<p>I debated even posting this because its really beating a dead horse, but I thought maybe someone would be interested in seeing what Richard Levin, president of Yale, had to say about the Usnews undergrad rankings.</p>
<p>"The ranking is unfair for public universities. Private institutions get credit for the fact they have larger endowments and more financial resources. But actually state universities have the support of their state governments. Though they don't have endowments but their annual grant is very large. That is the first discrimination against state universities. </p>
<p>The second discrimination is alumni giving. Private schools are better in this because they depend on alumni giving. State universities get resources directly from the state government. If you put these two factors in it, probably it will take about 10 or 20 scores off from private universities. If you look at the quality of the faculty at UC Berkeley, it should be among top ten and even top five"</p>
<p>Did the president of Yale really say "Though they don't have endowments but their annual grant is very large"? If so, that's pretty funny. Looks much like their mass email to RD applicants this year with "Applcation received" in the subject line.</p>
<p>Yes, but the privates were screaming bloody murder when the FIRST USNews ranking came out bcos many of those 'publics' were ranked ahead of the blue-bloods. Shortly after, USNews added endowments and alumni giving to the ranking criteria, dropping Berkeley out of the top 10 for good. </p>
<p>Based in the NE, ya think USNews was concerned about selling magazines? :D</p>
<p>The USNews rankings mean next to nothing. Most mass media is full of crap and prevent people from thinking for themselves in America.</p>
<p>Real information requires much more effort to get.</p>
<p>Anyways, Yale's statements might've made sense 4-5 years ago, but the budget crisis has eroded UC's ability to educate.</p>
<p>In addition, the undergraduate population at the UC's is getting dumber each year thankks to the failure of teacher-union-and-hollywood-run primary and secondary education system.</p>
<p>While our high school system has 1/3 drop outs, lets dramatically raise Pre-K fudning through a proposition! Little doubt, liberals looked at the data that said those that attended preschool did better in high school and college while ignoring the fact that those that attend preschool are self-selecting to be already middle class and probably wealthy.</p>
<p>The failure of the UC's is reflective of the failure of California governance, which is ad-hoc and run by an incompotent liberal administration supported by a hippie voter that would rather bash Bush about mostly picayune matters rather than look at their own failure of a state.</p>
<p>1 was to have the budget always be in balance (no more deficit spending).</p>
<p>Another was to get rid of gerrymandering which makes ultraconservative candidates and ultraliberal candidates. </p>
<p>I forgot the other 2. They were both defeated due to commercials where they show an angry old white guy in judge's robes laughing at Californians giving up their right to draw districts.</p>