Decreasing in Quality

[Anonymous]

Quality-wise, or at least value for money, most schools are on the decline. The U.S. system of higher education is the most expensive in the world, but we are in the middle of the pack on degree attainment. The change in college cost has exceeded the rate of inflation for over three decades and student loan debt exceeds all consumer debt other than mortgages. There is a huge bloat of administrators at many schools and teaching is getting passed increasingly to adjuncts.

Most people here are actually interested in which schools are falling in rankings and popularity, which is different from quality. More than anything, USNWR measures inputs (resources, selectivity). Quality would be an output. You can have excellent steel, glass, etc., but the finished car may be a lemon. USNWR may even penalize quality. Demanding technical schools tend to have lower graduation rates, but that is often attributable to having to cram more into 4 years. The new "social mobility" inputs don't really have anything to do with educational quality, and the percentage of Pell grants varies widely by state demographics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Returning to the original question, I would not spend out of state tuition to send my kids for undergraduate studies at one of University of California schools (such as Berkeley or UCLA) due to terrible budget concerns and overcrowding that cause kids to take 6 years to graduate, on average.

I don’t understand this comment. The four year grad rate at UCLA and Berkeley is 77% and 75% respectively. With the exception of UVA and W&M, that’s right on par with other top publics.

yeah but 77% is Terrible. UVa is like 94%.

Cmu is only 72%. Lehigh’s is similar but I can’t remember what it is

It's because UCLA and UC Berkeley have a large and rigorous engineering programs, along with a large number of community college transfer and a more middle-class population of kids who work part-time during college.

UVA and W&M are liberal arts schools, basically. And they have the wealthiest kids among publics. Although I find it hard to believe UVA's 94% 4-year rate considering the community college students they must take in.

UVA is 89% 4 year. The calculations in Common Data Set are for cohorts. It is only including those that enrolled first time in a year and then calculating the percentage of those that graduated 4 or 6 years later. The guaranteed programs with community colleges may mean graduating classes are larger than entering classes.

Regarding UCLA and Berkeley, they report more difficulty getting classes they need on sites like Niche than UVA or W&M, which may also be a factor.

There are likely many factors in graduation rates. I'd say entering student preparation, difficulty of programs, difficulty of getting required classes, financial situation, and how much the student likes the school are all factors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous[b wrote:]I don't know how someone has not mentioned UVA. Little STEM[/b]. The VA schools with strong STEM just keep getting stronger.

This is such a weird/incorrect comment since UVa is a tier-one research university with extensive undergraduate and graduate programs in sciences, engineering, math, and medicine funded by vast funding and resources. If anything, the educational emphasis at UVa has shifted to stem fields in the last twenty-years to reflect the social/economic emphasis on these fields.

But UVA has a very low percentage of graduates majoring in STEM fields compared to other top schools. Vast funding and resources is also inaccurate if you are doing a comparison.

Here is a list of top 20 national universities plus top 5 national LACs plus selected publics (Berkeley, UCLA, Michigan, Texas, UVA) ranked by percentage of students in CS, Engineering, Physical Sciences, Bio/Life Sciences, and Math/Statistics:

University Total
Caltech 98%
MIT 89%
Stanford 50%
Duke 48%
Princeton 47%
Harvard 46%
Swarthmore 44%
Cornell 44%
Rice 42%
WashU 41%
Michigan 41%
Pomona 40%
Berkeley 36%
Brown 36%
Williams 35%
Northwestern 34%
Amherst 34%
Texas 34%
Wellesley 33%
Yale 33%
UCLA 33%
Notre Dame 33%
Dartmouth 32%
Vanderbilt 31%
Penn 30%
UVA 27%

Did it ever occur to you that UVA doesn't need more STEM because Virginia has Virginia Tech? And we also have William & Mary for the smaller LAC experience. Then there are all the other Virginia universities to select from.

It occurs to me that UVA would probably like to compare itself to many of the schools above it in the list. I'm pretty sure the last several presidents have had their eyes on similar numbers.

It's already ranked as no. 3 for public universities in America. I don't think it needs to compare itself to anyone else. It's hard enough to get into already from NOVA. "In 2019, the University was ranked the No. 3 best public university by U.S. News & World Report. In the 20 years since U.S. News began ranking public universities as a separate category, UVA has ranked in the top three and continues to rank in the Top 30 among the best of all national universities, public and private.'

UVA is number 4 in USNWR now, behind UCLA, Berkeley, and Michigan. It used to be ahead of all of those schools. https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Returning to the original question, I would not spend out of state tuition to send my kids for undergraduate studies at one of University of California schools (such as Berkeley or UCLA) due to terrible budget concerns and overcrowding that cause kids to take 6 years to graduate, on average.

This is such an oft-reported concern and always idiotically incorrect.

