Top 10 Public Colleges in the US

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:1) UC Berkeley
2) UCLA
3) Michigan
4) UVA
5) Georgia Tech
6) UNC CH
7) UC Irvine
8) UC Santa Barbra
9) W&M
10) UT Austin

What do you guys think. I think mine is pretty similar to US News (excluding Florida lol). Criteria I used were selectivity, average test scores, academic prestige, etc.

UC Irvine should not be on. If you look at UC schools, UC San Diego should be on before it. I guess UC Santa Barbara may be up and coming, but would not put it ahead of W&M and UT Austin and would think schools like Washington and Wisconsin would be deserving of consideration.

If you are looking at this from an undergraduate perspective, it seems to me your criteria above don't really capture that. A school can have high academic prestige due to its graduate programs, but that often doesn't translate to great undergraduate experience and opportunities. Indicators there should be things like 4 year graduation rate, alumni satisfaction and giving rates, etc.

Those are the absolute worst indicators to judge schools based on and really only exist to hurt public universities based on non-academic factors.

4-year graduation rate means the students at the school take easy majors, don't fail courses with subjective grading, attend full-time due to no extracurricular commitments i.e. jobs, etc.

Meanwhile public universities are full of students majoring in tough STEM subjects where grading is objective - meaning students fail. Public university students also often hold part-time jobs with significant time commitments i.e. 20 hours+ per week, and therefore these students take fewer courses and take longer to finish.

The easiest way to raise the 4-year graduation rate is to target and admit only wealthy students who won't need to work part-time and will major in easy majors because their family's wealth and connections will carry them through life. Schools like Vanderbilt, Duke and Northwestern have done this to great effect in recent times, and historically it is how the Ivies built their reputation and its what they still currently practice.

Same with alumni satisfaction. Want great alumni satisfaction? Make college a summer camp with luxury dorms, fitness centers, easy academics allowing for great amount of time spent in social clubs. To pay for this, attract and admit only wealthy students that can afford the luxuries and social clubs. Again, look at the "T20" outside of MIT, Caltech, Cornell and Hopkins.

Same with alumni giving. Public universities are funded by taxpayers, and therefore a) students feel they have already contributed through taxes, b) public university students tend to take student loans to pay tuition themselves rather than their parents paying it for them - adding to the belief that they've done enough - and c) public universities other than Michigan/Virginia don't have large alumni outreach programs for fund-raising as their funding is through the state.

Add on to the fact that public university students are generally poorer to begin with, without large familial wealth cushions, and simply can afford to contribute less than private university alums.

Alternatively, a high 4-year graduation rate means the students 1) can get the classes they need to graduate 2) don't run up unnecessary debt or incur opportunity costs in delayed earnings and 3) are generally happy with their experience and making proper academic process because the university is committed to undergraduates. And a high alumni giving rate is correlated with alumni satisfaction with their experience with the school and whether they believe they received value for their investment.

Many public schools are using undergraduates to prop up research and graduate programs.

1) Getting classes needed for graduation is way overstated.
2) Publics cost 1/5 of privates. May be worth comparing debt and opportunity cost between privates, but not when comparing to publics.
3) Meaningless

High alumni satisfaction again, simply is based on enjoying one's social time at school, not academic quality. More rigor means less satisfaction for most students because academics becomes a great source of stress.

High alumni giving rate has nothing to do with believing they received value for their investment, moreso an attempt to further improve the standing of the school which helps the alum's own career.

Again, 4-year graduation rate difference is based on the easiness of the school and the wealth of the students.

UVa and W&M have the highest 4-year graduation rates among publics. They are largely liberal-arts focused universities. They also have the wealthiest median income among publics:

UVa at $155k with 67% from top 20%
W&M at $176k with 76% from top 20%, respectively.

IIRC, UVa has the largest percentage of students from the top 1% of wealth among publics, and rivals privates in that regard.

