Back in 2013 Penn State was ranked 37 in the US News and World Report rankings. Now they are 62 and behind Pitt and Ohio State. I realize this is just one ranking, but it is also the most widely accepted ranking. PSU admins need to focus on stopping this free fall.
What is going horribly wrong at PSU - free fall in academic rankings
- Thread starter CavalierLion
- Start date
Coincidence ?????
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President Eric J. Barron
Eric J. Barron, former dean at Penn State and former president of Florida State University, began his presidency at Penn State on May 12, 2014. Succeeding former President Rodney Erickson, who had served since 2011, Dr. Barron was named the 18th President of Penn State by the University's Board of Trustees February 17, 2014.
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President Eric J. Barron
Eric J. Barron, former dean at Penn State and former president of Florida State University, began his presidency at Penn State on May 12, 2014. Succeeding former President Rodney Erickson, who had served since 2011, Dr. Barron was named the 18th President of Penn State by the University's Board of Trustees February 17, 2014.
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anon_xdc8rmuek44eq
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Another academic ranking resource I like is Niche.com; Penn State is the #18 public university and ranked #82 overall (that list includes liberal arts colleges, many of which are ranked higher than Penn State). Michigan is the highest ranked public university according to Niche - they're #23. Still, Penn State gets an overall rating of A+ and is the highest ranked public university in Pennsylvania.
As an out of state student, I struggle to see the cost/benefit of going to Penn State these days. Yes, I had a great experience in going to Penn State but I’m sure I could have had a similar experience going to other schools in the same demographic as Penn State. This morning, I looked at US News and World Report to see which schools were higher ranked and cheaper from an out of state perspective. I would push an out of state student to the other Big Ten schools, and Florida, to name a few.
Totally: an internationally publicized pedophilia scandal that dominated news for months couldn’t hurt image or recruiting or reputation at all. Definitely Barron’s fault!
To be accurate, what U.S News calculates is not an academic ranking. It's a ranking based on criteria THEY'VE decided is important. Click the below link. 22% is based on graduation and retention rates. I think we've suffered in that regard due to more out of state students being admitted simply because they're charged a higher tuition. They may flunk out after a year or leave because they decided the tuition was more of a burden than they expected. Old Main doesn't care. The next year they'll just admit some other out of state kid and take their money.
20% is peer assessment. No doubt that's taken a hit due to the incompetent response to the Sandusky scandal.
5% of the ranking is student indebtedness. I'm guessing our more recent alums have quite a bill to pay. Tuition relief isn't anywhere on the horizon.
LINK
20% is peer assessment. No doubt that's taken a hit due to the incompetent response to the Sandusky scandal.
5% of the ranking is student indebtedness. I'm guessing our more recent alums have quite a bill to pay. Tuition relief isn't anywhere on the horizon.
LINK
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I'm sure you don't get the irony in your post. Oh well!
Other schools have become much better at maintaining plausible deniability on the survey.
Could you please define “irony?” I don’t think I’v ever seen that word properly used (on this board)
I concur. When I went to PSU as an out of state student the difference between in state and out of state was only $5k, now it is about double. I would not send either one of my kids to PSU unless they were able to get significant scholarship assistance.
Tuition is outreageous, no doubt. My kids are looking at PSU but probably want to go further away from NJ. We have seen a lot of the country together and they know what's out there. The thing is unless your home state has a state school(s) that your kid likes, you will be looking at out of state tuition or a private school. As I raised my children well they have no interest in Rutgers. So that is that.
Whose job would you say it is to fight to change the narrative on that image or reputation?
I agree. If we aren’t regarded as the Harvard of central Pennsylvania he must be screwing the pooch. I long for the days of Spanier. Now that guy was respected on this board!!
Sure. No question. But wouldn't that be a delayed reaction? The scandal hit in 2011/12. PSU was 27th in 2013. Now we are 62nd. So from 2013-20 which is 2-8 years post-scandal, and it's the scandal.
Also it’s definitely not his job to bring in revenue, just to elevate our academic reputation. Thank gosh he gets such solid support from the state legislature!!!!
So you think it’s all behind us now? That lost fundraising and any hits to recruiting have no lasting affect? That all of our competitors were sitting still?
Then you are right!!!
You should quit while you're behind.
