4 ms·

It would make a lot of sense for the top schools to expand like they did in other countries. Oxford and Cambridge have 12,000 undergrads each. University of T

It would make a lot of sense for the top schools to expand like they did in other countries. Oxford and Cambridge have 12,000 undergrads each. University of Toronto has 44,000. Harvard and Princeton have about 5,000 each and Stanford has like 8,000. The US has more top schools, perhaps, than other countries, but not as many seats, I think.

cycrutchfield 4y ago
Not going to happen because the rankings racket rates them based on their exclusivity.
- barry-cotter 4y ago
  The tax code and federal funding is a very big stick to hold over universities to get them to do what you want. If the federal government can force US states to change their drinking laws through highway funding they can do whatever they please. Remember, the constitution restrains the government exactly as much as it wants to be restrained.
  - cycrutchfield 4y ago
    States already do this with their public universities, that’s why they are generally considered less prestigious despite the education being basically the same. Not sure why private universities seem to get a free pass.
  - cbozeman 4y ago
    > Remember, the constitution restrains the government exactly as much as it wants to be restrained. No, the American population is unwilling to die for rights any longer, because we're all too comfortable... excepting a few people like the Bundy Ranch standoff situation. I guarantee you if 50,000 rifle-toting Americans had shown up at the Capitol and told the Federal Government, "Anyone who votes for a federal drinking age of 21 answers to us. Permanently.", we wouldn't have a nationwide drinking age of 21. To an extent, this is even how the Founders expected unlawful conduct by lawmakers would be answered... They didn't realize we'd become so prosperous that we're no longer willing to die and kill to preserve rights that should be states' rights or local municipality rights. More's the pity, if you ask me.
somethoughts 4y ago
I think one of the keys issues is the US News ranking criteria. US News took the easy way out with respect to two significant components of the score [1]. - Endowment per student - bonus points for amassing the largest treasure per fewest students - Selectivity - bonus points for excluding people before they come in which has no bearing on the effectiveness of the school itself in educating Also a large percentage weight is given to academic peer ratings of the schools prestige which itself is a feedback loop of when US News used to reward pure selectivity (i.e. lowest acceptance ratio per applicants). The endowment component of the score should be capped so as not to reward stockpiling. An additional component of the score should be based on the student body of the school system (higher # of students in the school system is better) should also encourage the development of systems of universities (i.e. multiple campuses. The UC School System would rank much higher - as well as it could lead to the development of Harvard/Yale/Princeton/Cornell/Stanford/etc. School Systems. Interesting piece - How to Game the College Rankings https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2014/08/26/how-northeastern-gamed-the-college-rankings/ https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2014/08/26/how-northeast... [1] https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/how-us-news-calculated-the-rankings https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/how-...
- pembrook 4y ago
  Amazing how a failed legacy media company from the 1950s managed to stay afloat until today simply by publishing a list of colleges in unscientific and largely arbitrary order. The amazing thing is US News still pretends to publish news—-likely just to add legitimacy to the college ranking business.
ericmay 4y ago
I don’t think the top schools need to expand and perhaps shouldn’t. At all. Instead what we need are employers to stop concentrating their recruiting efforts at these name brand schools (I.e. ladder pulling), at least at the undergraduate level. I’m not sure that there is a different in CS major between Purdue (for example) and MIT. Maybe there is, but expanding MIT just takes engineering students away from Purdue and then employers just recruit at MIT main campus in Cambridge instead of the satellite office. All you’ve really done is changed the logo. Not the dynamics. I’d rather see these “elite” universities not expand. The world seems more interesting with universities like Baylor, Ohio State, Florida, Oregon, and Nebraska than it does with Harvard, MIT, and Stanford copy/pasted everywhere. There isn’t anything wrong with those schools, but given they don’t have expertise in growing maybe a stronger case can be made for the University of California system to take over Stanford, and Penn State should turn Penn into a branch of Penn State University, etc. Else it’s really hard for me to see how you’re (not you specifically) not just trying to advocate for expanding “elite” universities just for the brand name.
- LeanderK 4y ago
  I really don't think there's enough difference during your studies for it to be justified. Of course it's nice to have a meeting personally with your professor every week, of course it's nice to have brand new classrooms and free snacks when you get to listen to nobel prize winners giving a lecture about their work. But you can also sit down, anywhere in the world, and just study hard to succeed in your exam. It's not that they have different math at harvard and if you go to a challenging university you get challenging lectures. This "elite university" brand, is imho, totally overrated. Of course you build great social connections, but if you hire a software engineer you don't hire his connections. But I feel like employers try to derive their prestige from the prestige of the universities. This is different for positions with a social dimension, like entrepreneurs, where your social connections matter. This, of course, does not say anything about whether the prestige of Harvard itself is justified. I actually think so, because in experience people always overrate the education part of a university. It's a small amount of the total operation, way more money goes into research. Harvard does a lot of world class research, it's very good at it, consistently. Also MIT, Stanford, Oxford etc. This needs recognition and care, it's something special. But just deriving your own prestige because you did your undergrad there is stupid I think.
908B64B197 4y ago
You're comparing wildly different schools here. Nobody would reject an offer from Stanford to go to University of Toronto. There are large midwestern public schools that would be a more appropriate equivalent here.

