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View Poll Results: which state has the best public colleges (other than California)
Texas (UT and T A&M systems) 25 24.27%
North Carolina (UNC system and NC State) 25 24.27%
Michigan 16 15.53%
New york (SUNY) 17 16.50%
Ohio 7 6.80%
Pennsylvania 13 12.62%
Voters: 103. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 01-30-2010, 07:06 AM
 
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1. CA or VA
3. MI
4. NC
5. NY
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Old 01-30-2010, 07:31 AM
 
Location: New Jersey
4,085 posts, read 8,752,798 times
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VA should be on that list.

PA, not so much. With PA on there I could make a case for NJ deserving to be on there, but I won't bother - NJ starts a few notches down just on prejudice against us for being NJ.
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Old 01-30-2010, 02:51 PM
 
91,994 posts, read 122,107,559 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by openedskittles View Post
First- California
Arguably Second- Texas, Michigan or Virginia
Fifth- North Carolina



Just a disclaimer: this is a post from someone who has actually been closely keeping up with university standings on academic fronts for the past couple of years. This also means I will not be judging how good a public system is based on how many campuses it has, and I don't really know why some have pointed out the number of campuses as if it makes them suddenly better in some way:

California is the best. They have shown us this over and over again in rankings. They are the most well-established, well-funded, and well-respected public system in the world. They have a massive population feeding into a relatively small number of UC system schools, so they can choose the best students to ensure their reputation remains strong. They are very expensive for publics, but there are still plenty willing to pay.



On to the six mentioned and one that should have been mentioned:

North Carolina: UNC - Chapel Hill is one of the best public universities in the world, with high overall rankings. It's individual program rankings often fail to explain the high rank, though. NC State is not even worth mentioning, because as far as recruiters and professors are concerned, it wouldn't stack up to either UT or A&M.

Michigan: This one is a very good candidate for second place because Michigan is arguably the second best public university. They have a very established university with strong ties to top employers and even Wall Street for their business school. They, like UTexas, have some top 10 undergraduate colleges like business and engineering, but also have the strong top 10 graduate programs to round it out.

New York: The SUNY system has absolutely zero top public campuses. No offense to any graduates from SUNY, but the programs are "good" at best. No SUNY campus has a strong enough reputation to attract truly top-notch students, faculty and recruiters. There is no way you can argue this is the second best state for public education, and I'm amazed that it's even an option and shocked to see it's the most voted-for besides Texas.

Ohio: OSU is above average for a public flagship U. It has more pull for top-notch students, faculty and recruiters than SUNY, but falls far short of universities like UT, A&M, Michigan or UNC. This shouldn't even be an option, but at least people recognize that it shouldn't.

Pennsylvania: I hope you realize that the University of Pennsylvania is technically a private school. Penn state is really the only thing worth looking at here. I know it's overall ranking is tied with UT, but like UNC, they don't have the program rankings to back it up. They fall short of both UT and UNC in their ability to send grads to places like Wall Street as well.

Texas - UT has some programs that are absolute gems. Their accounting program has been first in the nation for something like 20 years for undergrad and I don't think it's been out of the top 3 for grad in that same period. The business school as a whole places students better than any public but Berkeley and Michigan, on par with Virginia and significantly better than some comparison privates like USC. They also have a top 10 engineering program and a top 5 architecture school. That said, the liberal arts and natural sciences are less than elite and often (as seems to be the case) cause in-staters to think less of the university as a whole. However, even from these colleges emerge great programs like a top 10 computer science program. Another reason Texas is a good choice is that there are two flagship universities. Texas A&M doesn't carry it's reputation as well outside of Texas, but in-state applicants often view the two on equal footing.

Virginia - UVa is well-known for law and business. It has a reputation in the traditional undergraduate colleges as well, for which is it very strong. However, it does lack a presence in the technical fields such as engineering, in which Texas, Michigan and Berkeley dominate. These fields are vital for a university in this day and age and Virginia's ranking should be significantly decreased if this weakness were taken into account more appropriately. It also fails to live up to rankings in placement in top jobs. For example, UT sends comparable numbers into exclusive fields such as consulting and investment banking, yet is ranked twice as far down the overall list.