UC schools have a high amount of time to graduate because they are engineering-focused schools, which tends to require more major-specific credits. Add on to the fact that a huge number of UC students work part-time, meaning they take fewer credits to spread out the cost of attending college

Berkeley only has 11% in engineering. That is not that high of a percentage.

Another factor is schools with a higher percentage of students living on campus tend to have higher graduation rates. This is one of the reasons schools like GMU started building more on-campus housing years ago. Graduation rates actually did go up quite a bit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Quality-wise, or at least value for money, most schools are on the decline. The U.S. system of higher education is the most expensive in the world, but we are in the middle of the pack on degree attainment. The change in college cost has exceeded the rate of inflation for over three decades and student loan debt exceeds all consumer debt other than mortgages. There is a huge bloat of administrators at many schools and teaching is getting passed increasingly to adjuncts.

Most people here are actually interested in which schools are falling in rankings and popularity, which is different from quality. More than anything, USNWR measures inputs (resources, selectivity). Quality would be an output. You can have excellent steel, glass, etc., but the finished car may be a lemon. USNWR may even penalize quality. Demanding technical schools tend to have lower graduation rates, but that is often attributable to having to cram more into 4 years. The new "social mobility" inputs don't really have anything to do with educational quality, and the percentage of Pell grants varies widely by state demographics.

I agree with you except for the “degree attainment” part. The U.S., as a whole, admits thousands of kids into its colleges who would never get in to college in most European countries. Also, it is well known that grade inflation is persistent in American colleges. Do you really want more of it so that more kids graduate?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Returning to the original question, I would not spend out of state tuition to send my kids for undergraduate studies at one of University of California schools (such as Berkeley or UCLA) due to terrible budget concerns and overcrowding that cause kids to take 6 years to graduate, on average.

I don’t understand this comment. The four year grad rate at UCLA and Berkeley is 77% and 75% respectively. With the exception of UVA and W&M, that’s right on par with other top publics.

yeah but 77% is Terrible. UVa is like 94%.

Cmu is only 72%. Lehigh’s is similar but I can’t remember what it is

It's because UCLA and UC Berkeley have a large and rigorous engineering programs, along with a large number of community college transfer and a more middle-class population of kids who work part-time during college.

UVA and W&M are liberal arts schools, basically. And they have the wealthiest kids among publics. Although I find it hard to believe UVA's 94% 4-year rate considering the community college students they must take in.

Berkeley has a lot of problems that contribute to its lower graduation rate. Lack of affordable housing. Lake of classes needed to graduate. Look there first. From SF Chronicle:

UC Berkeley has neglected students in need of stable housing. A survey commissioned by the university found that 10 percent of students have experienced homelessness while attending UC Berkeley, with 20 percent of postdoctoral students having experienced homelessness. UC Berkeley provides fewer beds per student than any other school in the UC system, housing less than a quarter of undergraduates.

[Anonymous]

PP that's the unfortunate reality of many public universities, even world-renowned ones like Berkeley. States simultaneously cut budgets heavily while pressuring schools to take in more students, getting more students while not getting more funding to build dorms

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Returning to the original question, I would not spend out of state tuition to send my kids for undergraduate studies at one of University of California schools (such as Berkeley or UCLA) due to terrible budget concerns and overcrowding that cause kids to take 6 years to graduate, on average.

I don’t understand this comment. The four year grad rate at UCLA and Berkeley is 77% and 75% respectively. With the exception of UVA and W&M, that’s right on par with other top publics.

yeah but 77% is Terrible. UVa is like 94%.

Cmu is only 72%. Lehigh’s is similar but I can’t remember what it is

It's because UCLA and UC Berkeley have a large and rigorous engineering programs, along with a large number of community college transfer and a more middle-classpopulation of kids who work part-time during college.

UVA and W&M are liberal arts schools, basically. And they have the wealthiest kids among publics. Although I find it hard to believe UVA's 94% 4-year rate considering the community college students they must take in.

Berkeley has a lot of problems that contribute to its lower graduation rate. Lack of affordable housing. Lake of classes needed to graduate. Look there first. From SF Chronicle:

UC Berkeley has neglected students in need of stable housing. A survey commissioned by the university found that 10 percent of students have experienced homelessness while attending UC Berkeley, with 20 percent of postdoctoral students having experienced homelessness. UC Berkeley provides fewer beds per student than any other school in the UC system, housing less than a quarter of undergraduates.

This is simply not true. The reason for the poor graduation rate in the U.C. schools is because they are so large that students cannot register for the classes that they need, ergo it takes five or six years. Read Chronicle of Higher Education, College Confidential and Reddit on this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Returning to the original question, I would not spend out of state tuition to send my kids for undergraduate studies at one of University of California schools (such as Berkeley or UCLA) due to terrible budget concerns and overcrowding that cause kids to take 6 years to graduate, on average.

