They teach the same subjects, often they use the same textbooks, they take the same GRE, LSAT and MCAT. Students are (and always will be) more important than which school they attend. School choice often depends on financial,social and family factors Good students will generally do well regardless of which school they attend.

Good students will generally do well regardless of which school they attend. — prothero

What defines a "good student"? You would think that it would be obvious by now, due to the amount of time we've had education present in the affairs of humanity, that we would be able to figure out how to produce students ideally suited for a college education.

A good student is a student who pursues knowledge willingly and independently.

Most university rankings I am aware of are dominated by publications, so are not a good indicator of the quality of teaching and assessment, which are what is critical to students.

To get good teaching, you'd be wanting smaller class sizes and a minimum of multiple choice testing, and very strict quality control on exam papers when multiple choice is used. How one obtains information about that, I don't know.

Is the quality of the population ('a good or a great student') adequately captured by tests like the SAT or GMAT that limit admittance to schools with higher ranking?

Education is dependent on many factors. Teachers, laboratories, libraries, and quite possibly on weather too.

However, the classic structure of education is teacher-student.

When talking about education I tend to use the idiom "it takes two to tango" referring to the need for a good teacher and a determined student.

To that someone replied "when the student is ready, the teacher will appear" meaning a person who's eager to learn will do so, even from insects and animals - Aesop's fables.

Depends on whether you are talking about undergraduate or graduate education. A question about the "quality of education" in general would make more sense for undergraduate education. For graduate education you would be more interested in specific departments that have a high standing in their field, and even specific professors with whom you would like to study.

As for undergraduate education, you'll hear a lot of platitudes, but don't underestimate such down-to-earth factors as the wealth of the institution. A well-off college will have more and better teachers, more teaching assistants, more and better facilities, including science labs. All this factors into the quality of education.

A well-off college will have more and better teachers, more teaching assistants, more and better facilities, including science labs. All this factors into the quality of education. — SophistiCat

Is it all about money?

Are the best educational centers also the richest?

What's the causal connection here?

Rich, therefore better education

Or

Better education, therefore rich

??

I think money follows more than it leads.

Could be wrong though.

Does the quality of education differ substantially between universities? — Wallows

Depends what you're looking to get out of it.

Ivy Leagues and such will allow you to make more big name connections. It'll impress a certain type of people. You'll forever be able to drop lines like "when I was at Harvard..." or "during my studies at Yale we...." and thus annoy any and all of your friends/family/co-workers.

But if you're looking to get a high-quality education for your mind, you should go to a smaller school with small classrooms and more one-on-one time with professors.

The texts are the same. The professors will have the same degrees as the ivy league instructors (and you're less likely to get instruction just from TA's). It'll all be about what you decide to invest in the classes.

Don't forget that some of the greatest theories in the world were created using wax tablets and sticks to draw in the sand and just plain old conversation with other thoughtful persons.

well-off college will have more and better teachers, more teaching assistants, more and better facilities, including science labs. All this factors into the quality of education. — SophistiCat

In principal that may be true, but I can say that the public universities in california are no longer run by faculty. They have been taken over by the administration, which exists purely to perpetuate its own power, and has little concern with anything else. If you are partly through a degree and they decide to change the rules invalidating some of the courses they previously said would satisfy the requirements, there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. And it happens all the time.

In private universities here, they can raise the fees any time they want, and likewise, there is nothing you can do about it. But at least the faculty has more say on what constitutes a degree.

Don't forget that some of the greatest theories in the world were created using wax tablets and sticks to draw in the sand and just plain old conversation with other thoughtful persons. — NKBJ

Well, it depends on what you are planning to do. You know that old joke about scientists, mathematicians and philosophers? From the point of view of the administration, mathematicians are better than scientists (or engineers), because they don't need all that expensive equipment and materials, field trips, etc. All they need is paper, pencils, and a waste bucket. And philosophers are even better: they don't even need the waste bucket.

From the point of view of the administration, mathematicians are better than scientists (or engineers), because they don't need all that expensive equipment and materials, field trips, etc. All they need is paper, pencils, and a waste bucket. And philosophers are even better: they don't even need the waste bucket. — SophistiCat

Except that science brings in the big buck investors, grants, and many more students than philosophy. So it makes up for expenditure many times over and much more so than philosophy (the latter still requiring salaries for professors, which they are loathe to pay out).