Money's recent ranking of colleges by value has Penn State at #278.
https://money.com/best-colleges/profile/pennsylvania-state-university-main-campus/
https://money.com/best-colleges/
https://money.com/best-colleges/profile/pennsylvania-state-university-main-campus/
https://money.com/best-colleges/
One of the primary reasons PSU gets relatively less in the way of state aid is that it is basically not accountable for that money. At one time, there was talk of changing that equation, but PSU wasn't interested (neither were many in the legislature for that matter).
In the 7-8 years since 2013's ranking and as the student debt crisis has continued to get more and more attention, the ranking formula has been adjusted to measure areas related and semi-related to the cost of attendance: both direct factors like actual tuition and average financial aid awards, and more secondary related factors like retention and graduation rate (the biggest reason why students don't finish their degree is that they stop being able to afford it).
This hits Penn State negatively on two fronts: obviously the cost of attendance itself puts Penn State behind the mark versus its peers in the ranking formula. But also, it hurts Penn State's recruiting in terms of incoming freshman class credentials. As others in this thread have mentioned, if you live in Maryland, it'd be a tough sell to go to Penn State at $35K versus UMD at $10K. Even if you're a Pennsylvania resident, $18K at Penn State can easily be counter-balanced (and often is, given how notoriously stingy PSU is in the financial aid department) by a $15K scholarship at UMD to make the out-of-state tuition there $21K.
There are some other, more minor factors - a lot of the highest-credentialed high school applicants are interested in areas like medicine, where Penn State-University Park is naturally going to suffer versus a similarly-ranked school that has a ton of biomed research labs and faculty members right on campus. But it's mostly been Penn State's massive cost of attendance and cheap financial aid policies, and Penn State's fall in the rankings is directly correlated to the rankings' increased focus on financial factors.
This hits Penn State negatively on two fronts: obviously the cost of attendance itself puts Penn State behind the mark versus its peers in the ranking formula. But also, it hurts Penn State's recruiting in terms of incoming freshman class credentials. As others in this thread have mentioned, if you live in Maryland, it'd be a tough sell to go to Penn State at $35K versus UMD at $10K. Even if you're a Pennsylvania resident, $18K at Penn State can easily be counter-balanced (and often is, given how notoriously stingy PSU is in the financial aid department) by a $15K scholarship at UMD to make the out-of-state tuition there $21K.
There are some other, more minor factors - a lot of the highest-credentialed high school applicants are interested in areas like medicine, where Penn State-University Park is naturally going to suffer versus a similarly-ranked school that has a ton of biomed research labs and faculty members right on campus. But it's mostly been Penn State's massive cost of attendance and cheap financial aid policies, and Penn State's fall in the rankings is directly correlated to the rankings' increased focus on financial factors.
Mods, this thread is where Barry could really contribute. Consider inviting him back please.
The PA legislature is way too busy overpaying themselves to worry about much of anything else. After all, PA must be doing very well, what with having the second highest paid legislators in the country.
It does, on both sides. The amount of money that would have gone Penn State's way would have covered the cost of the bureaucrats, with a little change left over for unimportant things like tuition reduction, expansion of educational opportunities, etc.
I wonder what is their plan? Build an Art Museum! This is really a sad development!!
New Jersey and New York are interesting situations with no real reputable state schools of note. That’s one historic reason Penn State has done so well in the Northeast. Rutgers has improved in the past decade and joining the B1G will continue to help.
The SUNY system is pretty reputable
I had a daughter attend the University of Texas and within one year she was paying in-state tuition. (less than 10K a year for in-state at a really good public university) It pays to research the residency requirements as part of your school search with your children.
Is it? I can’t think of anyone I know who grew up in NY State who aspired to attend a SUNY school. Maybe some things have changed in the past couple of decades.
My parents moved from New Jersey to Philly in August of 1990, just weeks before the start of my junior year at PSU. We qualified for in-state tuition for the fall semester. I have no idea how it works now.
They have a number of decently rated schools. I have no idea what kids may aspire to these days.
Might have something to do with there being no "main campus." The system is so disparate, it takes some digging. Stony Brook, Binghamton, and Buffalo are all good schools and other locations have some very fine departments.
If I had it to do all over again - I went to F&M for academics - I would have gone to Miami to sow my wild oats with the coed population. I wouldn't have studied nearly as much, but the smile on my face would have been ear to ear.