Meanwhile Berkeley and UCLA have lower 4-year graduation rates. Yet they have a much larger proportion of poorer students and a much heavier focus on STEM:

Berkeley at $112k and 54% from top 20
UCLA at $104k and 48% from top 20

Virginia is in no way a wealthier state than California, there really is no reason for such a difference for such a drastic difference between the top publics in the state in terms of wealth
Then you have an entirely engineering-based school like Georgia Tech with a sub-50% 4-year graduation rate.

I think there is a correlation between alumni giving rates and value for investment. If you take the 10 universities listed by the OP and look at the percentage of graduates that believe they got their "money's worth" on Niche, 3 of the top 4 are also in the top 4 for alumni giving rate (W&M, Georgia Tech, and UNC). If you look at the bottom 4 for "money's worth", 3 of the bottom 4 were also in the bottom 4 for alumni giving rate (UC Irvine, UC Berkeley, UCLA).

No, there's a correlation between alumni giving rates and size of the school. It's much easier to get <2,000 graduates per year to contribute, especially through phone banks that these universities use extensively, than getting 7,000+ graduates per year to do the same.

Mass alumni emails simply get ignored, but when you have current students specifically calling you on the phone, its more difficult for the alum to ignore the plea for donations.

Add that on to the fact that students attending smaller schools tend to be wealthier in the beginning of their careers due to familial wealth and can afford to donate. While the majority of kids at large publics are anything but wealthy, often have issues with loans they've taken out on their own, worked part-time through college, etc. and ergo do not contribute due to lack of disposable income.

Look at the alumni giving rates among privates. They are all SLACs other than Dartmouth which is essentially a SLAC with <4,000 students, and Princeton:
https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/the-short-list-college/articles/universities-where-the-most-alumni-donate#:~:text=The%20average%20alumni%20giving%20rate,rates%20of%2044%25%20and%20higher.

Add on to the fact that historically, private colleges have heavily relied on alumni giving while public colleges have had plenty of state funding. Ergo private colleges have tried-and-try operations for alumni donations. Public universities don't.

In fact, considering everything that public universities spend on is disclosed and public information, the public and state government do not view public universities spending large sums of money on lavish alumni functions, alumni outreach, phone banks, etc. favorably - they exist to educate students, not raise money in perpetuity.

UNC and Michigan have giving rates 2x plus the UC schools and they are large. The difference is they have higher money's worth ratings. USC has one of the highest giving rates and it is one of the largest privates.

UNC is the around the size of UVA at around 18,000 students - differently not large considering most flagships have 30,000.

Michigan does, and Michigan has done a very good job of tapping into their alumni base for a long time. Their sports program helps.

UC schools, on the other hand, hisotrically have been well-funded by the state - a state with very high state taxes - and ergo a) don't focus much on alumni engagement and b) alumni feel that they are already paying for the school through state taxes.

But if you think the academic rigor, difficulty, or quality at Michigan exceeds Berkeley, you'd be wrong, especially in the humanities and social sciences.

Large schools have high alumni satisfaction through sports programs. Otherwise there's nothing connecting a student at Berkeley to the rest of the 30,000 students before and after graduation. USC is similar in that regard. NYU and GW are the opposite - low alumni giving with unknown sports programs.

Small colleges, particularly SLACs, have high alumni satisfaction because they foster a community atmosphere that only a small student body can provide.

However, that doe

UNsn't mean Berkeley should only admit <1,000 students per year to increase alumni giving rates.

Also, there's always a chance of these SLAC's going out of business due to lack of funding, a problem public flagships generally never face.

UNC has higher state funding per student than UC schools, similar family incomes, yet has nearly 3x rate of UCs. What UNC does have is a significantly higher percentage who believe they got their money's worth.

Going to need a source on UNC having higher state funding per student than Berkeley and UCLA, not the UC's as a whole.

Berkeley/UCLA do not have similar median incomes to UNC, at all. The former two have $112k and $104k, while UNC has $135k in N.C. That's in no way "similar". On top of that, the income required to be upper-middle class is much higher in California.

UNC also has a very rabid sports supporting base, similar to Michigan. Equating higher alumni giving rate with satisfaction with the education provided is simply dumb.

Yeah, that is counter-intuitive. People actually like to give to schools they hate and did nothing for them.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Where my UVA at?

