Top Public Universities as rated by U.S. News

[engie]

It says that more people want to live in L.A. than in Jackson. What does it say to you?

It says that a UCLA degree is worth relatively less among it's core alumni base than an MSU degree is among the same thing. Nevermind how much more it costs on the front end. But no one bothers taking it to that extent to rank these things. They say "oh, low admission standards = MSU isn't any good". "High dropout rate = sheesh, MSU sucks". "They only make what out of school? Wow that school is obviously terrible".

Yes, but that's irrelevant. Why are we only taking engineering degrees in the southeast into account?

Because that's what is relevant to 99% of the audience to the conversation. It is also all that matters to me personally -- and all I have enough experience with to comment on. If you want to talk what art degrees are worth in Texas -- be my guest.

Let's hold off on the Engineers and ask if a degree from UCLA is worth more than a degree from MSU. According to the statistics I just gave you, it's worth 20k a year more.

Yet those statistics DO NOT even remotely begin to tell the whole story -- as I've already shown extensively.

Every time? Really? I'm sure you've got the stats to back that up right?

Sure. What do you want? I was there for end of Challenge X and beginning of ECOcar. That was vs elite engineering schools -- and we waxed *** the first time and I believe they came in 2nd or 3rd nationally the second time.

It's a simple fact that, in general, MSU pulls a different "quality" of engineer than many of the elite northeastern engineering schools -- and that value is being seen in the real world thanks to these competitions. "Elite" schools pull theoretical whizzes that kill standardized testing but often can't change a tire in the real world while MSU pulls from common sense. Like Jung is saying -- there is no "good" measure of intelligence -- just measures of certain forms of intelligence that you seem to be championing.

Go back and read my original post. I don't know what a good measure would be, but your measure doesn't measure anything but income gaps in poor states where most people cant bridge the gap between elementary and high school, much less high school and college. You aren't comparing peer to peer. You're saying Grade A apples are < Grade B apples because the difference between Grade B apples and rancid oranges is greater than the difference between Grade A apples and Grade B Oranges.

Yet you want to keep comparing peer-to-peer on a 1-to-1 basis between gross incomes for 2 different areas of the country with almost a full 100% difference in cost of living? And you think that's a "fair" measure? My job would be worth far more in LA. That's a fact. So -- how did your "measure" improve anything other than further increasing error?

 

[Philly Dawg]

The "certain skills" measured by tests like the ACT relate to academic achievement, and since Universities are academic institutions, they can be objectively ranked based on measures such as the ACT. Universities are also research institutions, so they can also be objectively ranked based upon things like research grants. And to claim that a ranking is subjective does not mean that the ranking does not have value. Subjective rankings may be even more important, since it ranks the perception of the institution. For universities competing for students, grant money, professors, prestige, etc., subjective rankings are extremely important. Whereas football teams are judged based on next season's results, universities are judged based on grants receieved, how the students score on tests, get placed into graduate schools, etc., that is, by the standards used by publications like U.S. News. So what was your point again?

 

[Arloguthrie]

If you're looking for a study that seeks to measure ROI, try this 2013 Forbes study, which includes post-grad income as one of the factors. http://www.forbes.com/sites/carolinehoward/2013/07/24/ranking-americas-top-colleges-2013/

You have to scroll to page 28, where we came in at a whopping 278 and MSU came in at 279 (the list includes private colleges). HURRAY US!!!

*For some reason the list did not include the EcoCar or Challenge X, the gold standard for measuring the value of engineering degrees.

**Everyone knows we have the best law school in the nation because we won Moot Court National Championships in 2011 and 2012. All those other schools with their geeks who killed standardized tests have no idea how to sue somebody in the real world.

 

[johnson86-1]

HUH? I'm not comprehending how anything you posted has a thing in the world to do with anything I posted? You not only missed the boat -- but also the water on this one.

