Quote:
Originally Posted by trigirdbers
What would be really nice is if we could turn Poly into something like Georgia Tech, a good solid mid to high-range technical school that could produce higher-than-average quality workers for the tech industry. Companies like Google and Intel would love that but it would require the right allocation of funding.
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I'd love that, it would take a long while to get to GT's level though, they're much better than Mid to High range, they're pure high range. US News & World Report rated them #36 overall in the country, thats about 100 slots higher than either ASU or UA.
In the short run an independent Poly would certainly be a second tier school, but I don't think that would always be the case. If the East Valley cities bounded together and really pushed it, it could do wonders. And if they were free from the shackles of ASU, and could compete for their own grants I think they'd do better long term. Competition will breed success for Valley higher educational institutions, having a bunch of satellites that are step sisters of ASU clearly isn't working too hot.
I think hoping Poly could ever be at the level of Georgia Tech, MIT, Cal Tech or Virginia Tech is probably unreasonable. But if an Arizona Poly could be eventually comparable to say
Texas Tech,
LaTech or
The Florida Institute of Technology, that would be great. Even getting to that level though would take a long, long time. NAU after all is a Tier 2 research school and I don't expect some new school would get funding priority over them.
It would be nice if the State had a system that pushed to get ASU & UA into the Top 100 Nationally, NAU & Poly into the 150-200 range and then offered some schools focusing more on under graduates as teaching/non research schools, like an independent ASU West (Central AZ U/PHX St) and a 'graduated' Phoenix College.