[timeofseasons]

No, there is nothing special about University of Michigan or Michigan State University.
Speaking of Big Ten schools, to mention a few: Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, Ohio State and Penn State are all great.

[edsg25]

from wikipedia...

The Public Ivies according to Greene's Guides
A later book titled The Public Ivies: America's Flagship Public Universities (2001) by Howard and Matthew Greene of Greene's Guides expanded upon the first list (italicized below) to include 30 colleges and universities.[8] The table below is organized by region, and colleges are listed in alphabetical order.
Eastern
Pennsylvania State University (University Park)
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (New Brunswick, New Jersey)
State University of New York at Binghamton
University of Connecticut (Storrs)
University of Delaware (Newark)
University of Maryland (College Park)

[edit]Western
University of Arizona (Tucson)
University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, Davis
University of California, Irvine
University of California, San Diego
University of California, Santa Barbara
University of Colorado at Boulder
University of Washington (Seattle)

[edit]Great Lakes & Midwest
Indiana University (Bloomington)
Miami University (Oxford, Ohio)
Michigan State University (East Lansing)
Ohio State University (Columbus)
University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign)
University of Iowa (Iowa City)
University of Michigan (Ann Arbor)
University of Minnesota (Minneapolis-St. Paul)
University of Wisconsin (Madison)

[edit]Southern
College of William & Mary (Williamsburg, Virginia)
University of Florida (Gainesville)
University of Georgia (Athens)
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
University of Texas at Austin
University of Virginia (Charlottesville)

Note: Purdue is considered to be a public ivy in the area of technology

[BigLake]

That's an interesting find. I wonder why they expanded the list. I'd always known the "Public Ivies" to be a small handfull of elite public schools as a direct counterpart (and alternative) to the Ivy League. Here's the list of Public Ivies that I've always been aware of (this list is from wikipedia. The direct link is below)...


The original eight Public Ivies as they were listed by Moll in 1985:[2]

• College of William & Mary (Williamsburg, Virginia)
• Miami University (Oxford, Ohio)
• University of California (campuses as of 1985)[6]
• University of Michigan (Ann Arbor)
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• University of Texas at Austin
• University of Vermont (Burlington)
• University of Virginia (Charlottesville)

Public Ivy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

also found this...

The Experts' Choice: The Public Ivies | InsideCollege.com

as well as this:

SparkCollege: The Elite Schools

[edsg25]

^

I keep noting that noting a list is just a list, but the Greene’s is among the more respected.

It’s interesting to note in the list upon that only California, Ohio, Michigan, and Virginia have more than one school.

The list represents 21 states, so (see I'm educated...I can subtract) 29 states have no university on the list at all.

[Giesela]

Depends on what you mean by elite I guess. MSU accepts a higher percentage of applicants than U of M not sure how its percentages compare to other schools. U of M was just ranked 39 in the country by.....US Reports? annual ranking which is higher than OSU, MSU etc. I think a lot of UM high rankings may be bleed over from its graduate programs many of which are stellar. I think you may run into more out of state students - U of M is a second choice for all the high level coasters who don't get their first Ivy type picks - that may make Michigan feel more elite than MSU IDK. I spent one year at MSU and 3 at Michigan. They are both good depending on what your looking for. Its more about the student really.

[TheProf]

Big Lake, I'm not going to agree (and most people won't either) that MSU is NOT prestigious. A university that is an AAU, world top 150 (and has been, in some polls, well w/in the top 100, including top 80 in an NBC/Newsweek poll a few years ago) and has a $1.4B endownment can't be NOT prestigious. MSU is not AS prestigious as UM, but to say MSU is not, at all, prestigious is a bit absurd.

Obviously, the poster on the below U-M website agrees with this idea. The pulled quote underscores this guy's clear-eyed thinking that is share by most, objective people:

Michigan is a public Ivy. Michigan State is on a short list of schools that should be, and is also an elite research institution. State and National funds are split down the middle. Donor bases are comparable. The schools draw from similar academic bases on students and faculty. They are the marque public schools for an entire region. Everyone in Michigan wants to go to one school or the other. Families grow up hating or preferring one school over the other.

The Michigan Michigan State Rivalry: An Outsider's Perspective - Maize n Brew


Also, I disagree that the gap btw MSU and UM is the same as MSU and the directionals... Again, MSU and UM are in the same league, literally, in sports and academics (Big 10), ... as well as the AAU.

Big Lake, when is the last time ANY of the Directionals recruited outside of Michigan (where they are virtually unknown)? MSU does all the time; the contingents from New York and Chicago are virtual small colleges in themselves... When was the last time a Directional raised $1B in a campaign (MSU, Purdue and Berkeley were the 1st Univs to do this without the (U-M) benefit of an on-campus medical school, ... which are the cash cows for their schools)...

No Big Lake, MSU is nowhere close to any of the Directionals and is why the well known fact (as is noted by the UM web writer) that, in addition to recruiting out of state/around the world, for the top Michigan high school grads, it usually comes down to 2 schools: UM or MSU... and NOT any directional school...

... Big Lake, you can't NOT be prestigious and be able to do that...

