Since many universities in some states are considered better than other universities in other states does that mean some states have better education system than other states?
Since many universities in some states are considered better than other universities in other states does that mean some states have better education system than other states?
Comments
Yes
Not the best metric to use for that, since plenty of people attend college in a different state, or attend a private school, but yes.
Correct.
Yes obviously but there really is no education system.
K-12 schools are independently administered by individual districts. Community College systems have their own independent districts. Universities are clearly independent from each other as well.
Even within the same state there are generally competing universities and colleges that have varying degrees of quality.
Every state is ranked on their education with Massachusetts being considered #1. Harvard is also in Massachusetts.
Definitely – though universities may not be as impacted. They earn a lot of money through sports. So a school like Clemson may be in a low performing state, but since it won some sportsballs people want to go there, and it gets more money via students and sponsors. Universities are more of a business than public K-12 education.
Yes for sure. Education is delegated to the states so they are all running different policies and budgets and have vastly different outcomes. There’s all kinds of metrics. Here’s a map showing graduation rates:
https://dashboard.ed.gov/statecomparison.aspx?i=e&id=0&wt=40
Some states definitely have better educational outcomes than others. But the universities are not how you’d base that.
Most states have multiple universities and some are better than those in other states while some are worse. So using that a metric has all sorts of problems.
But “education systems” rankings at State level are rarely based on tertiary education. Most state level ranking systems only look at primary and secondary educational institutions.
The universities in a state aren’t really affiliated with that state’s public school system. That said, yes it is true that some states have better education systems than others.
So, yes, but also no.
There are states with better universities and school systems, but they aren’t necessarily the same states.
You have places like Massachusetts with good high schools, but only okay public colleges, places like California and Texas where the colleges are very good, but the high schools can be a bit of a mess, and places like Washington where they’re all good.
Additionally, the quality of high schools is much less dependent on your state, and much more dependent on the income of your neighborhood, so even states with overall bad public schools still have very good schools inside of them.
yes
Yes. The US doesn’t have a national curriculum for education; therefore it is setup by each state. Since it’s a free for all, of course there are going to be states that have better education than others.
Yes, demonstrably
Not just due to universities but primary and secondary education.
Correlation perhaps but the organization and funding mechanisms for K-12 and public universities are different.
That said, the states that generally care about education of children also often fund their state universities better than states that don’t prioritize education.
Usually a state will make sure it has at least 1 well regarded flagship institution. Some have many more and obviously private schools exist in every state, totally outside the state funding process.
There is no US education system. There are 50+ US education systems further subdivided into school districts usually defined by county or municipal borders. At the K-12 level (primary through secondary school), these school districts are funded primarily by property taxes. As a result, districts with more valuable real estate tend to have more money and thus better educational outcomes. Not always, but often. Universities and colleges are completely separate from these systems and are funded differently (usually through a combination of tuition, endowment, state appropriations, and federal grants). So you can’t always judge the quality of a state’s universities and colleges by the quality of its K-12 systems.
Some states certainly have a higher ranked public education system than others, but colleges and universities aren’t part of that system. Also, it matters what course of study within a university you’re talking about. Having an undergraduate literature degree from Yale isn’t the same as graduating from law school at Yale.
Yes, but the better higher education systems don’t necessarily align with the better K-12 education systems. For example, Massachusetts has one of the best K-12 systems, but it’s public universities aren’t very prestigious. By contrast, North Carolina and Georgia have highly regarded flagship universities, but their K-12 systems aren’t very good.
Yes some states have better education systems than others. It’s part of the reason why we moved from the state our kids were born in to another state for them to attend school in.
Florida has someone of the best Universities but the worst education system. The two are not connected.
When I was growing up in North Carolina, most of the public school systems (especially in the rural areas) were not great. 3-4 schools had almost all the national merit semi-finalists for the state.
In contrast, the public university system was one of the best in the country.
TLDR In my experience, they are not linked
Very much so!
These are separate questions. Universities are not “public” in the true sense. They may be subsidized (cheaper to attend/tuition because the government pays for a part of it) by the state government, but it is not truly state mandated curriculum. Most famous Universities are also private and the state they are in has almost no influence on them.
The K-12 school system is publicly funded and free for children to attend. Their curriculum and again, funding is largely state based. In this sense you could argue some states have better education systems than others.
A university is a business. A K-12 gradeschool for children is a service. States could be better or worse at providing services. A state being “good for business” is a completely different matter. [to simplify]
Our state, Texas, is huge and bigger than Germany. School districts are independent from cities and counties and don’t match city or county boundaries. The amount of money they have to spend is mostly set by local property taxes so some have much bigger budgets than others. The state does require the students to take the same standardized tests, require students to attend a certain number of days, set high school graduation requirements, etc but the districts still have lots of freedom within that framework.
For example, my younger son will go to high school in August. He could choose to attend the neighborhood high school in his district, apply for a charter school (public school that isn’t part of a district) or try to get into another district’s schools if they are full of in district students. Among those he could choose an early college high school located at a local 2 year college, a biomedical school, etc. He applied to and got into a pretty amazing arts high school in an another district where he will be on the orchestra track.