OT - The value of a Kentucky Degree

[Get a Job]

You are assuming causation here. You can show correlation, but not causation. Again, university X may produce higher graduation rates than university Y for a particular factor or group of people, but there are many variables affecting this. Ex. selection process for admission may vary by demographic group. Therefore, if it's more difficult to get accepted to uconn as an asian male than any other group, then asian males will likely have the best grades on average. But that doesn't mean it's easier for asian males to succeed at uconn or that uconn is doing a better job of educating them. It just means they are likely more intelligent on average because there was a more selective process for them to get admitted. On the flip side, if being a certain race and gender helps a person get into school, then the academic success of that group will be below average due to being less intelligent on average. Once SAT scores and highschool academic record are factored in, then all demographic groups have essentially the same drop out rates, graduation rates, academic success etc. But since demographics are taken into account for admissions at many schools, then you see a spread of results that is not equal between groups of different races, genders, first generation etc. Uconn and other schools spend millions of dollars per year on salaries of people trying to figure out why students of different backgrounds vary in success, but almost all of the differences in outcomes are due to the fact that the schools discriminate in admissions and therefore different groups of students are not the same on average and will experience different dropout rates and academic success etc. It's politically incorrect to say this so people dont talk about it and the university keeps pumping money into trying to figure out a solution to a problem they could fix by simply blindly looking at things like high school academic success instead of demographic information. They can do what they want in admissions, but don't spend millions of dollars on administrator's salaries pretending to try to find a solution to a problem that they created and already know how to fix.
Without taking into account many factors, then weighting a decision about where to attend school based on something very specific like the average success of people who are like me in a particular way is probably not wise and should not be weighted in US news and world report to rank a school. Focusing on reputation of the school, which companies recruit from the school, which grad schools people get accepted to from the school etc are going to be better indicators of which school to attend IMO.

I love this post. I haven't had time to digest all of the assertions to know what I think of them, but I already know I like the approach. Very Freakonomics.

 

[FatHank]

View attachment 54014

What's up with the Popcorn Sutton pic here? The guy is a legend moonshiner.

 

[CL82]

Not that I consider the USNWR the be all end all of college rankings, but even FSU has jumped ahead of UConn the past few years (Tie for #57 for FSU vice #64 for UConn).

Part of the formula is investment by State entities. UConn benefited during the build out. With the state reducing its contribution, we are now dropping in the rankings. There’s a lot of reasons why US news and world report is not a good indicator of academic standing. This is just one of them.

 

[uconnfan68]

Well....I don't know about what basketball players do at these schools, and UNC has had their issues (to say the least!) but in addition to the schools you mentioned BC, UNC, Georgia Tech and ND are all great schools. And Clemson, Miami and Pitt are no slouches. I don't like the ACC but you can't lie, the academics in that conference are pretty good.

https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities

Thank you for not mentioning Syralose.

 

[uconnfan68]

Part of the formula is investment by State entities. UConn benefited during the build out. With the state reducing its contribution, we are now dropping in the rankings. There’s a lot of reasons why US news and world report is not a good indicator of academic standing. This is just one of them.

There is also the fact that schools self-report.

 

[TheChamps990411]

Calipari doesn’t make great players, he finds them and convinces them to spend seven months in Kentucky.

This right here. Soooooo this!!! I absolutely feel like hurling when I hear how Cal gets so many guys in the NBA. NO HE DOESNT!!! He gets the highest rated recruits who would be going straight to the pros out of high school if the NBA didnt have that stupid rule. Give me Squids recruiting classes and id be able to brag about getting guys in the NBA. Most overrated coach of all time. Rant over

 

[sledog]

Going back to the US News rankings, ND is a top 20 national university. And like it or not, there's an instant name recognition from every employer and their alumni network is pretty stout. Opens up more doors than most.

WSJ ranking:

ND = 32, UConn = 105.

Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education College Rankings 2020

The Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education College Rankings gives students and their families the information that they need to help them choose where to study. The ranking of more than 800 universities is based on 15 individual performance indicators and responses from more than 170,000...

www.timeshighereducation.com

 

[Sportsman5]

WSJ ranking:

ND = 32, UConn = 105.

Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education College Rankings 2020

The Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education College Rankings gives students and their families the information that they need to help them choose where to study. The ranking of more than 800 universities is based on 15 individual performance indicators and responses from more than 170,000...

www.timeshighereducation.com

I think that grouping universities together into a tiered system makes more sense than individual rankings and helps give perspective to where schools fit in compared to the rest of the schools in the country. For example, there are about 2500 colleges/universities in the US that offer atleast a 4 year bachelor degree (according to my research on google). Tier 1 might be the top 20 schools, tier 2 the next 100, tier 3 the next 200, tier 4 the next 500, tier 5 the final 1000+. ND is on the line between tier 1 and tier 2 while uconn is in the middle of the tier 2 group. Going to ND over uconn would help you most if you want to work in a field that values prestige and your family has no connections in that field. It might help you slightly with getting into graduate schools compared to a uconn grad. Also, outside the US and a few other first world countries I bet virtually no one knows the difference between ND and uconn academically, where as places like Harvard and MIT are known around the world as elite schools. Therefore, for this reason I think that bumps ND down to uconn's tier for almost all things with a few exceptions. For example, working on wallstreet or getting accepted into hyper competitive graduate school programs where everyone has basically perfect resumes and they need to look to small differentiating factors.