Why does incoming academic "attractiveness" trump real-world productivity? It doesn't. Test scores and incoming GPA is window dressing bs that just qualifies the quality of student you let in -- not the quality of professional you put forth into the real world. You tell me which of those two qualifiers are more important in establishing which institution is ACTUALLY superior?

What you want to do is tantamount to anointing Ole Miss with the superior football program to us because they outrecruit us -- is it not? A whole lot happens from the time you show up until the time you leave -- and finding a way to measure how good you are at the time you leave is much more important than measuring at the time you arrive. Agreed?

Didn't miss the boat; you did. I was agreeing with you and taking it a step further.

If your measure how good a school is relates to how much it teaches its students learn, then you will want to know something about their raw material. It doesn't tell you very much about the quality of the school to know that the average Harvard student makes more than the average MSU student. The average incoming student at harvard is going to have a higher IQ, better test scores, GPA, etc, all of which, when looking at averages, are good if imperfect predictors of how people will do later on. If you take a student at MSU that has SAT's in the high 1500's and a 4.0 GPA from a good high school, and compare how his earnings do (or grad/professional school admissions) compared to a similar student that went to Harvard, you start to get an idea of how much of the student's success was due to Harvard and how much of it was due to him being a superior student to begin with.

To take your analogy, if you are looking at it from the perspective of an incoming athlete and want to know which program will, on average, do more to improve its players, Ole Miss takes what looks like high quality raw materials and turns out just slightly less than mediocre players in college. MSU takes what looks like mediocre raw material and turns out just slightly above mediocre players in college. If you didn't look at the rankings of the incoming player, you might conclude that it didn't matter which school you went to. Once you look at the rankings of the incoming player, it makes it more likely that you would determine MSU is actually a better football program from teh standpoint of teaching/coaching.

 

[johnson86-1]

It's no less accurate than any other measure of better education, but it encourages colleges/universities to become votech centers (preparing people for a specific job) instead of education centers (providing an educational basis and teaching people how to learn) in an attempt to better their rankings and attract more students.

Colleges/Universities should be closer to votech centers, that's how they're sold and they are screwing all the people that think getting a degree in English Lit is still going to help them excel financially when a college degree is not rare. Plus I think all the research into transferring learning and 'learning to learn' has shown that it's ********. What we learn is pretty much only good for what it is. Learning Latin is almost worthless. Learning Computer Science is almost worthless if you are not doing computer science or something logic based. Being able to teach yourself is very valuable, but learning worthless stuff doesn't really increase your ability to do that.

Very few people are rich enough to pursue a college degree simply for education's sake; if you want education just for education, degree programs at universities are not necessary for that and may not even be that great for it.

 

[engie]

If you're looking for a study that seeks to measure ROI, try this 2013 Forbes study, which includes post-grad income as one of the factors. http://www.forbes.com/sites/carolinehoward/2013/07/24/ranking-americas-top-colleges-2013/

You have to scroll to page 28, where we came in at a whopping 278 and MSU came in at 279 (the list includes private colleges). HURRAY US!!!

Great study that doesn't account for the most basic factor of my reasoning. If it is not net/normalized income -- it's basically worthless. OF COURSE we are going to make less money in a direct comparison in Mississippi. It costs us less to live here in every aspect of life. Who is putting more money in their pocket at the end of the day? But -- hey -- maybe MSU should start pitching Southern California living in our degree programs -- so we could go make 30% more money while actually bringing home 50% as much for the same life -- so we could shoot up the Forbes rankings!

*For some reason the list did not include the EcoCar or Challenge X, the gold standard for measuring the value of engineering degrees.

**Everyone knows we have the best law school in the nation because we won Moot Court National Championships in 2011 and 2012. All those other schools with their geeks who killed standardized tests have no idea how to sue somebody in the real world.

Probably some of your worst work.

 

[FormerlyHighLifeRebel]

First, you haven't "shown" anything. This argument is asinine.

