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Another Reason Why FB Program is Vital for UM's Future

FL Cane said:
Agree that USNWR methodology is off and doesn’t capture the full picture. However, college applicants heavily use it. It sucks but it’s the reality of the situation. Adm. Stavridis also would’ve been a home run hire. A huge issue with UM, in selecting Frenk and with other high profile decisions, is how absolutely incompetent the BOT is. Other than a few members, most people on it want to keep the status quo going regardless of results.
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Poorly informed college applicants use it, but it's impact is extremely overrated and has been for a long, long time. Let's be honest, the two largest considerations made by kids in regards to college is name recognition and cost. Miami has gone away from the huge, generous financial aid packages that made it a choice for talented kids that could have attended other schools, but weren't poor enough to qualify for significant aid. That was the case with me, I came from a middle class family, so I wasn't poor enough to get a ton of need based aid, but Miami's financial aid package was so **** good, it more than made up for the fact that Miami isn't an Ivy or a high end liberal arts school. A lot of kids, that would have ended up at state schools(Like me) were able to become 'Canes, because there wasn't a huge cost gap.

Dr. Shalala was HUGE on making Miami affordable for kids that qualified. The problem was that the program was a victim of its own success. As more and more high end kids started coming(Which helped Miami climb the rankings, alongside huge fundraising drives), **** near everyone qualified for the merit aid, and it became an issue in regards to cost. When you go on campus now, it's mostly extremely rich kids, very little economic diversity, mostly because the school doesn't give out the aid as readily as they once did. I don't think it's an accident that alumni giving is dropping off, these kids view Miami as an economic transaction, nothing more. Compare that to my generation, we came from **** near everywhere, a lot of us feel that being 'Canes forever changed our lives and we want to help the school in any way we can. Yes, the school will always have a ton of wealthy kids, but when you basically have a student body that lacks any kind of vitality or true diversity, you miss out on that deep loyalty that really drives fundraising and support.
 
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Canedude08 said:
You can tell the idiots in our fanbase that never attended college, and those that did.

The USNWR rankings are designed to do ONE THING, sell magazines, no one knows exactly what the criteria is, what is known about said criteria is that it's EXTREMELY easy to manipulate. Are you in the middle of a huge fundraising drive? You'll climb the rankings, regardless if you are actually doing anything to improve the educational experience for students. Are you playing games with admission yield, in order to look more selective? You'll climb the rankings, because a couple of decimal points can be worth 20+ spots in the rankings.

Dr. Frenk isn't nearly the fundraiser Dr. Shalala was, and that's my major issue with him. He has done an extremely poor job of attracting top end faculty, and that's why I wouldn't have a problem if he was pushed aside for a more dynamic leader. You don't go from Dr. Shalala raising Billions for the University and attracting **** good faculty to this guy that apparently doesn't even have the respect of the faculty and isn't nearly as visible on campus as his predecessor. The powers that be wanted a puppet Prez, and they got it. They could have had someone like Adm. Stavridis, but they settled for this guy, for whatever reason.

You really think FIU magically became 40+ spots better overnight? Of course not, the ranking criteria has been adjusted to benefit larger state schools, and schools that are extremely cheap. Outside of the Ivy leagues and Ivy adjacents, there are few and I mean few private schools climbing the rankings, mostly because the criteria directly hoses those schools.
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So was Shalala hiring Pascal Goldschmidt, who the faculty walked out of mid-"State of the Union" speech, a **** good hire or respect of the faculty? Shalala had her fair share of mistakes too, and despite what we are supposed to say, the pandemic (along with smartly going into urgent care and leveraging brands like Bascom Palmer and Sylvester), bailed the school out of a major financial mistake in UHealth. Frenk is just a disaster across the board, but that's what happens when you let decisions get made outside of the merits of candidates.
 
wspcane said:
I am not saying they will get anywhere close to that. I am just saying whether it is 14, 20, 30, or 50, it is something the schools pay attention to and validate. When I started, they were right around 50. By the time I graduated, they were in the 70s. Their tax program was always top 5. Now it is nowhere to be seen. With the mass of big firms and finance jobs moving to Miami, it would be a good and smart time to put some money into the law and business schools.
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Didn't know that the tax program had fallen in rank. Sad to hear that, used to be elite.
 
Business, Medicine, Nursing, Law, Music, Engineering - Mech, Bio, and and Civil. Maybe English because of the Frosts. Drop everything else and focus on those majors. I know people gonna gripe about computer science/programming but it is a really flooded market.
 
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