I don’t understand this comment. The four year grad rate at UCLA and Berkeley is 77% and 75% respectively. With the exception of UVA and W&M, that’s right on par with other top publics.

yeah but 77% is Terrible. UVa is like 94%.

Cmu is only 72%. Lehigh’s is similar but I can’t remember what it is

It's because UCLA and UC Berkeley have a large and rigorous engineering programs, along with a large number of community college transfer and a more middle-classpopulation of kids who work part-time during college.

UVA and W&M are liberal arts schools, basically. And they have the wealthiest kids among publics. Although I find it hard to believe UVA's 94% 4-year rate considering the community college students they must take in.

Berkeley has a lot of problems that contribute to its lower graduation rate. Lack of affordable housing. Lake of classes needed to graduate. Look there first. From SF Chronicle:

UC Berkeley has neglected students in need of stable housing. A survey commissioned by the university found that 10 percent of students have experienced homelessness while attending UC Berkeley, with 20 percent of postdoctoral students having experienced homelessness. UC Berkeley provides fewer beds per student than any other school in the UC system, housing less than a quarter of undergraduates.

This is simply not true. The reason for the poor graduation rate in the U.C. schools is because they are so large that students cannot register for the classes that they need, ergo it takes five or six years. Read Chronicle of Higher Education, College Confidential and Reddit on this.

Schools like Berkeley use undergraduates as the disposable booster rocket layer that is puts the high flying research faculty into orbit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t hear much (good or bad) about College of the Holy Cross anymore. Same re: University of Vermont

That's because they aren't schools dcum hate on.

I know UVM built beautiful freshman dorms and two humongous STEM buildings.
Burlington is a fantastic college town.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Quality-wise, or at least value for money, most schools are on the decline. The U.S. system of higher education is the most expensive in the world, but we are in the middle of the pack on degree attainment. The change in college cost has exceeded the rate of inflation for over three decades and student loan debt exceeds all consumer debt other than mortgages. There is a huge bloat of administrators at many schools and teaching is getting passed increasingly to adjuncts.

Most people here are actually interested in which schools are falling in rankings and popularity, which is different from quality. More than anything, USNWR measures inputs (resources, selectivity). Quality would be an output. You can have excellent steel, glass, etc., but the finished car may be a lemon. USNWR may even penalize quality. Demanding technical schools tend to have lower graduation rates, but that is often attributable to having to cram more into 4 years. The new "social mobility" inputs don't really have anything to do with educational quality, and the percentage of Pell grants varies widely by state demographics.

I agree with you except for the “degree attainment” part. The U.S., as a whole, admits thousands of kids into its colleges who would never get in to college in most European countries. Also, it is well known that grade inflation is persistent in American colleges. Do you really want more of it so that more kids graduate?

Obama did poor and low achieving students a TREMENDOUS disservice when he seemed college for everyone. Some many ill equipped students thought they were entitled and took out massive loans all but to drop out and be saddled with the debt but no diploma.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Quality-wise, or at least value for money, most schools are on the decline. The U.S. system of higher education is the most expensive in the world, but we are in the middle of the pack on degree attainment. The change in college cost has exceeded the rate of inflation for over three decades and student loan debt exceeds all consumer debt other than mortgages. There is a huge bloat of administrators at many schools and teaching is getting passed increasingly to adjuncts.

Most people here are actually interested in which schools are falling in rankings and popularity, which is different from quality. More than anything, USNWR measures inputs (resources, selectivity). Quality would be an output. You can have excellent steel, glass, etc., but the finished car may be a lemon. USNWR may even penalize quality. Demanding technical schools tend to have lower graduation rates, but that is often attributable to having to cram more into 4 years. The new "social mobility" inputs don't really have anything to do with educational quality, and the percentage of Pell grants varies widely by state demographics.

I agree with you except for the “degree attainment” part. The U.S., as a whole, admits thousands of kids into its colleges who would never get in to college in most European countries. Also, it is well known that grade inflation is persistent in American colleges. Do you really want more of it so that more kids graduate?

Obama did poor and low achieving students a TREMENDOUS disservice when he seemed college for everyone. Some many ill equipped students thought they were entitled and took out massive loans all but to drop out and be saddled with the debt but no diploma.

Thanks Obama! Him and his damned “seeming”.

//PP wtf are you blatting about?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous[b wrote:]I don't know how someone has not mentioned UVA. Little STEM[/b]. The VA schools with strong STEM just keep getting stronger.

This is such a weird/incorrect comment since UVa is a tier-one research university with extensive undergraduate and graduate programs in sciences, engineering, math, and medicine funded by vast funding and resources. If anything, the educational emphasis at UVa has shifted to stem fields in the last twenty-years to reflect the social/economic emphasis on these fields.