[TheProf]

Originally Posted by edsg25

Hey, Prof.....good responses. and Big Lake got me all wrong where as you were reading me loud and clear.

a lot relates to the Big Ten. You already know my position on Nebraska. Without being unduly critical, I really don't think it is a B10 quality school.

But what Big Lake didn't seem to get about what I was saying about MSU and the Big Ten is this:

unlike any other major conference, what separates the Big Ten schools is their top to bottom rankings. In other words, at least in how I see it (and those rankings....for as little as they are worth...back me up) the Big Ten has quality throughout (and again......there's my concern about UNL).

It's not that the Pac 12 doesn't have Stanford, Cal, UCLA, SC, UWash. It isn't that the ACC doesn't have Duke, UVa. UNC, Wake.

It's that those conferences peter out with the likes of Wash St, Ore St, ASU, Miami, FSU.

As for the rankings of the Big Ten, schools like Minnesota, OSU, IU, Purdue, and MSU tend to be rather close.

I really do believe that the midwest (in terms of the 7 states in the original Big Ten footprint) were the lynchpins for public higher education in the United States. The northeast was about private universities and indeed their public universities didn't really receive prominence until after WWII. The Great Lakes region was the product of the northeast, but in the more equalitarian interior, truly American in nature.

The South didn't develop along the same route, slavery no doubt being a factor. And schools like UNL are out there on the Great Plains, removed from the nation's urban energy that helps define our colleges.

So, yes, I do see MSU as having set itself apart from landgrant and even original flagships in state in other parts of the nation.

Thanks for the compliment, edge... as usual, YOU NAILED IT!!

[MI-Roger]

A co-worker has a son who graduated High School this year and is very interested in Central Michigan. The family attended an organized campus visit and learned that their son's freshman year at CMU is estimated (by the university) to cost in excess of $19,000 for tuition, room & board, books, compulsory fees, pizza & pop money, etc.

My oldest graduated from a Tier 1 Law School in 2007 and is continuously griping about the approximately $80,000 in debt he acquired for that degree, a sum which included his living expenses for three years, Bar Exam study courses, tests and admission fees. After hearing about the current cost of CMU I asked my son which debt he would rather have; $80K for a JD from a Tier 1 school, or $80K for a Bachelors degree from CMU?

BTW - He went to law school out of state and paid less than what any Michigan school would have charged. Michigan colleges and universities are pricing themselves out of the market - if only the potential students and their parents would take time to investigate

[BigLake]

Originally Posted by TheProf

Big Lake, I'm not going to agree (and most people won't either) that MSU is NOT prestigious. A university that is an AAU, world top 150 (and has been, in some polls, well w/in the top 100, including top 80 in an NBC/Newsweek poll a few years ago) and has a $1.4B endownment can't be NOT prestigious. MSU is not AS prestigious as UM, but to say MSU is not, at all, prestigious is a bit absurd.

Obviously, the poster on the below U-M website agrees with this idea. The pulled quote underscores this guy's clear-eyed thinking that is share by most, objective people:

Michigan is a public Ivy. Michigan State is on a short list of schools that should be, and is also an elite research institution. State and National funds are split down the middle. Donor bases are comparable. The schools draw from similar academic bases on students and faculty. They are the marque public schools for an entire region. Everyone in Michigan wants to go to one school or the other. Families grow up hating or preferring one school over the other.

The Michigan Michigan State Rivalry: An Outsider's Perspective - Maize n Brew


Also, I disagree that the gap btw MSU and UM is the same as MSU and the directionals... Again, MSU and UM are in the same league, literally, in sports and academics (Big 10), ... as well as the AAU.

Big Lake, when is the last time ANY of the Directionals recruited outside of Michigan (where they are virtually unknown)? MSU does all the time; the contingents from New York and Chicago are virtual small colleges in themselves... When was the last time a Directional raised $1B in a campaign (MSU, Purdue and Berkeley were the 1st Univs to do this without the (U-M) benefit of an on-campus medical school, ... which are the cash cows for their schools)...

No Big Lake, MSU is nowhere close to any of the Directionals and is why the well known fact (as is noted by the UM web writer) that, in addition to recruiting out of state/around the world, for the top Michigan high school grads, it usually comes down to 2 schools: UM or MSU... and NOT any directional school...

... Big Lake, you can't NOT be prestigious and be able to do that...

OK... I'm not stopping you. I am happy for you that seem to have arrived at a decision that you are comfortable with.

[edsg25]

Originally Posted by BigLake

OK... I'm not stopping you. I am happy for you that seem to have arrived at a decision that you are comfortable with.

oh, really? so The Prof has "arrived" at a place you've never been. How nice. How smug. And how arogant.

You go right on kidding yourself, BigLake. And ignore reality. And the reality is:

it is all perception

that's right. yours, mine, TheProf's, USN&WR's. Everyone of us. Pure perception. None of us have "the answers." We take the data in and we do the best with it. But we are all taking in it with our own spin and we're all doing it with probably less than 99% of what we really need to know.

It's perception. It's subjective. And it's all we have. So we operate on it.

Thus you may go with "OK... I'm not stopping you. I am happy for you that seem to have arrived at a decision that you are comfortable with." but I choose to go with the far more humbling but much more gratifying and totally human...

IMHO