You've decided to create a data set that shows that people who graduate from a University in a poor uneducated state have a greater difference in income than those who graduate from a University in a wealthier, more educated state. Well, no ****, Sherlock. But, that's all your data set shows. Nothing more, nothing less. Income disparity is not a rational indicator of educational quality. I'm sorry if this is the only way to make an MSU or OM degree seem better than it's national counterparts, but it simply isn't rational.

You don't take into account whether the graduates return to the alumni base, whether the graduates make more, on average, than their peers (even taking into account Cost of Living, after all, the alumni income data doesn't take into account the actual cost of living only gross income regardless of whether they return to their "core alumni base" or not), or, more importantly, any specific data regarding any actual educational basis, only economic basis. I understand that you either don't have the capacity to separate the two or refuse to based on the idea that unless an education can make you money, it is not, in fact, an education. Regardless, your proposed measure is ridiculous.

 

[FormerlyHighLifeRebel]

The most basic factor of your reasoning is wrong. That people in Mississippi are paying for the same things that a person in California is paying for with regard to cost of living is wrong. The reason that CoL is high in California is because people want to live there. People want to live there because it's a great place to live. No one wants to live in Mississippi. Consequently, the cost of living is lower. Just because you have paid less for CoL, it doesn't mean you have purchased the same thing.

That's like saying that a 50k job is more valuable in Mississippi than it is in Somalia because you get to put more money in your pocket after you take away the Cost of Living. Also, cost of living adjustments almost never take into account private school tuition, a fact of life for most college educated Mississippians.

 

[FormerlyHighLifeRebel]

First, those colleges that are selling themselves as places to get a degree to get a better job (private universities such as Virginia College, DeVry, and other Online and for-profit education centers) are actually doing the worst job of educating people or providing them with actual skills to excel in the job market.

People who get English Lit degrees aren't doing it to excel financially.

You're wrong. There have been no such conclusions from any research. In fact, most research shows that a person having basic life skills (the ability to take instruction, the understanding of how to complete tasks timely and efficiently, i.e. the "ability to learn") may be the single greatest factoir in subsequent economic success. I'm not saying that Colleges are in a position to teach basic life skills, that's not their job. What I am saying is that your ******** "research" doesn't exist.

I agree with your sentiment that most people can't afford education for education's sake. While that isn't the point, there is no better place to receive an "education for education's sake", as you call it, than a University.

 

[johnson86-1]

(3) First, those colleges that are selling themselves as places to get a degree to get a better job (private universities such as Virginia College, DeVry, and other Online and for-profit education centers) are actually doing the worst job of educating people or providing them with actual skills to excel in the job market.

People who get English Lit degrees aren't doing it to excel financially.

(1) You're wrong. There have been no such conclusions from any research. (2) In fact, most research shows that a person having basic life skills (the ability to take instruction, the understanding of how to complete tasks timely and efficiently, i.e. the "ability to learn") may be the single greatest factoir in subsequent economic success. I'm not saying that Colleges are in a position to teach basic life skills, that's not their job. What I am saying is that your ******** "research" doesn't exist.

I agree with your sentiment that most people can't afford education for education's sake. While that isn't the point, there is no better place to receive an "education for education's sake", as you call it, than a University.

(1) Don't be a 17ing moron. Just Google "transfer of learning." It's a huge question of whether and how much any material transfer of learning takes place.

(2) There's no doubt that having basic life skills is a huge factor in economic success but that's not really related to anything we're discussing. Most people that go to college already have basic skills. But there's a big question of whether an English Lit Degree, or psychology degree, or fill in the blank degree is really helpful for things other than the applications it actually teaches you.

(3) Most universities and colleges within them sell themselves in whole or in part based on their effect on jobs and earnings. That's why colleges/universities colelct and publish earnings statistics and job placement statistics for their graduates and put them in brochures. I'm not sure Virginia College, DeVry, etc. do that much worse than other colleges based on the quality of applicants they get, but I think community colleges in general do better.

 

[FormerlyHighLifeRebel]

I misunderstood your point, and I was wrong. I apologize.

My point goes to something I categorically disagree with in your post.

Most people that go to college already have basic skills.

