Public Ivy

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"Public Ivy" is an American term for state-funded institutions of higher learning that claim to possess academic reputation as excellent as an Ivy League university. Author Richard Moll defined the term to mean a public institution that "provide[s] an Ivy League collegiate experience at a public school price." The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education characterized them as "successfully competing with the Ivy League schools in academic rigor... attracting superstar faculty and in competing for the best and brightest students of all races."^[1] The term does not suggest any comparison with the GPA or SAT scores of the entering class as they vary greatly.

Contents 1 Origins of the term 2 The Public Ivies 3 Value 4 Institutional comparisons 4.1 Academic comparisons and rankings 4.2 Athletic comparisons 5 See also 6 References and other resources 6.1 Citations 6.2 Books

[edit] Origins of the term

The term "Public Ivy" was coined by Richard Moll in his book Public Ivys: a guide to America's best public undergraduate colleges and universities (1985). Public Ivies are public institutions that "provide an Ivy League collegiate experience at a public school price." Moll was the director of admissions at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and traveled the nation examining higher education and in particular, identified eight public institutions (the same as the number of Ivy League members) that he thought had the look and feel of an Ivy League university.

[edit] The Public Ivies

The original public ivies from Moll's Public Ivys: A Guide to America's Best Public Undergraduate Colleges and Universities published in 1985::

• College of William and Mary
• Miami University (Ohio)
• University of California, Berkeley
• University of Michigan
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• University of Texas at Austin
• University of Vermont
• University of Virginia

A later book titled The Public Ivies: America's Flagship Public Universities (2001) by Howard and Matthew Greene of Greene's Guides expanded upon the list in the first book, adding seventeen schools for inclusion as "Public Ivies".

From Greene's Guides published in 2001, additional schools:

• Binghamton University
• Indiana University Bloomington
• Indiana University of Pennsylvania
• Michigan State University
• Ohio State University
• Pennsylvania State University
• Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
• University of Arizona
• University of California Los Angeles
• University of Colorado at Boulder
• University of Connecticut
• University of Delaware
• University of Florida
• University of Georgia
• University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
• University of Iowa
• University of Maryland College Park
• University of Minnesota
• University of Washington

Howard Greene and Matthew Greene present a slight variant of their own list in an appendix to an earlier volume Hidden Ivies: Thirty Colleges of Excellence, (2000),

• University of California, Berkeley
• University of California, Davis
• University of California, Los Angeles
• University of California, San Diego
• University of California, Santa Barbara
• College of William and Mary
• Indiana University Bloomington
• Indiana University of Pennsylvania
• Pennsylvania State University
• University of Colorado at Boulder
• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• University of Michigan
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• University of Texas at Austin
• University of Virginia
• University of Washington
• University of Wisconsin-Madison

Other schools are sometimes referred to as Public Ivies as well, partly as a result of the acceptance of the term into popular culture and in other cases as a result of marketing efforts by the colleges and universities themselves.

For example, based on U. S. News and World Report rankings, the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education opines that, in addition to the above, Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) could also be considered a "Public Ivy".^[2]

Though not included on the above lists, Murray State University includes the phrase "Kentucky's Public Ivy University" on its official logo and the State University of New York at Geneseo, part of the State University of New York system, describes itself as a "Public Ivy." ^{[3] [4]}

[edit] Value

U.S. colleges and universities have been observing sky-rocketing costs of attendance, making the role of quality public education increasingly important. The Public Ivies represent those schools a student can attend for the same quality education, at a much lower cost. (Some exceptions do exist. The University of Michigan, for instance, is ranked highly for educational quality, though their costs are comparable to private schools). Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine ranks public instituations according to approximately 2/3 academic qualities, and 1/3 financial statistics. For 2007, the top values in the country were UNC Chapel Hill, and Binghamton University for in-state and out-of-state students respectively.

[edit] Institutional comparisons

[edit] Academic comparisons and rankings

Moll and the Greenes did not address the issue of prestige associated with the various schools reviewed. No direct comparison was made between a Public Ivy and any other school.

Many of the institutions categorized as "Public Ivies" have a large number of faculty, or alumni, who have been awarded prizes for their achievements in their respective field including the Nobel Prize (See Nobel Prize laureates by university affiliation), Fields Medal, and the Pulitzer Prize.

Several schools considered by Richard Moll as well as Howard and Matthew Greene as "Public Ivies" are consistently ranked among the top schools in the multitude of surveys on American colleges and universities undertaken by U.S. News & World Report. For instance, U.S. News and World Report ranks the mechanical engineering program at University of California-Berkeley in the top three, and the top three pharmacy programs (University of California-San Francisco, University of Texas at Austin, and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill).^[5][6] Also, the University of Washington's medical and nursing schools ranked first among all national universities.^[7] However, in general rankings, U.S. News and World Report consistently ranks Ivy League institutions at the top of its lists. For example, the highest ranked Public Ivy, the University of California at Berkeley ranked 20th in the United States, while the lowest ranked Ivy League institution, Brown University, ranked 15th.^[8]

[edit] Athletic comparisons

One sharp distinction between the Ivy League and most "Public Ivies" is their participation in intercollegiate athletics. One of the Ivy League's distinguishing characteristics is its prohibition on the awarding of athletic scholarships; (athletes may only receive the same need-based financial aid to which they would be entitled even if they did not play a sport). In contrast, many of the "Public Ivies" engage in widely popular, quasi-commercial athletics that, in a few cases, make significant contributions to the university's revenue. Most participate in major athletic conferences such as the Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, ACC, SEC, or Pac-10; award athletic scholarships; and rely on profits, if any, from large-scale football and men's basketball programs to support the athletic department as a whole (College of William and Mary, Miami University and University of Vermont are exceptions, as their athletic programs remain quite modest but award scholarships nonetheless).

[edit] See also

• Colonial colleges
• Hidden Ivy
• Ivy League
• Jesuit Ivy
• Little Ivies
• Southern Ivies

[edit] References and other resources

[edit] Citations

1. ^ "Comparing Black Enrollments at the Public Ivies" from the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education (Autumn 2005) accessed on 3 September 2006.
2. ^ "Comparing Black Enrollments at the Public Ivies" from the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education (Autumn 2005) accessed on 3 September 2006.
3. ^ SUNY Geneseo statement using "Public Ivy" to describe itself. accessed 22 October 2006.
4. ^ Logo Guidelines at Murray State University accessed 5 September 2006, stating: "Effective immediately, the following new 'Kentucky's Public Ivy University' logos replace the 'Excellence begins here' logo."
5. ^ U.S. News and World Report (2006 Engineering program rankings) accessed 21 October 2006.
6. ^ U.S. News and World Report (2006 Pharmacy program rankings), accessed 21 October 2006.
7. ^ U.S. News and World Report (2006 medical rankings), accessed 22 October 2006.
8. ^ U.S. News and World Report (2006 general rankings), accessed 21 October 2006.

[edit] Books

• Greene, Howard and Greene, Matthew. The Public Ivies: America's Flagship Public Universities (New York: HarperCollins, 2001). ISBN 0-06-093459-X
• Greene, Howard and Greene, Matthew. Hidden Ivies: Thirty Colleges of Excellence (New York: HarperCollins, 2000). ISBN 0-06-095362-4
• Moll, Richard. The Public Ivies: A Guide to America's best public undergraduate colleges and universities (New York: Penguin (Viking), 1985). ISBN 0-14-009384-2 or ISBN 0-670-58205-0
• Princeton Review. The Best 361 Colleges, 2007 Edition (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton Review, 2006). ISBN 0-375-76558-1