#226. Striving for top 200.

#26 on rankings that people care about, stay mad kid.

which one is that?

Look up “uva rank” and it’s the first website dumbo.

i wasn't the #226 guy above. i was a new poster. why do uva folks so nasty?

#226 is UVA’s ranking at QS.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:1) UC Berkeley
2) UCLA
3) Michigan
4) UVA
5) Georgia Tech
6) UNC CH
7) UC Irvine
8) UC Santa Barbra
9) W&M
10) UT Austin

What do you guys think. I think mine is pretty similar to US News (excluding Florida lol). Criteria I used were selectivity, average test scores, academic prestige, etc.

UC Irvine should not be on. If you look at UC schools, UC San Diego should be on before it. I guess UC Santa Barbara may be up and coming, but would not put it ahead of W&M and UT Austin and would think schools like Washington and Wisconsin would be deserving of consideration.

If you are looking at this from an undergraduate perspective, it seems to me your criteria above don't really capture that. A school can have high academic prestige due to its graduate programs, but that often doesn't translate to great undergraduate experience and opportunities. Indicators there should be things like 4 year graduation rate, alumni satisfaction and giving rates, etc.

Those are the absolute worst indicators to judge schools based on and really only exist to hurt public universities based on non-academic factors.

4-year graduation rate means the students at the school take easy majors, don't fail courses with subjective grading, attend full-time due to no extracurricular commitments i.e. jobs, etc.

Meanwhile public universities are full of students majoring in tough STEM subjects where grading is objective - meaning students fail. Public university students also often hold part-time jobs with significant time commitments i.e. 20 hours+ per week, and therefore these students take fewer courses and take longer to finish.

The easiest way to raise the 4-year graduation rate is to target and admit only wealthy students who won't need to work part-time and will major in easy majors because their family's wealth and connections will carry them through life. Schools like Vanderbilt, Duke and Northwestern have done this to great effect in recent times, and historically it is how the Ivies built their reputation and its what they still currently practice.

Same with alumni satisfaction. Want great alumni satisfaction? Make college a summer camp with luxury dorms, fitness centers, easy academics allowing for great amount of time spent in social clubs. To pay for this, attract and admit only wealthy students that can afford the luxuries and social clubs. Again, look at the "T20" outside of MIT, Caltech, Cornell and Hopkins.

Same with alumni giving. Public universities are funded by taxpayers, and therefore a) students feel they have already contributed through taxes, b) public university students tend to take student loans to pay tuition themselves rather than their parents paying it for them - adding to the belief that they've done enough - and c) public universities other than Michigan/Virginia don't have large alumni outreach programs for fund-raising as their funding is through the state.

Add on to the fact that public university students are generally poorer to begin with, without large familial wealth cushions, and simply can afford to contribute less than private university alums.

Alternatively, a high 4-year graduation rate means the students 1) can get the classes they need to graduate 2) don't run up unnecessary debt or incur opportunity costs in delayed earnings and 3) are generally happy with their experience and making proper academic process because the university is committed to undergraduates. And a high alumni giving rate is correlated with alumni satisfaction with their experience with the school and whether they believe they received value for their investment.

Many public schools are using undergraduates to prop up research and graduate programs.

1) Getting classes needed for graduation is way overstated.
2) Publics cost 1/5 of privates. May be worth comparing debt and opportunity cost between privates, but not when comparing to publics.
3) Meaningless

High alumni satisfaction again, simply is based on enjoying one's social time at school, not academic quality. More rigor means less satisfaction for most students because academics becomes a great source of stress.

High alumni giving rate has nothing to do with believing they received value for their investment, moreso an attempt to further improve the standing of the school which helps the alum's own career.

Again, 4-year graduation rate difference is based on the easiness of the school and the wealth of the students.

UVa and W&M have the highest 4-year graduation rates among publics. They are largely liberal-arts focused universities. They also have the wealthiest median income among publics:

UVa at $155k with 67% from top 20%
W&M at $176k with 76% from top 20%, respectively.