This is far from accurate and is at the heart of the higher education debate. Many, many students arrive for a college education that need remedial classes just to keep up. This should not be the job of the University. Further, Universities graduate people who still don't have the basic skills necessary to excel on the marketplace which was never their job but is what we keep asking them to do.

In summary, I agree with Mike Rowe's outlook. People need skills, not an education. We've run to Universities, thrown money at them, pointed to a statistic that says if you have a college degree, then you make more money, and asked them to help everybody make more money. Well, if your parents have a lot of money, then you're going to make more as well, but we wouldn't go running around making everybody's parent's rich in an effort to make sure that everyone makes more money. People who make more money when they graduate from college do so because they had the skills necessary to excel in the marketplace long before they got to college. Turning college into votech won't improve people who don't have those skills, it will just make college something that it was never supposed to be.

 

[Master Blaster]

You have no idea how to read a ranking, huh?

http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandr...ges/rankings/national-universities/top-public

The flagship (Mississippi State) comes in at 73. You have to type in a search to find Ole Miss on the list. Comes in at 150. Comparatively speaking, they are less than half of what the flagship should be and is.

State is tied for 73rd. Which means that State could very well be ranked 78. Which, at best would make the school ranked two spots ahead of Ole Miss. But, since everything State does is only comparable in relation to Ole Miss, you "won" Congrats on being middle of the pack.

 

[johnson86-1]

I misunderstood your point, and I was wrong. I apologize.

Many, many students arrive for a college education that need remedial classes just to keep up. This should not be the job of the University. Further, Universities graduate people who still don't have the basic skills necessary to excel on the marketplace which was never their job but is what we keep asking them to do.

I basically agree with this, but I think there are two different issues at play. The first is the issue of people who don't belong at college, either because they have not been prepared or because they were simply never going to be cut out for it. There's nothing for colleges to do with these people except to stop accepting them. For those people that have simply not been prepared for college, colleges are not the place to address the problem that they weren't prepared. Maybe Community colleges are, but even then it should be clear that what they are doing is remedial work, not college work. It's never made sense to me for students that struggle too much in high school to make it into a university to go to JUCO for two years and then come to a 4 year college and expect to be the equivalent of juniors. I'm sure some people buckle down and/or get out of a bad environemnt and actually catch up, but if it was the norm, we could just get rid of 4-year universities and send everybody to JUCO for their first two years.

The second issue is how much colleges should focus on preparing its students in general for the marketplace. I'd say that if you're mainly relying on your college to teach you how to conduct yourself in a workplace, you're probably screwed. But at the same time, I do think it's helpful to a lot of people. And I think because of the way we've marketed a college degree as a way to make money, and issued guarantees on student loans so that the cost of a college degree has gone up dramatically, most people in college should go there with some sort of concrete plan for how their degree is going to help them make money, and it should be a relatively rare exception for a major to not prepare its students for a clear and viable career path.

 

[Philly Dawg]

I guess in some sense, that by paying 30% more for the same goods in California, I do get to live in California, but I think you are abusing the term. Cost of living as an economic measurement is based on actual prices for comparable food, shelter, etc.

I must admit, however, that I went out to Laguna Beach recently, and it would be a great place to live if you could afford it.

 

[mstateglfr]

In fact, I would argue that, regardless of how much either is paid, the average engineer will, most likely, always be better educated than the average lawyer. It's simply a much more difficult field of study.

Tilt at windmills all you want, this is just nuts.
An undergrad degree in engineering is much more difficult or makes that person better educated than those with a doctorate in law?
Come again?
To get that law degree, one must also get an undergrad. So you can have someone who gets an engineering degree and then goes to law school and gets that degree.

Your argument could then be that someone with just an undergrad in engineering is more educated than someone with an engineering degree and law degree.

If you want to replace engineering degree with something else, fine. Lets choose any science or math degree and pile that law degree on top. Multiple degrees with one in science and the other being a doctorate is apparently an easier path and that person is less educated than someone with just an engineering undergrad?