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Which leads to what I think is by far the greatest advantage of the top private schools over the top public schools, in that the former schools are safer. At a school like Brown, you’re not going to flunk out. Not only will you will graduate, but also probably with a pretty decent GPA. It’s practically impossible to actually get a truly terrible grade at those schools. Not so at many of the top public schools, in which you really do run an actual risk of flunking out. Even if you avoid that, you may nonetheless barely graduate, with a GPA that is completely trashed, hence preventing you from getting into any decent grad school or from getting many good jobs, or even generally, just enjoying the undergrad experience. I recall one guy, at a major public university, who went into his final semester with a GPA that was so uncomfortable close to a 2.00 that he didn’t even know whether he was going to make it to graduation, or whether he would simply flunk out completely. Just imagine you’re heading into your final semester of college, but with the legitimate fear that you still might flunk out.
This is really support for this statement:
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“The great state universities have similar problems, often to an even greater extent than Harvard and other large private universities. The University of California at Berkeley is unsurpassed as a research institution, its faculty have received many Nobel Prizes, its graduate programs rank above those of Harvard in several fields, and Berkeley is often rated number one among the nation’s universities. However, none of this translates into an outstanding undergraduate education. At Berkeley, there are estimated to be more than twice as many graduate students teaching as at Harvard. In addition, Berkeley has large numbers of part-time junior faculty, who support themselves by having other jobs-and therefore other demands on their time besides teaching. Finally, the huge size of the university-more than 30,000 students-ensures that undergraduate education is impersonal, bureaucratic, and sometimes chaotic.”
With all due respect to Mr. Sowell, there may be twice as many graduate students at Berkeley teaching, but they are teaching more undergrads. And it gives false perception that courses are taught by graduate students and “junior faculty”. All of my courses at Berkeley were taught by profs. Graduate students led discussion sections and labs. This is very common in most research universities. And the notion that an associate professor at Berkeley can be classified as “junior” is disingenuous.</p>