Thanks Ben (WSJ university ranking)

Republicans have not kept it a secret, they want to destroy education, too bad UF is target #1.

 

Desantis fans wanted to take credit for the #1 ranking even though we know he had absolutely zero to do with it, so you all better be ready to deal with the deserved backlash from this drastic fall from the top of the rankings. Dude is a clown.

 

That’s a significant drop, even with desantis. I wonder what the driver was, maybe a formula change?

 

Well that seems hard to believe. Wonder what changed in their ranking methodology to create such a fall. Doubt any changes at UF really made that happen.

 

Ugh, FIU is ahead of UF.

Seriously though, who knows what drives these rankings.

 

Driver is the salary rating, this isnt DeSantis.

we only got a 55 out of hundred on this measurement and it’s 1/3 of the score:

on the one hand I actually like this measurement in theory, the other hand, the way they set it up isn’t good at all, and why they have such wonky results. If I read it right, a school with half the post graduate starting salary of a UF grad could get 100 because they are compared to crap schools in grad salary, while we might get an average (55) because we are being compared to some of he best schools in the country given the profiles of the kids we take in. And then the raw salary value hurts states with lower cost of living and salaries.

• Salary impact (33%): This measures the extent to which a college boosts its graduates’ salaries beyond what they would be expected to earn regardless of which college they attended. We used statistical modeling to estimate what we would expect the median earnings of a college’s graduates to be on the basis of the exam results of its students prior to attending the college and the cost of living in the state in which the college is based. We then scored the college on its performance against that estimate. These scores were then combined with scores for raw graduate salaries to factor in absolute performance alongside performance relative to our estimates. Our analysis for this metric used research on this topic by the policy-research think tank the Brookings Institution as a guide.

 

I don’t. UF is still the go to school for talent in the state, and nationally people weren’t following our saga. Forbes ranked us as the fourth best public just a few weeks ago, and when you look at WSJ’s full list there are some seriously wonky results. Even last year when we were number one, they had FIU as the fourth best public school.

The real tell on the collateral damage this year will be the USNews rankings in a few weeks, because peer reputation is a big component there. Even if our USN ranking is fine, do hope UF gets away from caring so much about these lists though, for just this reason. I understand why we did it, we needed our national reputation to catch up to our regional one and this was the best way to publicize it. But when you give them as much credence as we have over the past decade, it puts our entire reputation at the whim of a few editors at a magazine. That’s not the way to run a university.

 

Value added. UF didn't add as much value as other schools. Based on the raw materials going in, the students who enrolled, the finished product, the students who are graduating, aren't worth as much as they could have been if they had gone to other schools.

Tricky to measure, if a school is good at motivating students to work for the greater good, they get penalized on this metric.

 

I get it. What I’m saying is that the other schools taking in kids with 1400 SATs are all great schools. If we are average against that cohort we are doing pretty well. If a FIU gets a high score on that measure because they are doing well when compared to schools taking in kids with 1150 SATs, but UF grads still make 20 percent more out of college than them (which they do), what’s the value of it in the end? A kid with a 1400 SAT is still better off going to UF than FIU. A kid with an 1150 is better off going to UF if they can get in too.
The measurement seems to be penalizing UF for its peer group and rewarding FIU for theirs.

 

UF is a great value and most certainly in the realm of a top 10 public University. The rankings that overinflated UF or Florida’s overall educational system are garbage, so too is any ranking that puts FIU ahead of UF, unless it’s a football ranking… then maybe.

 

There is a thread on the Den board on this too. These rankings are a little unusual and they up front say something like 50 universities swapped out places in their top 100 along with the fact they dont count reputation and a few other things. They just measure how much the University improves your life. Seems sus.

 

The 1400 SAT kids are going to FIU instead of UF, they are going to one of the other highly competitive schools that does better than UF at providing value. Yes, they will be better off at UF than at FIU, but that isn't an option they are considering. They are choosing between UF and Stanford, or Georgia Tech, or other schools like that.

The value of it in the end is that if enough students are making business decisions about where to invest four years, and we don't show a solid return on investment, they won't come here and our incoming classes get weaker.

 

Assuming 55 is roughly average, being average for our peer group given our how recent our rise has been is solid, but that’s a separate debate.
The issue is that the way they calculate that input is like saying the number 2 ranked FCS school is better than the number 10 ranked FBS school, because of how they compare to their peers…it’s not a valid comparison. It’s also partly how schools like Babson, Davidson and Claremont (who jumped 116 spots last year) made their top 10 overall. It’s just a wonky ranking system, and clearly goes through major revisions every year.

 

Well 34 is still better than our football ranking

 

I’m thinking this tumble in academic standing certainly can’t hurt the football program. So I’m ok with it.

 

Forbes rated UF the #4 public university a few days ago. I believe. The WSJ devalued itself. I could blame the lower ranking on Democrats if I wanted, but I won't. I don't know the WSJ methodology
But suppose cost of living.is rising faster in Florida compared to wages earned by graduates relative to other states due to fast rising rents caused by Democrst open borders and the flying.of.illegals to Miami. Would that.lower the UF ranking? Who knows? Do the WSJ rankings take into account anything.relat3d TO DEI or things having nothing to do with academic excellence?

 

What? They gutted the diversity office. The faux president took the university for millions in gifts to his political buddies. The new post tenure review was a disaster. Political meddling is extreme in the state, tarnishing schools' rep throughout the national higher ed community. This is the short list. UF has faced countless challenges, mostly from horrendous state governance.

 

I do believe UF’s reputation has taken a hit nationally (people used to just mock “Florida man”, but after Desantis and attention getting drawn you see alot of people making fun of our schools too). But the fact that they ever had UF at #1 in the first place, and that so many schools moved around so drastically just means their ranking metrics are wack. I remember laughing when some posters came here fluffing for Desantis over that obviously ridiculous #1 ranking. Embarrassing that the WSJ would even publish such a thing.