Why do US flagship state universities vary so much in quality?

Question

In the United States, it is typical for each state to have one or more flagship state universities. All of them are reasonably good institutions, but some are absolutely top-notch, such as in Michigan, California, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

Typically, tuition at these universities is extremely expensive for out-of-state students and much cheaper for in-state students. So, at least in principle, these universities principally serve the best students from their respective states who choose to study at public schools.

How is it then that some schools became absolutely top-notch and others less so? To my mind there is no obvious factor explaining which of the state schools became top-notch; for example, Wisconsin is not, and never has been, an unusually populous or wealthy state.

Answer 1

Different states have very different political attitudes towards their flagship schools as well. This makes a difference with funding levels of course. It also makes a difference in terms of how money is to be used. A governor/executive, combined with a university president, that wants to grow a flagship institution can help earmark funds to attract top-notch researchers, link business activity and academic areas to grow in, and so on. It takes planning and vision as well as money, and that varies a lot from state to state.

Answer 2

The one thing that has to be remembered is that classes at Universities are run by humans... and they aren't all of the same caliber.

If a University has decided to focus on a particular school, Civil Engineering for example, then they will expend the funds necessary to attract highly competent and well known professors in that area. This might mean that funds aren't available to attract similar talent in another college at that University, such as English Literature. However it also means that the university will get a reputation for turning out better candidates in those areas.

Next, Universities are funded through a variety of ways. Only one is the actual cost of tuition. Private funding, such as provided by various businesses or alumni, is a big part of this. If a particular college within the University graduates a large number of high dollar workers then those private donations are likely to be largely earmarked for that same college.

Point is: Quality is determined by your professors and tools available and these are generally determined by the Money a University has or is willing to spend.

Answer 3

State population, and proximity to a large city likely also plays a role. Its not a perfect correlation, but UCB, UCLA, Georgia Tech, UT-Austin, and several other "big name" state schools are either in or near major citys in high population states.

I'm guessing states like the Dakotas don't have enough students to build larger campuses, and hire as many profs. Looks like neither Dakota has even 1 million people. I'm guessing there just isn't very much real demand for education in these states, since fewer students are getting degrees the universities have less money for big ticket items like stadiums, rec facilities and "star" faculty.

Answer 4

There are a variety of factors, and the sample is too diverse to come up with a simple answer. For starters, here's a list of all the State-run universities in the USA. This answer is basically an outline, based on my impressions, and I invite others to elaborate on these points with historical documents (this answer is a wiki) or maybe even a statistical analysis if we're lucky.

1) The need for a state school. Some regions already had several private universities that could serve their population. Others (California?) did not, so the state set one up.

2) The political commitment to the University system. Some state schools (CA) are written into the state's constitution. Other's are not (PA). Some were established with land-grants.

3) In a less formal sense, some states have a strong public commitment to public education, while others value it less. The rankings of high schools has some correlation to my perception of flagship university quality.

4) As implied in the question, the total resources available to the state is an issue, though not the only one. Still, overall, larger and wealthier (and more urban) states tend to have more prestigious flagship universities.

5) And then there's randomness (as described by Chris Lively) -- all the stuff that is not a characteristic of the state per se. AKA, historical contingencies, personnel decisions, strategic decisions, and the general legacy of the University's infrastructure..

It would be interesting to see how all these factors contribute to predicting the prestige of the flagship university (a PCA or logistic regression, perhaps)-- but that analysis is outside of my expertise.

Answer 5

The other answers have pointed out a number of important factors, but an additional one is lack of competition. Most of the best state universities are in states and even regions with few large private universities of similar caliber (and especially, where there weren't many when the universities developed). It's notable that the northeast, which is wealthy, populous, and tends to have politics that support higher education still doesn't have any public schools in that caliber---in large part because it has the highest concentration of private schools which fill that niche.

There's a belief that having research institutions brings benefits to a state by creating jobs indirectly. That benefit is a lot of the reason a state would want to put the extra resources into a school to make it a top tier research institution rather that a good school primarily for educating its own students. Private institutions can provide the same benefit, and so reduce the motivation.

(Compare Texas, which has openly discussed that it has too few top research universities relative to its population and wealth and is running a competition among its lower tier research universities to become the states third public R1.)