This survey should have included: Texas, Michigan and Virginia. UNC would round out the top 5, but would not be a candidate for second place. I'd have a hard time ranking these individually because they have managed to show such different strengths that it is hard to define an overall winner.

A note on Wisconsin and Illinois, while these two might be better than the likes of SUNY, this does not make them anywhere close to competitive for the second place spot. Even top Wisconsin grads will complain about problems with not going to a university at which the top companies recruit when looking at the very same jobs as UT students. Illinois' claims to fame are accounting and engineering. It's known as being the "next best" thing to UT for accounting, though, and it's program strengths are so lopsided they make UT look well-rounded (and it's probably the lopsided strengths of certain programs at UT versus others that hinder Texas' reputation more than anything.)
Not true as schools like Binghamton U., Stony Brook and U Albany have some very good programs. Same with some of the state colleges like Geneseo and Oswego.
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Old 01-30-2010, 07:43 PM
 
672 posts, read 1,781,993 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kcee510 View Post
California community college system is 2.7 million strong and that's just one system in the state. I know it's different from a state and university but you have to admit that's A pretty impressive number.
The way I see it, the CSU system is the largest and most diverse system in the world. The UC system is the best without doubt with global prestige and recognition. Without mentioning UCLA, UC San Diego, and UC Davis, UC Berkeley alone would have more top programs than all of the schools I'm about to mention.

In a whole other tier would be Texas, Michigan, North Carolina, and Virgina in no particular order.
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Old 03-22-2010, 08:59 AM
 
Location: Chicago
6,359 posts, read 8,755,388 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by south-to-west View Post
You left out the University of Wisconsin system, which has 173,000 students and is often regarded as one of the top state university systems in the nation:
  • UW Madison
  • UW Milwaukee
  • UW River Falls
  • UW Stout
  • UW Superior
  • UW Eau Claire
  • UW La Crosse
  • UW Stevens Point
  • UW Green Bay
  • UW Oshkosh
  • UW Parkside
  • UW Platteville
  • UW Whitewater
The UW system suffers from the gap between the stellar flagship, UW-Madison, and the rest of the system. I think that gap is one of the widest among any public university system in the nation.

BTW, I'd also give high marks to Michigan for its one-two punch with flagships U-M and MSU.

That may be the strongest such combination in the midwest with IU/Purdue as flagships arguably making Indiana second. Iowa looks impressive for a smaller state with the likes of Iowa and ISU. For Ohio, it is the quality of the non-flagships like Miami and Ohio that make it so formidible.

I've got to give my own state of Illinois gets low marks. UIUC is outstanding, but it our only flagship institution which makes little sense for a state with such a large population.
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Old 03-22-2010, 11:22 PM
 
2,308 posts, read 3,901,678 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by KerrTown View Post
Texas should do some housekeeping and try to facilitate mergers between the six systems into three or four such as Tech into A&M as originally planned and UH into UT.
Do you really think Tech or A&M want ANYTHING to do with each other more than they currently do? Relations between the Koreas are better.
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Old 08-23-2013, 01:03 AM
 
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Snubbed: Virginia, Colorado, Arizona, Massachusetts, Maryland, Illinois, and New Jersey. The Universities of Connecticut, Delaware, Florida (and Florida State), Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Iowa (and Iowa State), Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin are all really good as individual universities in addition (but who cares this is a state university system ranking...).

Coming from a Californian LOL we have it too good :-D.
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Old 08-23-2013, 01:16 AM
 
Location: Seattle, WA
2,985 posts, read 4,855,983 times
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I went to one of California's UC's!
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Old 08-23-2013, 01:18 AM
 
Location: PNW
2,011 posts, read 3,435,761 times
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Washington should be on this. University of Washington is one of the best public colleges in america right on par (or slightly ahead) with U of M and not far behind Berkeley. WSU has one of the best computer engineering programs (funded by Paul Allen) and a top vet program. Western Washington is one of the best teaching colleges in america with a solid business program. Eastern and Central are solid schools. Emerging UW branch schools and Bellevue College, some of the best community colleges in america. This is a great place to go to school!
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Old 08-23-2013, 11:28 AM
 
44 posts, read 49,995 times
Reputation: 23
*********** rutgers ************
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