I know about industry sponsorships and grants, but those are mostly relevant to graduate and faculty research projects. The college gets a cut, but most of the money goes towards paying grad students/post-docs and for research expenses like equipment and travel. Bottom line is that much of research in engineering, CS, some social and human science and some fundamental science pays for itself; not so much in pure math and humanities, I guess. But undergraduate programs are payed by tuitions, endowments, investments, etc. (That joke must have been made up by an undergrad.)

Is the quality of the population ('a good or a great student') adequately captured by tests like the SAT or GMAT that limit admittance to schools with higher ranking? — Wallows

My limited observation is that you are likely to get a better education at a uni that is respectable and competent, but not fashionable, which means ruling out anything with a high ranking in the uni rankings lists. I think that, provided the lecturers know their stuff (which means staying away from tinpot things like Jerry Falwell University), you are likely to get a better education from a medium-ranked uni because the administration and lecturers will be trying harder to win students, rather than resting on their laurels about how many papers have been published from their research.

If you're looking for entry into a high-flying profession, it may help to have a degree from an elite university, as in some places recruiters are snobs that prefer people from those than from medium unis. I am fortunate that where I live, people mostly don't care about that. They just look at whether the degree is from a reasonable uni that they've heard of, what subjects you studied and what marks you got.

The college gets a cut, but most of the money goes towards paying grad students/post-docs and for research expenses like equipment and travel. — SophistiCat

I live in a location with numerous universities... they must be getting more than a pittance to be constructing new buildings just about every 3 1/2 minutes. One in particular is almost big enough to deserve its own zip code.

So far, everybody has been on target. Everything said above is true. But...

You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, and the student has no choice about being the pig's appendage.

The high stakes game of social mobility is over before the student arrives on campus. IF he or she comes from a high-achieving, at least affluent, well connected family, he or she will probably attend an at-least-very-good-to-very-fine college and, barring some major personality flaw (tilts toward psychopathic murdering, has a taste for cannibalism, sexually prefers little girls and boys, etc) things will work out just fine.

Even very bright, ambitious students from low-achieving, poor working class, socially marginal families will be lucky to complete college at all, and if they do will not ascend into the refined upper classes. Most children are attending schools that do not/can not prepare students for excellent collegiate performance.

Social rank is hard to buck, and effort isn't sufficient. The upper classes (where the choicest goodies abound) will not admit the learnéd rube from Fargo into the firm, period. He may have done very well at Concordia College, and he may have gotten a PhD in Chemistry at Wisconsin-Madison (unlikely but possible), but he will never belong to the Right Class of people.

Compared to where he came from (anywhere in Fargo; working class family; mother descended from Russian peasant farmers in North Dakota; father from lutefisk eating Finnish iron miners in Minnesota; Lutherans, father worked at a hardware store -- note, worked at a hardware store, didn't even own the podunk operation); mother works in a hair 'salon' in Fargo... he's doing really, really great. Very high achieving. He'll get a job at 3M in St. Paul, live in an older home in White Bear Lake, maybe play golf, do the usual, marry; have children; drive a nice SUV... but he won't be part of the St. Paul upper class no matter what.

Social class is determined by the value you can produce in the market, not your background. College doesn't necessarily determine your success or social class either.

Social class is determined by the value you can produce in the market, not your background. — AppLeo

Many people think they live in a class free society, or that the class system is very fluid. They are not, and it is not. A good job and money will improve your standing among your peers -- but that's just the minimum definition of class. If you are a member of the crème de la crème, extra money is merely nice -- not essential.

"Class" (as in polished antique silver, old Persian rugs, and ancestors who got off the boat in 1620 or 1066) is derived from a family's reputation as long-term distinguished leaders of society. This usually includes being, and having been, reasonably wealthy, and WASP -- White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant. The bluest of blue bloods in the US are the descendants of the Mayflower Compact signers--1620. You can't buy your way into that group. the highest upper class in Britain is richer and larger than the highest American upper crust. They go back a long ways; 1066, at least. Some longer.

Michael Bloomberg, the former Mayor of New York City and multi billionaire founder of the Bloomberg Business News Service, doesn't have the family history to count as a member of the social/economic crème de la crème upper class. What he is is a charter member of the fewer-than-1% club of very very rich people. It too is very distinguished; it's upper class, and it's democratic--something the crème de la crème is not. Any very very rich person can join. Only women whose ancestors fought in the American Revolution can join the DAR.

