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Basically it’s because historically the region didn't spend much state or private money on supporting public or private institutions. The old money in the region wasn't on the level of Leland Stanford or Cornelius Vanderbilt and the state government in Oregon(or really Washington either for that matter) was never flush with cash or that interested in developing prestigious colleges. Portland and Seattle only grew into medium sized cities by the early 1900s, but growth into more sizable metros was only recently.
These days though an engineering degree or computer science degree from a somewhat average regional state school is worth more than a soft sciences or English or liberal arts degree from an Ivy League college out here. I've met tons of kids who come out to the Northwest with a degree from prestigious colleges back east and no real marketable skills or technical aptitude who have trouble finding anything in terms of work(and they always expect they’re going to be the exception to the rule). In the end it’s more so personal connections that will land you a job interview in many cases. Hell, there's people who barely graduated high school who can write code or build databases that will have a better time finding work on average these days.
Actually, there are a lot of small private colleges in all three west coast states.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Freshflakes757
Not to be ignorant, but I've never heard of it. Is it a small liberal arts type school?
Actually, there are a lot of small private colleges in all three west coast states.
Yes, but most of the ones in Oregon and Washington aren't considered the sort of "prestige" schools that the OP is looking for. The already mentioned Reed is a very respected small liberal arts college, Seattle University has a fairly good rep, Whitman in Walla Walla is fairly notable, Gonzaga has a basketball team that can make a decent run in the brackets(), Lewis and Clark is a good private college with a well law program, and then there's a number of other small colleges throughout the region of varying stature(Linfield, George Fox, Willamette, University of Puget Sound, Seattle Pacific, etc).
But, the OP seems to be looking for big name research universities with highly ranked undergraduate and graduate/PHD programs that people know across the whole nation, not simply just places where one can get a good education.
UW is bounds ahead of The Florida schools and Georgia. It's a public Ivy League school. It's not Stanford but a still a top 30 school by some publications and has a top medical program.
To me, Towson and UMBC are considered "mid-grade" colleges; me, my siblings, and my father all graduated there, and have ended up with decent middle-to upper-middle class jobs. Loyola, University of Baltimore, the University of MD at Baltimore, and Notre Dame of Maryland are sort of the other mid-tier schools for Baltimore. JHU is more of a specialty school (medicine/biology) similar to the Navy, though its considered "top tier" by our region's standards. GWU and Georgetown IMO are comparable for the top-tier DC school, and some rankings even have GWU higher than Georgetown, and similar to Penn/Drexel for Philly, play an important part in influencing the city. UMCP is more of an upper-mid tier school for ivy rejects, but still an above average school. For DC, U of DC, Galludet, and American University are sort of its mid-tier schools. Howard is the mid-to top tier black school, while CUA targets the Catholic audience especially those who aspire to be theologists.
Someone mentioned that Miami is the nation's youngest big city; in reality it is Phoenix. Unfortunately it really shows in the form of no big-name school. Indianapolis should count since Purdue and Bloomington (sort of borderline mid/top school) are a couple hours away. Detroit should not since Ann Arbor is still part of the Detroit CSA and U of Michigan is at the very least a borderline top tier school. University of Kansas in Lawrence near Kasnas City is debatable, but is really more of an upper mid-tier school. Cleveland? Case Western Reserve plays in an important role of Cleveland's urban fabric and gives us Cleveland Clinic, but it just doesn't get the top-tier attention it deserves and is largely ignored by the media. Cincinnati? U of Cinci and Xavier are solid upper mid-grade colleges, but not quite in the elite group. Minneapolis? U of Minnesota is the destination school for the region, but flyover country to the media. St. Louis? Sorry, no ivy-level school here. I find the midwest most lacking in terms of the lack of top schools, only Chicago and Columbus have some right in town.
