"If you can't go to college, go to....DUKE?!??!"

[rsvman]

Money magazine has updated their annual list of "Best Colleges in America," and I was fascinated to find that they list NC State ahead of Duke (31st and 33rd, respectively, if I remember correctly; I can't access it from my work computer).

Bear in mind that because the rankings were done by Money magazine, the criteria they used were slightly different from the typical listings; for one thing, fully one-third of the ranking was based on price, with less expensive being better.

FWIW, the University of Virginia was the highest ranked of all the ACC schools. And UNCheat was a long ways down the list, well behind both NC State and Duke. So the list had that going for it, which is nice.

Anyway, I was going to link the story, but I can't because the site is blocked. If anybody is interested, it won't be hard to find, and if anybody is interested in discussing this, perhaps a kind soul can post a link for me.

[left_hook_lacey]

http://time.com/money/longform/2018-...united-states/

My wife's entire family are State grads and big time supporters. I hope she doesn't find this list.

[PackMan97]

Bear in mind that because the rankings were done by Money magazine, the criteria they used were slightly different from the typical listings; for one thing, fully one-third of the ranking was based on price, with less expensive being better.

NC State has always faired well on any list that accounts for two questions:
1) How much does it cost to go?
2) How much do you make after graduation?

The problem is that many "rankings" factor in things that aren't really important:
a) how hard is it to get into? (the more exclusive the better)
b) how easy is it to graduate? (the easier the better)
c) the ratings from high school guidance counselors (wtf)
d) other nonsense that really doesn't matter

If my kid could go to Duke or State, I'd say Duke in a heartbeat, if they didn't have to pay for it Even then it might be worth it. That said, State is an incredibly good value for in-state students. Given our focus on engineering and hard science, our graduates are in demand, we are located somewhere where it is easy for them to get real world experience in internships and coops, or even start their own business. Only Boston, NYC, Silicon Valley, Seattle and Austin can rival the Triangle in exposure to in demand jobs and employers.

[Highlander]

NC State has always faired well on any list that accounts for two questions:
1) How much does it cost to go?
2) How much do you make after graduation?

The problem is that many "rankings" factor in things that aren't really important:
a) how hard is it to get into? (the more exclusive the better)
b) how easy is it to graduate? (the easier the better)
c) the ratings from high school guidance counselors (wtf)
d) other nonsense that really doesn't matter

If my kid could go to Duke or State, I'd say Duke in a heartbeat, if they didn't have to pay for it Even then it might be worth it. That said, State is an incredibly good value for in-state students. Given our focus on engineering and hard science, our graduates are in demand, we are located somewhere where it is easy for them to get real world experience in internships and coops, or even start their own business. Only Boston, NYC, Silicon Valley, Seattle and Austin can rival the Triangle in exposure to in demand jobs and employers.

I agree with you, and FWIW, I had this exact decision when I was a HS senior. I was admitted to State in the college of engineering around Christmas and University Scholars. For the next 4 months I made plans to attend State in the fall. I took a college day there and bought me a COE shirt to wear. Never really looked anywhere else b/c I saw GT and State as pretty similar, and State was significantly closer and less expensive. Then, I (a bit surprisingly) got into Duke around April.

At the time, State was around $9-10K per year for in-state. Duke was just over $30K. I had some financial aid, but not nearly enough to cover Duke. The BN Duke Loan Replacement Fund was amazing (all my loans were replaced with grants), but it still cost a ton of $. I tried weighing the decision logically with pro's and cons on each side. No one around me had heard anything about Duke's Engineering school. In the end, the major factors for me were:
- State was primarily an Engineering school, while Duke was primarily Liberal Arts. If I decided I didn't want to do Engineering at State, I'd be taking a step down. At Duke, I'd be more balanced in my Engineering Ed and I had a top 5 LA school to fall back on.
- Prestige. Figured a Duke degree carried more weight than one from State. In general I think this is true, although in Engineering (especially in NC), its pretty even.

Still, it was a pretty close call in my mind, and I have always viewed it as a decision between two great options.

Now my eldest son is starting High School. State is slightly more expensive than it was when I had to choose, while the cost of Duke has more than doubled. Looking at it from an investment perspective, it's hard for me to reconcile that my Duke degree is worth 5-6x the cost of a State degree, especially since the majority of that discrepancy would be made up through loans that would take decades to pay back. If you replace loans with scholarships or grants, that changes the value prop entirely., but that BN Duke Fund no longer works the same way.

State's a huge school where its easy to get lost. If you ask someone at state if they new X person, they would always say "no." I always describe Duke as a school where there is typically only 1 degree of separation between any two students. So if you asked me if I knew X person, I'd probably say no, but its pretty likely X and I know someone in common. VikingGuy was a pretty common denominator