Top 10 Public Colleges in the US

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Also let's not forget that alumni giving is literally a metric that exists to perpetuate anti-meritocracy through legacy status.

You’re literally wrong. Alumni giving is emphasized at my school, but legacy gets you zero credit in admissions.

This is true at many institutions.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Berkeley
Michigan
UCLA
UVA
UNC CH
UCSD
Wisconsin
Illinois
U Washington
College of W&M

If you are an undergraduate, though, you should probably consider how much the school is committed to undergraduate education and experience. If you re-rank these schools by Niche undergraduate alumni ratings of "did I get my money's worth?", it looks like this:

College of W&M
UNC CH
Michigan
Wisconsin
UVA
Illinois
UCLA
UCSD
Berkeley
U Washington

Public universities have limited resources, so even for a school like Berkeley, it is difficult to be great at everything.

Michigan has over a 12 billion dollar endowment, plus state funding. It is not lacking for resources. Michigan is considered great at just about everything they offer academically. Among privates; only Stanford and perhaps MIT, Princeton, and Cornell can say that.

Nearly a third of Michigan's endowment belongs to the healthcare system and has nothing to do with undergraduate education. For the remaining part, a significant chunk is going to belong to the Law School, Ross, etc. They don't share with undergraduate programs. It is an unfair comparison, but if you compare Michigan to Princeton, as you did, you will see that Princeton has an endowment of $27B with no medical system, no law school or business school, and only 8,600 students. Michigan has 46,000 students. So Princeton's endowment is 12X as large as Michigan's on a per student basis, and if you factor the points I made above, the difference is even more significant than that.

Universities can and do divert money from undergraduates to fund research and graduate education (or from humanities programs to STEM programs, etc.). You are assuming resources are evenly allocated and they are not.

Considering the fact that Michigan is strong to excellent across all disciplines that it offers, it makes it even more impressive that ONLY 8 billion is reserved for those areas. I wasn’t comparing the size of Michigan’s endowment compared to Princeton’s endowment. More the fact that it does so many things so well. Perhaps Princeton was a bad example as the school’s offerings are much more limited.

The point in question was whether Michigan lacks comparable resources compared to the private schools cited. It might come close with Cornell, but it would not be close compared to MIT, Princeton, and Stanford. The "ONLY $8 billion" endowment you cite is spread across 46,000 students, and it is probably unevenly very unevenly distributed across them since the majority of endowment funds are restricted by the donor as to purpose. On a per student basis, that is far below what top private schools have.

I am not disputing that Michigan is relatively strong across the board.

“ I am not disputing that Michigan is relatively strong across the board.”

….and that was my point. There is enough money in the endowment to fund those strong departments, even with highly rated medical, law, and business schools. I didn’t even mention dentistry, pharmacy, and a myriad of other programs that also have undergraduate programs.

Michigan is built on having undergraduates fund research programs with their tuition dollars.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:UNC is going to be moving down in the coming years.

Why is that?

Top publics in fast-growing states usually go up in rankings due to increased selectivity and tax base.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UNC is going to be moving down in the coming years.

Why is that?

Top publics in fast-growing states usually go up in rankings due to increased selectivity and tax base.

Typical DCUM. Whatever school the poster supports will be rising. Whatever school is a rival or stands between their school and its future hoped for position sucks and will be falling.

[Anonymous]

UNC has been on an upward trend for the last decade and I don’t expect that trend to reverse. Top notch academics, great athletics (University of National Champions), great college town and strong school spirit. Any student would be lucky to attend.

[Anonymous]

And enjoys a great climate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:UNC has been on an upward trend for the last decade and I don’t expect that trend to reverse. Top notch academics, great athletics (University of National Champions), great college town and strong school spirit. Any student would be lucky to attend.

Problem is UF is on a sharper upward trend and has UNC beat in every category you named except, arguably, college town. That's why so many kids from North Carolina are clamoring to get into UF OOS whereas two decades ago it was the opposite. Chomp chomp.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UNC has been on an upward trend for the last decade and I don’t expect that trend to reverse. Top notch academics, great athletics (University of National Champions), great college town and strong school spirit. Any student would be lucky to attend.

Problem is UF is on a sharper upward trend and has UNC beat in every category you named except, arguably, college town. That's why so many kids from North Carolina are clamoring to get into UF OOS whereas two decades ago it was the opposite. Chomp chomp.

UF has been rising in the rankings, but it has a much worse 4 year graduation rate than UNC and is 1.5x the size. Only about 16% of the students at UF are OOS (matching the amount of applicants)--sort of surprising since it's fairly cheap for OOS. That might cause it to grow more, but it's kind of surprising to me that it's not more popular for OOS applicants. UNC is far more selective in its OOS applicants, costs more and still gets a higher percentage of OOS students.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:There is no question that for the undergraduate student of the liberal arts and sciences, the College of William and Mary offers the most rigorous, highest quality education of any public university in the country.

Perhaps for liberal arts, but definitely not for natural sciences or even social sciences. Berkeley, UNC, and Michigan outdo's the Virginia publics by far.

Liberal arts includes natural sciences and social sciences.