His family didn't come over on the Mayflower. His family were not royalty. His family did not own plantations (and slaves, of course) in Georgia. His family didn't fight in the American Revolutionary War or the Civil War, especially on the Confederate side. Further more, he is a Jew. Even Jews that walk on water don't get into the highest level of the upper crust. Neither do blacks. Italians either. No Mexicans. Really! The very idea.

The crème de la crème highest crust of the upper class, marries carefully, sends its children to the right schools and colleges so they will meet other crusty crème de la crème scions and marry one of them.

If your great great great great grandparents were not crème de la crème upper crust, you won't be either.

Just because you can't be a Mayflower Compact Signer descendent, doesn't mean that you are trash. There are quite a few class grades below the crème de la crème level, yet way above riff raff. In my part of the world, would-be upwardly mobile people live in the right suburbs, send their children to St. Thomas or St. Olaf College. Their children take their place as the up and coming generations of social and corporate managers. It's a good group to belong to. They run a lot of stuff. But they're not crème de la crème. They are solidly upper middle class; kind of bourgeois. Can one buy one's way into this class group? Just about. You have to have been born into it, and attended the right high schools. But your children can belong to it, even if your parents didn't.

The lower classes have traditions too. One way to get into certain well paid tightly controlled trades is to have a father who was a member of that trade. He can get you in, but you have to perform on the job. It's not honorary.

One can see shades of class even among riff raff. There are those beggars who maintain themselves much better than others; they are willing to beg, collect aluminum cans, etc. -- whatever it takes to supply themselves with certain minimum necessities. Then there are the bottom of the barrel riff raff who get drunk, fall over on the sidewalk, and stay there until the police cart them off to jail or detox.

So what's your solution to this problem?

Which problem -- the problem of class or the problem of getting a good education?

For those in the upper classes, there is no class problem. They are at the top, they like it, and they plan on staying on the top.

The class problem belongs to working class people who spend their lives producing wealth which ends up concentrated in the hands of the richest .001% to 5% of the population. The solution is for working class people (who are at least 90% of any country's population) to understand how much they are getting screwed by the rich. Labor produces all wealth, ultimately, and when labor withholds its labor, the mighty will fall.

Yeah, you've heard something about this idea -- it's from Karl Marx. The solution is revolution: The revolution of redistribution of wealth and power. OK, so you don't like what happened in China, the USSR, or Cuba. Fine. You don't have to like it. Marx didn't spell out how the working class should put together a new, just society. Surely Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Castro didn't have all the good ideas.

The new society will be built by the working class as they see fit.

As for getting a good education, no matter what high school you went to, no matter what college you graduated from - Podunk State or Harvard - commit yourself to life-long learning. Education is always achieved by the individual through individual effort. This has been proven many times: Students at Harvard, Yale, Princeton or Berkeley who screwed around all the time learned nothing. Some people who never went to college became quite learnéd.

Karl Marx's ideas were tried, and what happened was death and destruction. Economic collapse and stagnation.

The solution isn't economic distribution. The solution is economic freedom. Free market laissez-faire capitalism. A just society is a free society. Not a society that aims to have perfect equality of outcome for everybody.

Karl Marx had nothing to do with the American Experiment, yet we committed genocide upon the aboriginal peoples in our territory and we brutally enslaved millions of Africans. 1 in 25 men were killed during the civil war (population of 16m males, 640k killed). We seized the northern half of Mexico for ourselves. Former slaves experienced decades of terrorism. Labor obtained an 8 hour day and a 40 hour week only through bitter struggle. Roughly 50,000 people a year were killed on the highway for decades because of bad but very profitable engineering. so on and on

We are quite willing to attribute the horrors of the Soviet Union and the Cultural Revolution to Karl Marx, but we are reluctant to attribute anything to the spirit of free enterprise in which the US was conceived. Maybe we are not looking closely enough?

Our species is not very nice a good share of the time, regardless of the economic system we operate within. Everyone (especially in groups) are capable of doing really bad things. Human history 9or the last couple of centuries) is chock full of horror stories, all true and many understated.

My point? Capitalism, Industrialism, National Socialism, Communism, Maoism--pick your poison--entail massive processes which end up crushing the individual. Yeah, Communism was not nice, but it managed to achieve enough industrial production in less than a quarter century between 1918 and 1941 to defend itself from and defeat the German army. Nazi Germany was capable of prodigious production to support its war, and the UK and US pulled off equally amazing feats of production.

