Reply to Was UM, UVA, and UW Madison considered more “prestigious” back in the day?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Back when I graduated high school( in the eighties), these were the schools people talked about. They weren’t Harvard, but I’d put them analogous to Notre Dame or Vanderbilt today. What happened? Is it all because they say “public” or “land-grant”, kind of how the ultra pretentious rip on Cornell.[/quote]

[b]The answer is that universities began to compete like firms starting in the Reagan Era[/b]. Notre Dame and Vanderbilt built up their endowments and invested in their resources to attract talented students. Michigan and Virginia, while public, did similar things, with Michigan allowing its sports teams to market and bring in revenue. They also have top graduate professional schools (mba/JD).

Wisconsin, one of the few land grants with great academics, did not become more market oriented. It hasn’t changed, in fact quite the opposite. While the others privatized, Wisconsin remained an old fashioned state university which cared more about graduate research than undergraduate education.

The US News rank reflects that perfectly. Notre Dame and Vanderbilt are considered slightly more prestigious ( for undergraduate), UVA and Michigan are tied, and Wisconsin is a bit behind. It’s not rocket science.
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The history has nothing to do with "the Reagan era", whatever that means.  Today's competitiveness has to do with the rise and power of USNew&WOrld report.  Schools started reporting their test scores and GPA to USNWR, and USNWR because (IMHO ) far too powerful. [/quote]

+1 exactly. USNWR was created in 1983. From that point on, the colleges were competing against USNWR. Has nothing to do with Reagan[/quote]

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