[HooverDam]

Originally Posted by trigirdbers

No state of comparable size has 2 top flight publics. In fact the ONLY state that does is California and thats because So-Cal and Nor-Cal are huge regions and the state as a whole produces enough gifted students and tax revenue to support them.

Right I guess I should've defined 'top flight', I meant relative to our state. We don't have California's money, so we won't have their system. Theres no reason in my eyes though that ASU can't with proper planning be where UA is now, and UA could move up a bit as well.

Originally Posted by trigirdbers

Even in the California system, where all the UC's are "top flight", no one would put IC Davis on the same level as UCLA or Berk which are nationally respected.

Looking at this list: http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandre...ational-search

The UC system has in the top 100:
21. UC Berkley
25. UCLA
35. UC-SD
44. UC-Davis
44. UC-Irvine
44. UC-Santa Barbara
89. UC-Riverside
96. UC-Santa Cruz

By comparison, we have:
96. UofA
121. ASU

Look, Im not asking for any of our public schools to be in the top 10. I know we'll never have a Harvard here, thats fine. Can we maybe get UA into the 50-75 range and ASU into the top 75-100? I really don't think thats asking a lot, is it?

To compare to a state more similarly sized with us Virginia (which is ranked #12 in pop, with 7,769,089, we're #14 with 6,500,180) has:

23. UVA
71. VaTech

Now of course they have advantages over us (other than being slightly larger) like being older and more established and thus a larger network of donors. However, Im not asking us to be in the top 25, just 25 or so slots higher than where we are now. With our growing population and other advantages, I think its a reasonable goal.

Originally Posted by trigirdbers

If we "switched it up", we would be even further from producing a world class university.

That was mostly a joke. I just hate that UAs been given every advantage under the sun from the state for over 100 years and still isn't anything special.

Originally Posted by trigirdbers

I don't get why re-making the system in its entirety is vital.

Because its a laughable joke as it is now? What does our system do really well? Anything other than attract super hot chicks?

Originally Posted by trigirdbers

ASU does a respectable job at educating the masses.

While this may be the case, should it be? Just because its possible for ASU to educate the masses, is it the best allocation of resources? We need to look at not only whats seen (ASU perhaps doing a passable job educating the masses) but also the unseen. How much better could ASU do if it was able to shed 20K students and focus its mission a bit more?

Originally Posted by trigirdbers

What UofA has is a solid foundation. Even though it is "massive" it is no more so than some of the country's most excellent flagships. 30k UG enrollment is sustainable even for a public university of the highest caliber (Michigan and UCLA both have almost as many students).

Agreed, you'll notice in my plan I suggested UA having no more than 40K students and ASU having no more than 45K.

Originally Posted by trigirdbers

ASU will never be able to cut enough enrollment to compete at this level,

Why not? Again, ASU doesn't have to be UC Berkley, heck UA doesn't have to be either. But can't ASU be ranked around where UCR is? We should be able to compete with the freakin' Inland Empire, shouldn't we?

Originally Posted by trigirdbers

too many facilities would be wasted and jobs lost, even if parts were spun off.

Im not quite sure what jobs would be 'lost'. In fact, quite the opposite, you'd be creating thousands of jobs. New teachers and professors at new schools, the construction jobs, maintenance people , administration, etc etc.

Sure some professors in certain programs wouldn't have jobs at ASU anymore because there programs would be taken care of by a different school, but thats not like theyre losing a job, theyre just moving to a different building.

I'm not sure I buy the facilities argument either. A lot of ASUs facilities are in woeful condition. My roommate is an architecture major and the college of design buildings are heinous, dilapidated jokes. They could either be knocked over if they were no longer needed (moving those programs to a different/better building on campus) or repurposed.

For instance a big problem with ASU is that it feels like the worlds biggest community college. Theres fewer students living on campus (as a percentage of the student body) at ASU than at most schools. Maybe some of the buildings could be repurposed into dorms or replaced by dorms. Furthermore, ASU has always been a 'land rich, money poor' school, if it came down to it they could always sell land on the periphery of their campus to generate revenue (though I doubt that would be necessary).