (constantly) anyone who will listen to go to Rutgers.
SUNYs–some are good for what they do. Stony Brook for sciences inc marine bio, Environmental, Geneseo LAC, FIT for fashion in NYC, Purchase (for the arts and next to NYC), I’ve heard good things about Binghamton, but don’t really know. Maritime–one of the best schools for what it does: cheap and some of the highest-paid grads
CUNYs–Macaulay Honors Program–enough said. City College is gorgeous. Aaron Copland conservatory for music. Baruch for business and some great CCs for feeding into four-year schools.
Penn State–Not one of my favorites personally but so many people want to go here. Maybe expensive for PAers but still the research is excellent and students obviously love the school.
UC Boulder–another school very popular with OOSers in my area
UWashington–Asian studies among other disciplines and the Evergreen campus
Oregon SU–science, science, science.
I’m sure Ohio has great schools too, but I know nothing about them
UVM–this is a rising OOS destination IMO–several peer parents are sending their children there lately.
UMass-Amherst–also a destination for OOSers in my area. Mass folks my not love it as much (I say from some of the CC comments) but that’s okay, it’s getting love elsewhere!
IMHO–Arizona has sadly gotten too underfunded by the state and is relying on too much online education. Not a great bet any more, but please correct me.
New Mexico has NM Tech–one of the big PH.D feeder schools
South Dakota has SDMines and Tech–one of the schools that is cheap, easy to get into, and produces some of the highest paid grads among any school in the country.
Iowa–writers program
UMaryland system for computer science, many other programs, and St.Mary’s is a very nice public LAC
UDelaware–arts program is a hidden gem imo
Alabama–very good school with great aid to attract talent
What’s the point of this thread, other than to bash state schools that you have no personal experience with?
I think this is a valid question. Another At to ask: which state would you rather live in if you were a top student headed for a flagship ? What if you were an average student ? What if you were lower income (high achieving, average ?)
There’s first academic value for the flagship. Then overall strength of the system, with directionals included. There’s also value for instate residents.
As far as I know, Nevada wins the prize of the worst flagship in all categories.
STEM2017, some of us have considerable experience with state schools. In fact, some of us have a professional history with many state schools that is longer than some of those on this site have been on earth.
lostaccount, you’ve made your disdain for SUNY well known, publicly and privately. I would humbly ask that you consider that some of us have no other choice but our in-state options, no matter how terrible the anonymous CC community thinks they are.
I think this is a valid question, too. There is a lot of wonderful positivity in threads about state schools (“that’s a very good state school, congrats!” etc) but…if some state schools are very good, there is a curve, hence not all are equal. Some are therefore NOT very good. It behooves us as customers to know which schools are better than others. We do this when we buy cars, why not with our/our kids’ higher education?
I agree that there are good state schools as well as bad state schools. But if you truly look at the question posed in the title of this post " Which States Have The Worst State Schools?" I agree with @STEM2017 in asking what is the purpose of the thread other than criticizing certain states educational systems. It doesn’t ask for alternatives and options within a state. What if a student’s only option is to attend school in their home state because of personal or financial reasons. How will telling him that their only options are bad help him? Maybe a better question may be " How to choose an instate option when options are limited or less than optimal?" That way some useful info can be exchanged. Some of the posts here do not really address the initial question , IMO.
STEM2017, some of us have considerable experience with state schools. In fact, some of us have a professional history with many state schools that is longer than some of those on this site have been on earth.
And telling the truth about what is happening-positive or negative-on state (public) campuses is very worthwhile. It is a service to society. It is an obligation.
People criticize me when I write critical things about one state system. Well, if nobody is willing to tell the truth (or discuss negatives) about what is happening on campuses, and if everyone prefers humoring the Emperor so that nobody feels badly about the school they are attending, then there is no incentive for those schools to improve. There is not even any incentive to stop misconduct on those campuses when the school itself is engaged in wrong doing. And, yes that happens.
Let’s take the example of one state school someplace that was corrupt to the core (at least to the president) until that corruption exploded into a media scandal. The president left in a cloud of disgrace. The corruption was sustained because she was able to keep those whose destiny she controlled quiet for decades. Her efforts to quiet those in the know ended up not working after being perfect for nearly 2 decades. And even the media coverage focused on only a small subset of the corruption that had been systemic. Once a few years pass after a scandal blows up, school administrators and PR staff are more than eager to see everything related to the scandal buried in the bottom of every search. Even people on this site complained about the descriptions of the misconduct because a few years had passed so they viewed the scandal as no longer relevant to perspective students. Really?
In the history of a university, a few years is nothing. But when you are 22 years old, a few years seems like another lifetime.
Once students graduate from a school they have a huge investment in how the school appears to the public. They are motivated to have it look as good as possible. As graduates they are not going to spend any effort informing people about what needs to be changed on that campus. PR on the campus is motivated to project a positive image and to actively bury all negative electronically disseminated information. So where is the incentive to change things that are problematic on campus? It behooves those in the know to speak out and find ways to make information public. We can count on PR departments to make the great things public. But who will tell the public when to look out for the bad stuff?
We talk about free press as important to a democracy. But that is not just an abstract idea. Those in the know need to find vehicles for disseminating information-even information that the public does not want to hear or acknowledge. And if it is not accurate information, then those who pursue truth will find that it is not accurate or that the negative viewpoint expressed is inconsistent with their perspective. But if there is a gag on those willing to talk, nobody will even look.
@lostaccount You are referring to UC Davis. I thought your issues were with the SUNY system.
To bash state schools that we do have experience with?
“@lostaccount You are referring to UC Davis. I thought your issues were with the SUNY system.”
I am not referring to UC Davis necessarily. The goal of my post is to educate readers about the value in posts that discuss the negative aspects of public institutions. Every US resident has a vested interest in the US public university system-in their own state and in any other state. Your federal taxes go to support schools in other states. NSF, NIH and other agencies (that your tax dollars are supporting) also provide funds to public (and private) colleges and universities. Your tax dollars are involved. You have a stake in the game-don’t you want to know whether or not the rules are being followed? How will you know if everyone is encouraged to present only the sunny side of the story?
Relatedly, I have professional (higher education field) experience with many different state systems. My goal is not to “bash” but to illuminate what is happening on state campuses. I don’t need to focus on the positive because there are plenty of other people doing that. But it is much harder to find ways to inform the public about things that the PR departments are motivated to bury but that could be improved upon if the public had more information–something that would incentivize the school to allocate resources to implement actual changes rather than to disseminate more PR messages intended to paint the school in a more positive light.
@hungryteenager If you have personal experience with a particular school - fire away!