To enter into the ranks of "prestige" school, your city needs to have a school that meets one or more of the following criteria:
1) Top 25 university by USNWW
2) Top 25 B-school by either USNWW or Bloomberg Businessweek (generally smaller programs, so really top 5 is "elite" but top 25 is still prestigious enough to get you a job almost anywhere "prestigious")
3) Top 14 law school (T14) by USNWW
4) Top 20 medical school (by research) by USNWW (the top 20 programs hog the research $$$ and receive the most grants, have the best researchers and put out the most research)
5) Top 10 engineering program (larger programs so if you're not top 10 you're not "elite")
6) Top 10 public university (public universities aren't generally at the same standard as privates, so beyond top 10, eh not "prestigious")
Here are the current lists:
Top 25 schools by USNWW
1) Princeton
2) Harvard (Boston)
3) Columbia (NYC)
4) Yale
5) Stanford (SF)
6) Chicago (Chicago)
7) Duke (Raleigh)
8) MIT (Boston)
9) Penn (Philly)
10) Caltech (LA)
11) Dartmouth
12) Johns Hopkins (Baltimore)
13) Northwestern (Chicago)
14) Brown (Providence)
15) Wash U (St. Louis)
16) Cornell
17) Vanderbilt (Nashville)
18) Rice (Houston)
19) Notre Dame
20) Emory (Atlanta)
21) Georgetown (DC)
22) Berkeley (SF)
23) Carnegie Mellon (Pittsburgh)
24) UCLA (LA)
25) USC (LA)
Top 25 B-schools by USNWW
1) Harvard (Boston)
2) Stanford (SF)
3) Penn (Philly)
4) MIT (Boston)
5) Northwestern (Chicago)
6) Chicago (Chicago)
7) Berkeley (SF)
8) Columbia (NYC)
9) Dartmouth
10) NYU (NYC)
11) Duke (Raleigh)
12) UVA
13) Yale
14) UCLA (LA)
15) Michigan
16) Cornell
17) UT Austin (Austin)
18) Emory (Atlanta)
19) Carnegie Mellon (Pittsburgh)
20) Chapel Hill (Raleigh)
21) Wash U (St. Louis)
22) Indiana
23) Minnesota (Minneapolis)'
24) U Washington (Seattle)
25) Georgetown (DC)
Top 25 schools by Bloomberg Businessweek
1) Chicago (Chicago)
2) Harvard (Boston)
3) Penn (Philly)
4) Stanford (SF)
5) Northwestern (Chicago)
6) Duke (Raleigh)
7) Cornell
8) Michigan
9) MIT (Boston)
10) UVA
11) Carnegie Mellon (Pittsburgh)
12) Dartmourth
13) Columbia (NYC)
14) Berkeley (SF)
15) Indiana
16) NYU (NYC)
17) Chapel Hill (Raleigh)
18) UCLA (LA)
19) UT Austin (Austin)
20) Notre Dame
21) Yale
22) Emory (Atlanta)
23) Georgia Tech (Atlanta)
24) Maryland (DC)
25) Vanderbilt (Nashville)
T14 Law School
1) Yale
2) Harvard (Boston)
3) Stanford (SF)
4) Columbia (NYC)
5) Chicago (Chicago)
6) NYU (NYC)
7) Penn (Philly)
8) UVA
9) Berkeley (SF)
10) Michigan
11) Duke (Raleigh)
12) Northwestern (Chicago)
13) Cornell
14) Georgetown (DC)
Top 20 medical research schools
1) Harvard (Boston)
2) Stanford (SF)
3) Johns Hopkins (Baltimore)
4) UCSF (SF)
5) Penn (Philly)
6) Wash U. (St. Louis)
7) Yale
8) Columbia (NYC)
9) Duke (Raleigh)
10) Chicago (Chicago)
11) Michigan
12) U. Washington (Seattle)
13) UCLA (LA)
14) Vanderbilt (Nashville)
15) UCSD (San Diego)
16) Cornell
17) Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh)
18) Baylor (Houston)
19) Mount Sinai (NYC)
20) Northwestern (Chicago)
Top 10 engineering universities
1) MIT (Boston)
2) Stanford (SF)
3) Berkeley (SF)
4) Caltech (LA)
5) Carnegie Mellon (Pittsburgh)
6) Georgia Tech (Atlanta)
7) U of I
8) Purdue
9) Michigan
10) USC (LA)
Top 10 Public
1) Berkeley (SF)
2) UCLA (LA)
3) UVA
4) Michigan
5) Chapel Hill (Raleigh)
6) William & Mary
7) Georgia Tech (Atlanta)
8) Penn State
9) UC Davis (Sacramento)
10) UCSD (San Diego)
Top 10 Computer Science Schools (I'm thinking this will be big going forward)
1) Carnegie Mellon (Pittsburgh)
2) MIT (Boston)
3) Stanford (SF)
4) Berkeley (SF)
5) Cornell
6) U of I
7) U. of Washington (Seattle)
8) Princeton
9) UT Austin
10) Georgia Tech (Atlanta) and UT Austin (Austin) (tied)
Top 25 liberal arts colleges - the ones that are actually prestigious and basically guarantee an I banking job or silk stocking law job followed by top 5 grad program
1) Williams
2) Amherst
3) Swarthmore (should this be considered Philly?)