IIRC, UVa has the largest percentage of students from the top 1% of wealth among publics, and rivals privates in that regard.

Meanwhile Berkeley and UCLA have lower 4-year graduation rates. Yet they have a much larger proportion of poorer students and a much heavier focus on STEM:

Berkeley at $112k and 54% from top 20
UCLA at $104k and 48% from top 20

Virginia is in no way a wealthier state than California, there really is no reason for such a difference for such a drastic difference between the top publics in the state in terms of wealth
Then you have an entirely engineering-based school like Georgia Tech with a sub-50% 4-year graduation rate.

I think there is a correlation between alumni giving rates and value for investment. If you take the 10 universities listed by the OP and look at the percentage of graduates that believe they got their "money's worth" on Niche, 3 of the top 4 are also in the top 4 for alumni giving rate (W&M, Georgia Tech, and UNC). If you look at the bottom 4 for "money's worth", 3 of the bottom 4 were also in the bottom 4 for alumni giving rate (UC Irvine, UC Berkeley, UCLA).

No, there's a correlation between alumni giving rates and size of the school. It's much easier to get <2,000 graduates per year to contribute, especially through phone banks that these universities use extensively, than getting 7,000+ graduates per year to do the same.

Mass alumni emails simply get ignored, but when you have current students specifically calling you on the phone, its more difficult for the alum to ignore the plea for donations.

Add that on to the fact that students attending smaller schools tend to be wealthier in the beginning of their careers due to familial wealth and can afford to donate. While the majority of kids at large publics are anything but wealthy, often have issues with loans they've taken out on their own, worked part-time through college, etc. and ergo do not contribute due to lack of disposable income.

Look at the alumni giving rates among privates. They are all SLACs other than Dartmouth which is essentially a SLAC with <4,000 students, and Princeton:
https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/the-short-list-college/articles/universities-where-the-most-alumni-donate#:~:text=The%20average%20alumni%20giving%20rate,rates%20of%2044%25%20and%20higher.

Add on to the fact that historically, private colleges have heavily relied on alumni giving while public colleges have had plenty of state funding. Ergo private colleges have tried-and-try operations for alumni donations. Public universities don't.

In fact, considering everything that public universities spend on is disclosed and public information, the public and state government do not view public universities spending large sums of money on lavish alumni functions, alumni outreach, phone banks, etc. favorably - they exist to educate students, not raise money in perpetuity.

UNC and Michigan have giving rates 2x plus the UC schools and they are large. The difference is they have higher money's worth ratings. USC has one of the highest giving rates and it is one of the largest privates.

UNC is the around the size of UVA at around 18,000 students - differently not large considering most flagships have 30,000.

Michigan does, and Michigan has done a very good job of tapping into their alumni base for a long time. Their sports program helps.

UC schools, on the other hand, hisotrically have been well-funded by the state - a state with very high state taxes - and ergo a) don't focus much on alumni engagement and b) alumni feel that they are already paying for the school through state taxes.

But if you think the academic rigor, difficulty, or quality at Michigan exceeds Berkeley, you'd be wrong, especially in the humanities and social sciences.

Large schools have high alumni satisfaction through sports programs. Otherwise there's nothing connecting a student at Berkeley to the rest of the 30,000 students before and after graduation. USC is similar in that regard. NYU and GW are the opposite - low alumni giving with unknown sports programs.

Small colleges, particularly SLACs, have high alumni satisfaction because they foster a community atmosphere that only a small student body can provide.

However, that doe

UNsn't mean Berkeley should only admit <1,000 students per year to increase alumni giving rates.

Also, there's always a chance of these SLAC's going out of business due to lack of funding, a problem public flagships generally never face.

UNC has higher state funding per student than UC schools, similar family incomes, yet has nearly 3x rate of UCs. What UNC does have is a significantly higher percentage who believe they got their money's worth.

Going to need a source on UNC having higher state funding per student than Berkeley and UCLA, not the UC's as a whole.

Berkeley/UCLA do not have similar median incomes to UNC, at all. The former two have $112k and $104k, while UNC has $135k in N.C. That's in no way "similar". On top of that, the income required to be upper-middle class is much higher in California.