But UVA has a very low percentage of graduates majoring in STEM fields compared to other top schools. Vast funding and resources is also inaccurate if you are doing a comparison.

Here is a list of top 20 national universities plus top 5 national LACs plus selected publics (Berkeley, UCLA, Michigan, Texas, UVA) ranked by percentage of students in CS, Engineering, Physical Sciences, Bio/Life Sciences, and Math/Statistics:

University Total
Caltech 98%
MIT 89%
Stanford 50%
Duke 48%
Princeton 47%
Harvard 46%
Swarthmore 44%
Cornell 44%
Rice 42%
WashU 41%
Michigan 41%
Pomona 40%
Berkeley 36%
Brown 36%
Williams 35%
Northwestern 34%
Amherst 34%
Texas 34%
Wellesley 33%
Yale 33%
UCLA 33%
Notre Dame 33%
Dartmouth 32%
Vanderbilt 31%
Penn 30%
UVA 27%

Did it ever occur to you that UVA doesn't need more STEM because Virginia has Virginia Tech? And we also have William & Mary for the smaller LAC experience. Then there are all the other Virginia universities to select from.

It occurs to me that UVA would probably like to compare itself to many of the schools above it in the list. I'm pretty sure the last several presidents have had their eyes on similar numbers.

It's already ranked as no. 3 for public universities in America. I don't think it needs to compare itself to anyone else. It's hard enough to get into already from NOVA. "In 2019, the University was ranked the No. 3 best public university by U.S. News & World Report. In the 20 years since U.S. News began ranking public universities as a separate category, UVA has ranked in the top three and continues to rank in the Top 30 among the best of all national universities, public and private.'

UVA is number 4 in USNWR now, behind UCLA, Berkeley, and Michigan. It used to be ahead of all of those schools. https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities

This change happened only because USN&WR changed the criteria of ranking to include number of Pell grants students. Universities have no ability to alter, change or pick Pell Grant students. I understand USN&WR is dropping that next year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t hear much (good or bad) about College of the Holy Cross anymore. Same re: University of Vermont

That's because they aren't schools dcum hate on.

I know UVM built beautiful freshman dorms and two humongous STEM buildings.
Burlington is a fantastic college town.

My daughter’s public had a lot of kids apply to UVM as a safety for their ivy/T20 reach schools. Especially those who want NE schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous[b wrote:]I don't know how someone has not mentioned UVA. Little STEM[/b]. The VA schools with strong STEM just keep getting stronger.

This is such a weird/incorrect comment since UVa is a tier-one research university with extensive undergraduate and graduate programs in sciences, engineering, math, and medicine funded by vast funding and resources. If anything, the educational emphasis at UVa has shifted to stem fields in the last twenty-years to reflect the social/economic emphasis on these fields.

But UVA has a very low percentage of graduates majoring in STEM fields compared to other top schools. Vast funding and resources is also inaccurate if you are doing a comparison.

Here is a list of top 20 national universities plus top 5 national LACs plus selected publics (Berkeley, UCLA, Michigan, Texas, UVA) ranked by percentage of students in CS, Engineering, Physical Sciences, Bio/Life Sciences, and Math/Statistics:

University Total
Caltech 98%
MIT 89%
Stanford 50%
Duke 48%
Princeton 47%
Harvard 46%
Swarthmore 44%
Cornell 44%
Rice 42%
WashU 41%
Michigan 41%
Pomona 40%
Berkeley 36%
Brown 36%
Williams 35%
Northwestern 34%
Amherst 34%
Texas 34%
Wellesley 33%
Yale 33%
UCLA 33%
Notre Dame 33%
Dartmouth 32%
Vanderbilt 31%
Penn 30%
UVA 27%

Did it ever occur to you that UVA doesn't need more STEM because Virginia has Virginia Tech? And we also have William & Mary for the smaller LAC experience. Then there are all the other Virginia universities to select from.

It occurs to me that UVA would probably like to compare itself to many of the schools above it in the list. I'm pretty sure the last several presidents have had their eyes on similar numbers.

It's already ranked as no. 3 for public universities in America. I don't think it needs to compare itself to anyone else. It's hard enough to get into already from NOVA. "In 2019, the University was ranked the No. 3 best public university by U.S. News & World Report. In the 20 years since U.S. News began ranking public universities as a separate category, UVA has ranked in the top three and continues to rank in the Top 30 among the best of all national universities, public and private.'

UVA is number 4 in USNWR now, behind UCLA, Berkeley, and Michigan. It used to be ahead of all of those schools. https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities

This change happened only because USN&WR changed the criteria of ranking to include number of Pell grants students. Universities have no ability to alter, change or pick Pell Grant students. I understand USN&WR is dropping that next year.

How can universities not choose the number of Pell grant students??