One Big Thing that Dallas Is Missing (Arlington, Rice: versus, moving to)

[Black Jack22]

Wasn't Rice University ranked like number 7 in the nation?

[aceplace]

"The weekend at the college didn't turn out like you'd planned...
"The things that pass for knowledge I just can't understand"

-Steely Dan, "Reelin in the years".

[aceplace]

Originally Posted by Black Jack22

Wasn't Rice University ranked like number 7 in the nation?

Rice has about 2,900 students. Of those 2,900, 2,100 of them are receiving financial aid, tuition waivers, etc..

What Rice is doing is essentially buying students based on their qualifications. It then uses the qualifications of those students to establish its reputation.

As to how this fraudulent practice benefits the City of Houston... "I just can't understand".

Houston needs to raise the educational and skill level of its entire population. Educating a tiny minority that will scatter back to their home states and countries after graduation is not a solution.

[aceplace]

It may be said that the primary function of a top tier university is to identify and select top-tier students, people who are going to succeed in life regardless of how well or badly they are taught. For the rest of their lives, they will point to their selection as a mark of pride... "I went to Harvard".

My question is this... why does Dallas need one of these universities?

Why don't we just develop an institution that will identify the 10,000 people most likely to succeed, out of the population of high school students in the United States, and just mail them a certificate. Even if they end up attending a cactus college in the middle of nowhere, they will still have the same lifetime destiny of greatness. Sort of like winning an intellectual lottery.

Actually, that was studied. A researcher compared the lifetime careers and earnings of two groups of people. Those who were selected by top tier schoolss, and attended them, versus those who were selected, but chose to attend college somewhere else, usually for personal reasons like "taking care of my old mama".

The researcher found no statistically significant difference between the two groups.

[ROLROC]

Originally Posted by aceplace

Rice has about 2,900 students. Of those 2,900, 2,100 of them are receiving financial aid, tuition waivers, etc..

What Rice is doing is essentially buying students based on their qualifications. It then uses the qualifications of those students to establish its reputation.

As to how this fraudulent practice benefits the City of Houston... "I just can't understand".

Houston needs to raise the educational and skill level of its entire population. Educating a tiny minority that will scatter back to their home states and countries after graduation is not a solution.

72% of students receiving financial aid at a private institution is not out of the ordinary. i don't see how wanting to bring in the best to produce the best is being fraudulent. private institutions exist largely based on research grants and alumni contributions- having the best faculty possible and producing the best students possible helps with this.

[aceplace]

Originally Posted by ROLROC

72% of students receiving financial aid at a private institution is not out of the ordinary. i don't see how wanting to bring in the best to produce the best is being fraudulent. private institutions exist largely based on research grants and alumni contributions- having the best faculty possible and producing the best students possible helps with this.

Did you say "... to produce the best"?

They are not producing top students, they are just finding them and purchasing them, just like a Malaysian sweatshop finding the best workers and paying them a little better than the prevailing wage. What happens after the students get to the university, well, that potentially has little to do with the university.

There are two issues in dispute:

What value does the college add to the lifetime achievement of the students that is any better than what they would receive elsewhere

What value does the presence of 2,900 undergraduates add to the City of Houston and its fortunes.

I've raised the issue that a general purpose university such as UNT or UTA could easily isolate the top 10% of its students into advanced programs, and do for them whatever Rice is doing for its students. That would not, however, advance the reputation of UTA or UTD. But is the reputation advancement important in the long term scheme of things? Whatever your opinion of President Bush, does the fact that he went to Yale make a difference?

[AK123]

Originally Posted by aceplace

Houston needs to raise the educational and skill level of its entire population. Educating a tiny minority that will scatter back to their home states and countries after graduation is not a solution.

Places like Rice U are elite because they don't have a huge student population.

But Houston isn't doing poorly... remember Baylor has a medical school that is ranked very well. UT-Houston isn't bad either. UH is improving, though it already had a few programs ranked quite well. Though you may hear of some of these high-profile grads who move elsewhere, many actually do stay in Houston (especially the med school grads). Many medical breakthroughs and firsts have come out of Houston.

Rice, Baylor and UT-Houston (among others) are all grouped together in or next to the Medical Center, which is the largest grouping of medical institutions in the world (many top-notch, like MD Anderson, St. Luke's and Methodist). The second-largest group of Texas Exes (UT-Austin grads) after Austin is in Houston. All that combined with the large number of engineers and professionals in the energy industry and NASA-related industries... Houston is no dumb city. That blue-collar, uneducated stereotype (resulting from specific areas east of town like Baytown and Channelview) simply isn't correct.

[WillysB]

Houston is no dumb city. That blue-collar, uneducated stereotype (resulting from specific areas east of town like Baytown and Channelview) simply isn't correct.

Aww, come'on. You don't mean there might be some college edumacated engineers in those chemical refineries, do ya? I'd guess that wearing a hard hat doesn't necessarily make then clueless, too?

[ROLROC]

Originally Posted by aceplace

Did you say "... to produce the best"?

They are not producing top students, they are just finding them and purchasing them, just like a Malaysian sweatshop finding the best workers and paying them a little better than the prevailing wage. What happens after the students get to the university, well, that potentially has little to do with the university.

There are two issues in dispute:

What value does the college add to the lifetime achievement of the students that is any better than what they would receive elsewhere

What value does the presence of 2,900 undergraduates add to the City of Houston and its fortunes.

I've raised the issue that a general purpose university such as UNT or UTA could easily isolate the top 10% of its students into advanced programs, and do for them whatever Rice is doing for its students. That would not, however, advance the reputation of UTA or UTD. But is the reputation advancement important in the long term scheme of things? Whatever your opinion of President Bush, does the fact that he went to Yale make a difference?

yes, produce. so you're implying the sudents at such universities gain and learn nothing by attending.

[aceplace]

Originally Posted by JJP

Places like Rice U are elite because they don't have a huge student population.

The technical term for that is "cherry-picking". A small institution that may be doing something exceptional is basically a statistical outlier, an abberation.

But Houston isn't doing poorly... remember Baylor has a medical school that is ranked very well. UT-Houston isn't bad either. UH is improving, though it already had a few programs ranked quite well.

That's a bit off-post. I can believe that Houston has some solid colleges, but its only so-called top-tier institution is a very small college that is more of an oddity than a reflection of the strength of the Houston Metro's educational system.

The question is actually... Does metro Dallas need a major sized university with a top-tier reputation?

I maintain that it does not.

I agree that the quality and methodology of university functioning in DFW should and must be improved, especially for the most capable students, but that does not imply a need for a separate "name" institution.