UNC also has a very rabid sports supporting base, similar to Michigan. Equating higher alumni giving rate with satisfaction with the education provided is simply dumb.

You didn't provide a source to support your claim that the UCs were better funded by the state. But anyway, go to IPEDS https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/use-the-data and select compare institutions and select the institutions you want to compare. Once you have done that, select Frequently used/Derived variables: Financial indicators then select Revenues from state appropriations per FTE (GASB) and select the years you want to compare. UNC for FY19 was $18,563 per FTE in state funding vs $10,652 for UCLA and $10,119 for Berkeley.

You seem to think UCLA an Berkeley don't participate in college athletics. They are number 2 and 11 in all time NCAA championships and are in one of the Power conferences.

If you think UNC is too rich and too small to be compared to the UC schools for alumni giving rate or "money's worth" rating, take the University of Florida. It has a significantly higher undergraduate enrollment than either UCLA or Berkeley, a median family income of $106,700 (if you can believe the NYT Chetty analysis) compared to $104,900 at UCLA and $119,900 at Berkeley. UF FY2019 state appropriation per FTE was $15,762 vs. $10,652 for UCLA and $10,119 for Berkeley. So UF is larger, has similar family incomes, and better funded, all factors you cited negatively correlated with higher giving rate, yet it has an alumni giving rate over 2X either that of UCLA and Berkeley, which is again paired with a significantly higher "Money's worth" rating from alumni.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:



Going to need a source on UNC having higher state funding per student than Berkeley and UCLA, not the UC's as a whole.

Berkeley/UCLA do not have similar median incomes to UNC, at all. The former two have $112k and $104k, while UNC has $135k in N.C. That's in no way "similar". On top of that, the income required to be upper-middle class is much higher in California.

UNC also has a very rabid sports supporting base, similar to Michigan. Equating higher alumni giving rate with satisfaction with the education provided is simply dumb.

UNC's rabid sports base really only applies to basketball.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:



Going to need a source on UNC having higher state funding per student than Berkeley and UCLA, not the UC's as a whole.

Berkeley/UCLA do not have similar median incomes to UNC, at all. The former two have $112k and $104k, while UNC has $135k in N.C. That's in no way "similar". On top of that, the income required to be upper-middle class is much higher in California.

UNC also has a very rabid sports supporting base, similar to Michigan. Equating higher alumni giving rate with satisfaction with the education provided is simply dumb.

UNC's rabid sports base really only applies to basketball.

And even then it is has always been referred to as a wine and cheese crowd, not really rabid. My experience is UNC grads seem to be quite supportive of their school ("the Southern Part of Heaven") in a way I haven't seen from UCLA and Berkeley grads. The debate, I guess, is whether this is in part due to UNC being socially more satisfying, sports mania, somewhat smaller (but still pretty big) or if it actually has to do with their satisfaction with the academic experience. These may be difficult to separate. What I would say is the UCLA and Berkeley grads (undergraduate) I have known seem to appreciate elements of their experience there, but aren't overall the most positive.

In this debate, I suspect most of the factors mentioned may be relevant. Schools with higher giving rates tend to have some combination of satisfied alumni, higher alumni outreach budgets, wealthier alumni, higher need for support from alumni giving (which really is most schools these days given the decline in public funding for education), perhaps smaller size (but this could be correlated with alumni satisfaction, etc.). It isn't a one factor thing.

[Anonymous]

UNC has been called University of National Championships—it does very well in FH, lacrosse, tennis, soccer etc and the athletic department is extremely supportive of all the athletes, not just the football and basketball players. And the football team is going to be very good in the near future so things look bright in the southern part of Heaven.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:1) UC Berkeley
2) UCLA
3) Michigan
4) UVA
5) Georgia Tech
6) UNC CH
7) UC Irvine
8) UC Santa Barbra
9) W&M
10) UT Austin

What do you guys think. I think mine is pretty similar to US News (excluding Florida lol). Criteria I used were selectivity, average test scores, academic prestige, etc.

