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I'm not aware of major educational problems with in-state schools. I've compared my curriculum at a nobody southern in state school with the CS curriculum at MI

I'm not aware of major educational problems with in-state schools. I've compared my curriculum at a nobody southern in state school with the CS curriculum at MIT and I don't see any major differences and I don't feel shortchanged. I'm pretty sure the only your school matters in the real world is at the most elite levels of a few fields and even then its mostly just about hiring people who went to the same school as you and the perception elites must come from the ivy league.

lordCarbonFiber 11y ago
My ancedote here is that it's more about opportunity than educational quality. The "secret sauce" of higher education isn't the course work, or even the individual lecturers (although there is a certain minimum bar there) as evidenced by the growing trend to offer those for free. It is rather a case of brand recognition and access to a given network. The graduate of MIT has pull in pretty much anywhere of her choosing, the Georgia Tech grad faces friction as soon as she leaves the south east, the Clemson grad faces that same friction as soon as she leaves South Carolina (top tier private, top tier public, mid teir public for engineering), all other things being equal. Given the unequal distribution of employment across the nation it seems ridiculous that there are these huge paywalls in connecting qualified students to institutions best suited for them based solely on something as ephemeral as which state their parents are working when they turn 17.
- gohrt 11y ago
  You can't just send EVERYONE to Berkeley/SUNY/UW. "Prestigious" is inherently anti-universal-access. The only solution is to crush the power of these prestigious universities.
  - lordCarbonFiber 11y ago
    I think you're missing the point. The issue isn't that every student can't go to Berkeley, it's that identically qualified students students can be charged 500% more for the opportunity purely because of geography. I suspect this disparity might actually be weakening the "prestigious" nature of many schools given there is now a monetary incentive to accept unqualified students if they are out of state (or even out of country for even more fees).

lordCarbonFiber 11y ago

My ancedote here is that it's more about opportunity than educational quality. The "secret sauce" of higher education isn't the course work, or even the individual lecturers (although there is a certain minimum bar there) as evidenced by the growing trend to offer those for free. It is rather a case of brand recognition and access to a given network. The graduate of MIT has pull in pretty much anywhere of her choosing, the Georgia Tech grad faces friction as soon as she leaves the south east, the Clemson grad faces that same friction as soon as she leaves South Carolina (top tier private, top tier public, mid teir public for engineering), all other things being equal. Given the unequal distribution of employment across the nation it seems ridiculous that there are these huge paywalls in connecting qualified students to institutions best suited for them based solely on something as ephemeral as which state their parents are working when they turn 17.

gohrt 11y ago
You can't just send EVERYONE to Berkeley/SUNY/UW. "Prestigious" is inherently anti-universal-access. The only solution is to crush the power of these prestigious universities.
- lordCarbonFiber 11y ago
  I think you're missing the point. The issue isn't that every student can't go to Berkeley, it's that identically qualified students students can be charged 500% more for the opportunity purely because of geography. I suspect this disparity might actually be weakening the "prestigious" nature of many schools given there is now a monetary incentive to accept unqualified students if they are out of state (or even out of country for even more fees).