You don't like distributivism; I don't think economic freedom (unfettered free enterprise) is a good thing.

It just seems to me that democratic socialism, with its curbs and limits on corporate excess and individual greed offers more advantages for the future than another hundred years of predatory capitalism.

You are wrong on so many levels.

The Soviet Union and the Cultural Revolution in China killed MILLIONS of people. Free enterprise has never killed anyone in the millions. It has dramatically increased the quality of life for everybody. It's evident from history that free enterprise does so much good for the world. Any country that doesn't value economic freedom will stagnate and self-destruct. The 19th century was the greatest period of economic growth that America has ever seen. Thriving middle class and tons of inventions.

My point? Capitalism, Industrialism, National Socialism, Communism, Maoism--pick your poison--entail massive processes which end up crushing the individual. — Bitter Crank

Capitalism doesn't crush the individual. Do you know what capitalism is? Do you know what a free economy looks like? Individualism can only be compatible with a free system. Which means capitalism is the only system that values the individual. Individuals choose how to make a living. Individuals choose what to buy. Individuals deal with one another as individuals through the process of free trade.

quote="Bitter Crank;249261"]You don't like distributivism; I don't think economic freedom (unfettered free enterprise) is a good thing.[/quote]

Obviously.

What gives you the right to distribute money. Why should anybody be entitled to money that they didn't earn? Why shouldn't people be free to spend their money however they want? Why should someone in power get to decide where money goes?

Why do you want to distribute money? What makes you think you can even distribute the money effectively? What makes you think you can raise someone's social class by giving them money? If you give a poor person money that they didn't earn, you're not raising their social class. They are the still the same person as they were before. They are still poor. And giving them money will only enable their bad behaviors. If people can get money for doing nothing, they'll never change themselves to get the money that they desire. Which means that when you give people money, you are essentially keeping them poor. You are widening the gap between the rich and the poor and destroying the middle class.

It just seems to me that democratic socialism, with its curbs and limits on corporate excess and individual greed offers more advantages for the future than another hundred years of predatory capitalism. — Bitter Crank

Democratic socialism is the antithesis to the individual. Democratic is mob rule. Socialism is collectivist. If you value the individual, if you are a defender of minorities (and the smallest minority is the individual), then you wouldn't advocate for democratic socialism.

Why would you want to limit corporate excess? These corporations provide services and jobs to the public. Limiting corporations hinders economic growth.

Individual greed???
You know what's greedy? People who want to take money from the rich even though the rich created their wealth through sheer productive ability and built major businesses that increased the quality of life for everybody.

What makes capitalism so predatory? Free trade is the opposite of predatory.

You know what's predatory. An all powerful government taking away your money when you've earned it. An all powerful government regulating what you can buy and sell. An all powerful government ruled by someone like you who has the audacity to think that he knows a better a way to create economic wealth than the complexity of millions of economic transactions that take place in a free market.

If you want better education for people, you let them be.

Rhethoric aside, why is laissez faire economics better than some regulation in place?

People should be free to make their own decisions about what it is they want to buy and sell. Nobody else should have that authority over you.

A government made up of people making decisions for the public is not only insulting to people because they are capable of making their own decisions, but people in the government don't care because it's not their lives. If they make a wrong regulation, or forget to make an important regulation, who suffers the consequences? Not them, the people do. Therefore the people should make the choices first hand.

And don't forget about the cronies. Businessmen pay off politicians to pass regulations to benefit them at the expense of their competitors. Which again is horrible and shouldn't happen. Which means you must take away the government's power to regulate if you want freedom and justice in the economy.

Yes, I see that Ayn Rand is beaming right through you. It's a pity philosophers don't take her more seriously.

If they did take her seriously she would destroy them, so it's no wonder.

Do not fret. Alan Greenspan was a devout believer in objectivism. I suspect Trump may have read her Atlas Shrugged too. Rand is very popular among most Republicans...

Don't know much about Greenspan. Trump may have read Atlas Shrugged, but he his no objectivist. And it's weird that republicans like her considering that many of them are religious and she is atheist. They don't understand that she provided a philosophical framework for capitalism. She wasn't advocating capitalism for no reason; I wish they would understand that.

Rand is more popular among libertarians, I think.