UC Irvine should not be on. If you look at UC schools, UC San Diego should be on before it. I guess UC Santa Barbara may be up and coming, but would not put it ahead of W&M and UT Austin and would think schools like Washington and Wisconsin would be deserving of consideration.

If you are looking at this from an undergraduate perspective, it seems to me your criteria above don't really capture that. A school can have high academic prestige due to its graduate programs, but that often doesn't translate to great undergraduate experience and opportunities. Indicators there should be things like 4 year graduation rate, alumni satisfaction and giving rates, etc.

Those are the absolute worst indicators to judge schools based on and really only exist to hurt public universities based on non-academic factors.

4-year graduation rate means the students at the school take easy majors, don't fail courses with subjective grading, attend full-time due to no extracurricular commitments i.e. jobs, etc.

Meanwhile public universities are full of students majoring in tough STEM subjects where grading is objective - meaning students fail. Public university students also often hold part-time jobs with significant time commitments i.e. 20 hours+ per week, and therefore these students take fewer courses and take longer to finish.

The easiest way to raise the 4-year graduation rate is to target and admit only wealthy students who won't need to work part-time and will major in easy majors because their family's wealth and connections will carry them through life. Schools like Vanderbilt, Duke and Northwestern have done this to great effect in recent times, and historically it is how the Ivies built their reputation and its what they still currently practice.

Same with alumni satisfaction. Want great alumni satisfaction? Make college a summer camp with luxury dorms, fitness centers, easy academics allowing for great amount of time spent in social clubs. To pay for this, attract and admit only wealthy students that can afford the luxuries and social clubs. Again, look at the "T20" outside of MIT, Caltech, Cornell and Hopkins.

Same with alumni giving. Public universities are funded by taxpayers, and therefore a) students feel they have already contributed through taxes, b) public university students tend to take student loans to pay tuition themselves rather than their parents paying it for them - adding to the belief that they've done enough - and c) public universities other than Michigan/Virginia don't have large alumni outreach programs for fund-raising as their funding is through the state.

Add on to the fact that public university students are generally poorer to begin with, without large familial wealth cushions, and simply can afford to contribute less than private university alums.

Alternatively, a high 4-year graduation rate means the students 1) can get the classes they need to graduate 2) don't run up unnecessary debt or incur opportunity costs in delayed earnings and 3) are generally happy with their experience and making proper academic process because the university is committed to undergraduates. And a high alumni giving rate is correlated with alumni satisfaction with their experience with the school and whether they believe they received value for their investment.

Many public schools are using undergraduates to prop up research and graduate programs.

1) Getting classes needed for graduation is way overstated.
2) Publics cost 1/5 of privates. May be worth comparing debt and opportunity cost between privates, but not when comparing to publics.
3) Meaningless

High alumni satisfaction again, simply is based on enjoying one's social time at school, not academic quality. More rigor means less satisfaction for most students because academics becomes a great source of stress.

High alumni giving rate has nothing to do with believing they received value for their investment, moreso an attempt to further improve the standing of the school which helps the alum's own career.

Again, 4-year graduation rate difference is based on the easiness of the school and the wealth of the students.

UVa and W&M have the highest 4-year graduation rates among publics. They are largely liberal-arts focused universities. They also have the wealthiest median income among publics:

UVa at $155k with 67% from top 20%
W&M at $176k with 76% from top 20%, respectively.

IIRC, UVa has the largest percentage of students from the top 1% of wealth among publics, and rivals privates in that regard.

Meanwhile Berkeley and UCLA have lower 4-year graduation rates. Yet they have a much larger proportion of poorer students and a much heavier focus on STEM:

Berkeley at $112k and 54% from top 20
UCLA at $104k and 48% from top 20

Virginia is in no way a wealthier state than California, there really is no reason for such a difference for such a drastic difference between the top publics in the state in terms of wealth
Then you have an entirely engineering-based school like Georgia Tech with a sub-50% 4-year graduation rate.