4) BOwdoin
5) Middlebury
6) Pomona (LA)
7) Carleton
8) Wellesley (Boston)
9) Claremont McKenna (LA)
10) Davidson (Charlotte)
11) Haverford (Philly)
12) US Naval Academy
13) Vassar
14) Hamilton
15) W&L
16) Harvey Mudd (LA)
17) Grinnell
18) West Point
19) Wesleyan
20) Colgate
21) Smith
22) Bates
23) Colby
24) Macalester (Minneapolis/St. Paul)
25) College of the Holy Cross
Notable cities absent from any of these lists (by size of metro area):
1) Dallas (SMU is only prestigious to those who are 18-22 and have no desire to expand the bounds of their thoughts or views...ahem young Republicans from the Sunbelt)
2) Miami (someeeee consider Miami to be prestigious. I know what I would rather spend $40K/yr on!)
3) Phoenix
4) Detroit (I don't consider Ann Arbor to be Detroit and most of those kids seem to find jobs elsewhere outside of the state)
5) Tampa
6) Denver (some in the Midwest/Rockies might consider DU prestigious...I went to a prep school and 1-2 classmates ended up there)
7) Portland
8) San Antonio
9) Orlando
10) Cincinnati
11) Cleveland (CW is just shy of a couple of lists)
12) Kansas City
13) Las Vegas
14) Columbus
15) Indianapolis
16) Virginia Beach-Norfolk
17) Milwaukee
18) Jacksonville
19) Memphis
20) Oklahoma City
21) Louisville
22) Richmond (some in the south/mid-Atlanta might consider U Richmond prestigious, and deep in "prestigious school" territory)
23) New Orleans (some would consider Tulane prestigious, but I don't think it holds the same wait it used to...)
24) Hartford (deep in "prestigious school" territory)
25) Birmingham
26) Buffalo
27) Salt Lake City (some might consider Brigham Young to be prestigious)
28) Rochester (some may say RIT is prestigious)
29) Grand Rapids
30) Tucson
31) Honolulu
32) Tulsa
...
That's 32 of the 53 largest MSAs (I combined IE into LA and SJ into SF that don't have a "prestigious" school. So in a nutshell the largest 21 MSAs with a few exceptions carry all of the prestigious schools while other prestigious schools are in rural areas and don't feed any urban environments or city job markets predominantly.
Top 25 liberal arts colleges - the ones that are actually prestigious and basically guarantee an I banking job or silk stocking law job followed by top 5 grad program
1) Williams
2) Amherst
3) Swarthmore (should this be considered Philly?)
Yes. Swarthmore is right outside of Philadelphia in neighboring Delaware County, a suburb of Philadelphia and part of the MSA.
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), Lewis and Clark is a good private college with a well law program, and then there's a number of other small colleges throughout the region of varying stature(Linfield, George Fox, Willamette, University of Puget Sound, Seattle Pacific, etc). 