+1 W&M has top-notch undergraduate teaching in liberal arts and sciences. With only 6000 undergrads and a tiny handful of grad programs, it's not going to compare with top-tier research 1 universities in terms of research productivity etc., but there's no public school like it for quality of undergrad academics. Each year, we regularly employ 20-30 interns/recent grads from many different colleges (in the region and throughout the US) and W&M students--in the social and natural sciences-- are reliably among the very strongest--especially in research/data analysis/writing. I'm angling for my kids to apply there.

Lets look at the original statement

There is no question that for the undergraduate student of the liberal arts and sciences, the College of William and Mary offers the most rigorous, highest quality education of any public university in the country.

W&M is not more rigorous than Berkeley. Top students at Berkeley can take classes that don't even exist at W&M.

Higher quality? You could argue that, due to smaller classes and more accessible professors. Or you could argue against that, considering the professors at Berkeley are Nobel laureates and world-renowned, and the professors at W&M are very much not that and are under-paid if anything.

Berkeley and W&M are two completely different schools working on two different models. I'm not sure how anyone could know which is more rigorous unless they did a time spent and result achieved study on each, and I'm pretty sure that doesn't exist. What I do know is that of all the national public universities, W&M and Berkeley are the top two undergraduate institutions for producing PhDs on a per capita basis, and by some distance. Since the top private undergraduate national universities for producing PhDs on a per capita basis are Caltech, MIT, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Stanford, I would say this is evidence that both Berkeley and W&M are relatively rigorous.

William and Mary gets overlooked frequently these days, perhaps because it is so unlike almost all other public schools, but I think Virginia is lucky to have it.

Yes. I'd say it's quite unlike virtually any other college, public or private.

[Anonymous]

It’s a shame that in the US you can’t go “out of state” without paying more. I believe that our public universities could be even better if they had national student bodies like other countries’ public universities do. In Canada, no one respects the private universities; the public ones are the best. And no one is turning down McGill or U of T because they can’t afford it like kids in the US have to in places like Pennsylvania, Illinois, Maine, New Hampshire, and others I’m sure.

We need some fully tuition subsidized national public universities, preferably with students being chosen solely through entrance exams.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s a shame that in the US you can’t go “out of state” without paying more. I believe that our public universities could be even better if they had national student bodies like other countries’ public universities do. In Canada, no one respects the private universities; the public ones are the best. And no one is turning down McGill or U of T because they can’t afford it like kids in the US have to in places like Pennsylvania, Illinois, Maine, New Hampshire, and others I’m sure.

We need some fully tuition subsidized national public universities, preferably with students being chosen solely through entrance exams.

What you said sounds all good until you hit the line who pays it. Each state has its own financials and spending philosophy. The tax payers do not want to finance the education of students from other states. This is why you have in-state college benefit for the tax payers of the state. Seems natural to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s a shame that in the US you can’t go “out of state” without paying more. I believe that our public universities could be even better if they had national student bodies like other countries’ public universities do. In Canada, no one respects the private universities; the public ones are the best. And no one is turning down McGill or U of T because they can’t afford it like kids in the US have to in places like Pennsylvania, Illinois, Maine, New Hampshire, and others I’m sure.

We need some fully tuition subsidized national public universities, preferably with students being chosen solely through entrance exams.

What you said sounds all good until you hit the line who pays it. Each state has its own financials and spending philosophy. The tax payers do not want to finance the education of students from other states. This is why you have in-state college benefit for the tax payers of the state. Seems natural to me.

That’s why are state schools (many of them at least) are 80% instate and change, which feels provincial to me. I don’t agree with the philosophy or believe it is a successful one. I also don’t think it’s the most meritocratic one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s a shame that in the US you can’t go “out of state” without paying more. I believe that our public universities could be even better if they had national student bodies like other countries’ public universities do. In Canada, no one respects the private universities; the public ones are the best. And no one is turning down McGill or U of T because they can’t afford it like kids in the US have to in places like Pennsylvania, Illinois, Maine, New Hampshire, and others I’m sure.

We need some fully tuition subsidized national public universities, preferably with students being chosen solely through entrance exams.

What you said sounds all good until you hit the line who pays it. Each state has its own financials and spending philosophy. The tax payers do not want to finance the education of students from other states. This is why you have in-state college benefit for the tax payers of the state. Seems natural to me.

That’s why are state schools (many of them at least) are 80% instate and change, which feels provincial to me. I don’t agree with the philosophy or believe it is a successful one. I also don’t think it’s the most meritocratic one.

You have to look at the whole state system and that the aim is not wholly meritocratic. Are the primary problems of our country that the smartest people aren't getting enough opportunities?? I don't think so--we're great at that. Higher ed serves a regional job market, it has downward pressure to influence the quality of educational investment in preK-12 schools. If it were all meritocratic we'd have worse polarization outcomes with kids from rich, well-educated areas flooding all the schools and the majority of kids from elsewhere left in the dust. We can already see how much a functioning democracy rests on a well-educated citizenry--do we really want to worsen that by giving more education prizes to those already at the top? Good state schools that give local students a solid education and access to careers are one of the few democratizing forces in this country which is already so uneven.