I think there is a correlation between alumni giving rates and value for investment. If you take the 10 universities listed by the OP and look at the percentage of graduates that believe they got their "money's worth" on Niche, 3 of the top 4 are also in the top 4 for alumni giving rate (W&M, Georgia Tech, and UNC). If you look at the bottom 4 for "money's worth", 3 of the bottom 4 were also in the bottom 4 for alumni giving rate (UC Irvine, UC Berkeley, UCLA).

No, there's a correlation between alumni giving rates and size of the school. It's much easier to get <2,000 graduates per year to contribute, especially through phone banks that these universities use extensively, than getting 7,000+ graduates per year to do the same.

Mass alumni emails simply get ignored, but when you have current students specifically calling you on the phone, its more difficult for the alum to ignore the plea for donations.

Add that on to the fact that students attending smaller schools tend to be wealthier in the beginning of their careers due to familial wealth and can afford to donate. While the majority of kids at large publics are anything but wealthy, often have issues with loans they've taken out on their own, worked part-time through college, etc. and ergo do not contribute due to lack of disposable income.

Look at the alumni giving rates among privates. They are all SLACs other than Dartmouth which is essentially a SLAC with <4,000 students, and Princeton:
https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/the-short-list-college/articles/universities-where-the-most-alumni-donate#:~:text=The%20average%20alumni%20giving%20rate,rates%20of%2044%25%20and%20higher.

Add on to the fact that historically, private colleges have heavily relied on alumni giving while public colleges have had plenty of state funding. Ergo private colleges have tried-and-try operations for alumni donations. Public universities don't.

In fact, considering everything that public universities spend on is disclosed and public information, the public and state government do not view public universities spending large sums of money on lavish alumni functions, alumni outreach, phone banks, etc. favorably - they exist to educate students, not raise money in perpetuity.

UNC and Michigan have giving rates 2x plus the UC schools and they are large. The difference is they have higher money's worth ratings. USC has one of the highest giving rates and it is one of the largest privates.

UNC is the around the size of UVA at around 18,000 students - differently not large considering most flagships have 30,000.

Michigan does, and Michigan has done a very good job of tapping into their alumni base for a long time. Their sports program helps.

UC schools, on the other hand, hisotrically have been well-funded by the state - a state with very high state taxes - and ergo a) don't focus much on alumni engagement and b) alumni feel that they are already paying for the school through state taxes.

But if you think the academic rigor, difficulty, or quality at Michigan exceeds Berkeley, you'd be wrong, especially in the humanities and social sciences.

Large schools have high alumni satisfaction through sports programs. Otherwise there's nothing connecting a student at Berkeley to the rest of the 30,000 students before and after graduation. USC is similar in that regard. NYU and GW are the opposite - low alumni giving with unknown sports programs.

Small colleges, particularly SLACs, have high alumni satisfaction because they foster a community atmosphere that only a small student body can provide.

However, that doe

UNsn't mean Berkeley should only admit <1,000 students per year to increase alumni giving rates.

Also, there's always a chance of these SLAC's going out of business due to lack of funding, a problem public flagships generally never face.

UNC has higher state funding per student than UC schools, similar family incomes, yet has nearly 3x rate of UCs. What UNC does have is a significantly higher percentage who believe they got their money's worth.

Going to need a source on UNC having higher state funding per student than Berkeley and UCLA, not the UC's as a whole.

Berkeley/UCLA do not have similar median incomes to UNC, at all. The former two have $112k and $104k, while UNC has $135k in N.C. That's in no way "similar". On top of that, the income required to be upper-middle class is much higher in California.

UNC also has a very rabid sports supporting base, similar to Michigan. Equating higher alumni giving rate with satisfaction with the education provided is simply dumb.

This has been studied before in academic research and the results do not support your conclusion:

Title: Alumni Satisfaction with Their Undergraduate Academic Experience and the Impact on Alumni Giving and Participation

Findings: "Results from this research indicated that there were significant increases in both alumni giving and alumni participation based on the degree of alumni satisfaction with the undergraduate academic experience. As alumni satisfaction increased so did the odds of alumni giving and alumni participation. Thus alumni who are satisfied with their academic experience are more likely to be involved (i.e., give and/or participate) with the university than those alumni who are not as satisfied with their academic experience."