cycrutchfield 4y ago

Not going to happen because the rankings racket rates them based on their exclusivity.

barry-cotter 4y ago
The tax code and federal funding is a very big stick to hold over universities to get them to do what you want. If the federal government can force US states to change their drinking laws through highway funding they can do whatever they please. Remember, the constitution restrains the government exactly as much as it wants to be restrained.
- cycrutchfield 4y ago
  States already do this with their public universities, that’s why they are generally considered less prestigious despite the education being basically the same. Not sure why private universities seem to get a free pass.
- cbozeman 4y ago
  > Remember, the constitution restrains the government exactly as much as it wants to be restrained. No, the American population is unwilling to die for rights any longer, because we're all too comfortable... excepting a few people like the Bundy Ranch standoff situation. I guarantee you if 50,000 rifle-toting Americans had shown up at the Capitol and told the Federal Government, "Anyone who votes for a federal drinking age of 21 answers to us. Permanently.", we wouldn't have a nationwide drinking age of 21. To an extent, this is even how the Founders expected unlawful conduct by lawmakers would be answered... They didn't realize we'd become so prosperous that we're no longer willing to die and kill to preserve rights that should be states' rights or local municipality rights. More's the pity, if you ask me.

somethoughts 4y ago

I think one of the keys issues is the US News ranking criteria. US News took the easy way out with respect to two significant components of the score [1]. - Endowment per student - bonus points for amassing the largest treasure per fewest students - Selectivity - bonus points for excluding people before they come in which has no bearing on the effectiveness of the school itself in educating Also a large percentage weight is given to academic peer ratings of the schools prestige which itself is a feedback loop of when US News used to reward pure selectivity (i.e. lowest acceptance ratio per applicants). The endowment component of the score should be capped so as not to reward stockpiling. An additional component of the score should be based on the student body of the school system (higher # of students in the school system is better) should also encourage the development of systems of universities (i.e. multiple campuses. The UC School System would rank much higher - as well as it could lead to the development of Harvard/Yale/Princeton/Cornell/Stanford/etc. School Systems. Interesting piece - How to Game the College Rankings https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2014/08/26/how-northeastern-gamed-the-college-rankings/ https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2014/08/26/how-northeast... [1] https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/how-us-news-calculated-the-rankings https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/how-...

pembrook 4y ago
Amazing how a failed legacy media company from the 1950s managed to stay afloat until today simply by publishing a list of colleges in unscientific and largely arbitrary order. The amazing thing is US News still pretends to publish news—-likely just to add legitimacy to the college ranking business.

ericmay 4y ago

I don’t think the top schools need to expand and perhaps shouldn’t. At all. Instead what we need are employers to stop concentrating their recruiting efforts at these name brand schools (I.e. ladder pulling), at least at the undergraduate level. I’m not sure that there is a different in CS major between Purdue (for example) and MIT. Maybe there is, but expanding MIT just takes engineering students away from Purdue and then employers just recruit at MIT main campus in Cambridge instead of the satellite office. All you’ve really done is changed the logo. Not the dynamics. I’d rather see these “elite” universities not expand. The world seems more interesting with universities like Baylor, Ohio State, Florida, Oregon, and Nebraska than it does with Harvard, MIT, and Stanford copy/pasted everywhere. There isn’t anything wrong with those schools, but given they don’t have expertise in growing maybe a stronger case can be made for the University of California system to take over Stanford, and Penn State should turn Penn into a branch of Penn State University, etc. Else it’s really hard for me to see how you’re (not you specifically) not just trying to advocate for expanding “elite” universities just for the brand name.

LeanderK 4y ago
I really don't think there's enough difference during your studies for it to be justified. Of course it's nice to have a meeting personally with your professor every week, of course it's nice to have brand new classrooms and free snacks when you get to listen to nobel prize winners giving a lecture about their work. But you can also sit down, anywhere in the world, and just study hard to succeed in your exam. It's not that they have different math at harvard and if you go to a challenging university you get challenging lectures. This "elite university" brand, is imho, totally overrated. Of course you build great social connections, but if you hire a software engineer you don't hire his connections. But I feel like employers try to derive their prestige from the prestige of the universities. This is different for positions with a social dimension, like entrepreneurs, where your social connections matter. This, of course, does not say anything about whether the prestige of Harvard itself is justified. I actually think so, because in experience people always overrate the education part of a university. It's a small amount of the total operation, way more money goes into research. Harvard does a lot of world class research, it's very good at it, consistently. Also MIT, Stanford, Oxford etc. This needs recognition and care, it's something special. But just deriving your own prestige because you did your undergrad there is stupid I think.

908B64B197 4y ago

You're comparing wildly different schools here. Nobody would reject an offer from Stanford to go to University of Toronto. There are large midwestern public schools that would be a more appropriate equivalent here.