Link: https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1057/palgrave.ijea.2140220.pdf


Title: Patterns of giving to one’s alma mater among young graduates from selective institutions

Conclusion: "The single biggest determinant of the generosity of alumni donations is satisfaction with one’s undergraduate experience."

Link:http://theunbrokenwindow.com/Higher%20Ed/Readings/Monks%20EER%20Young%20Gifts.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The QS rankings list the top 10 public universities in the US as these:

1. Cornell University
2. University of Michigan
3. University of California Berkeley
4. University of California Los Angeles
5. University of California San Diego
6. University of Texas Austin
7. University of Wisconsin Madison
8. University of Illinois Urbana Champaign
9. University of Washington
10. Penn State University

This was posted earlier in the thread: QS https://www.topuniversities.com/university-ranking...world-university-rankings/2021

1. Michigan
2. UCB
3. UCLA
4. UCSD
5. Wisconsin
6. Texas
7. Washington
8. Ga Tech
9. Illinois
10. UNC

Cornell is a private unversity with public funded colleges (e.g., the SUNY Ithaca schools), but that doesn't make it a public university.

Also PP missed out on Ga Tech

Never heard of QS . Yet another ranking service no k on me cares about because they sensibly realize the creator is making lists only to make money and sell books. And every time you Mention it, the authors get more internet counts. Hmmmm could you be the creator if these nonsense ratings? Or do you just need attention?

QS rankings are one of the top 3 school rankings in the world. It is the most viewed ranking system in the world. The fact that you don’t know it speaks to your ignorance , not its validity.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/QS_World_University_Rankings

[Anonymous]

My kid wants to major in CS or Engineering and some of the top ranked schools for CS are pretty down in the US News list below. In the end, what matters is how good is your school in the major of your choice and how well you perform at school. Eventually, your college education should lead you to a good paying job and a satisfying career.

University of California--Los Angeles
University of California--Berkeley
University of Michigan--Ann Arbor
University of Virginia
University of North Carolina--Chapel Hill
University of California--Santa Barbara
University of Florida
Georgia Institute of Technology
University of California--Irvine
University of California--San Diego
William & Mary
University of Texas at Austin
University of Wisconsin--Madison
University of Georgia
University of Illinois--Urbana-Champaign
Ohio State University--Columbus
Purdue University--West Lafayette
Florida State University
University of Maryland--College Park
University of Pittsburgh--Pittsburgh Campus
University of Washington
Pennsylvania State University--University Park
Rutgers University--New Brunswick
Piscataway, NJ
University of Connecticut
Texas A&M University
University of Massachusetts--Amherst
University of Minnesota--Twin Cities
Clemson University
Virginia Tech
Indiana University--Bloomington
Michigan State University
North Carolina State University
Binghamton University--SUNY
Colorado School of Mines
Stony Brook University--SUNY
University at Buffalo--SUNY
University of California--Riverside
University of Iowa
Auburn University

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:UNC has been called University of National Championships—it does very well in FH, lacrosse, tennis, soccer etc and the athletic department is extremely supportive of all the athletes, not just the football and basketball players. And the football team is going to be very good in the near future so things look bright in the southern part of Heaven.

UVA is better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UVA and William and Mary are both still listed as Public Ivies. I see no reason to think otherwise.

Listed by who?

Nobody thinks these schools are Ivy equivalents. They're not even that great for public universities.

by the person who coined the term public ivy.

[Anonymous]

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

ugh, no it isn't.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:UNC has been called University of National Championships—it does very well in FH, lacrosse, tennis, soccer etc and the athletic department is extremely supportive of all the athletes, not just the football and basketball players. And the football team is going to be very good in the near future so things look bright in the southern part of Heaven.

Been saying this since the 1960's.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UVA and William and Mary are both still listed as Public Ivies. I see no reason to think otherwise.

Listed by who?

Nobody thinks these schools are Ivy equivalents. They're not even that great for public universities.

by the person who coined the term public ivy.

go look it up in Wikipedia. Counselors have been using the term for almost forty years.