ISU's academic rankings decline continues

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Cypow

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The THE World University Rankings were released today, and Iowa State has dropped to the 401-500 ranked bracket. For reference, ISU was ranked 156 in 2011. Comparatively, Iowa was ranked 132 in 2011, and 201-250 in 2021.

Expect to see similar declines in the US News rankings when they are released on September 14th.

ISU is now the lowest ranked AAU university.

This is the result of over a decade of disinvestment in higher education by the Iowa state government.

 
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BCClone

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Not exactly sure.
Usually when college populations explode, they drop schools hard in those things. Gee, has ISU gained much for students the last 10-15 years?
 
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Cypow

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Usually when college populations explode, they drop schools hard in those things. Gee, has ISU gained much for students the last 10-15 years?

Enrollment increases do affect some criteria indirectly. That explains part of the decline.

The main cause is no secret. Look at the state's history of investment in higher education. State government has consistently failed to provide Regent's universities with funding that is even close to budget requests. The causes are many but this is by far the most significant driver of the decline.

A drop like this over a single decade is not caused by increased population alone. Not to mention ISU is down 4,000 students from its peak enrollment.
 
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cysmiley

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Usually when college populations explode, they drop schools hard in those things. Gee, has ISU gained much for students the last 10-15 years?
Maybe, but Ohio State, Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota Indiana are all larger in our AAU region and outrank us substantially.
 

Urbandale2013

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Enrollment increases do affect some criteria indirectly. That explains part of the decline.

The main cause is no secret. Look at the state's history of investment in higher education. State government has consistently failed to provide Regent's universities with funding that is even close to budget requests. The causes are many but this is by far the most significant driver of the decline.

A drop like this over a single decade is not caused by increased population alone. Not to mention ISU is down 4,000 students from its peak enrollment.
While I’m not happy about the drop in funding support by the state these rankings are frankly no different than the best city lists that always come out. They really have no basis in reality IMO.
 

qwerty

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I didn't realize U of Iowa was that much more expensive, especially for out of state. Their student:staff ratio is better and their female to male much better but everything else is comparable. ISU is 3500 students (12%) larger.

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cyfan4St8

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Thanks Terry and Kim
You do realize that Branstad was governor in 2011 right lol. And I can guarantee Chet which was a baaaaddddd governor didn’t help build up Iowa State rankings . It’s interesting how people want to blame certain people just because of what party they side with . It’s honestly what’s partly wrong with politics anymore.
 

knowlesjam

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Well, the freshman class at ISU is down 4% (1,566 students) from last year. While that helps the student-teacher ratio, it also means that the university receives 4% less tuition.

Haven't seen any UofI numbers yet.
 

Urbandale2013

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You do realize that Branstad was governor in 2011 right lol. And I can guarantee Chet which was a baaaaddddd governor didn’t help build up Iowa State rankings . It’s interesting how people want to blame certain people just because of what party they side with . It’s honestly what’s partly wrong with politics anymore.
What are you even saying? I agree that Culver was a bad governor. That doesn’t change which side has decreased funding for education.
 
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WooBadger18

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On Wisconsin
Maybe, but Ohio State, Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota Indiana are all larger in our AAU region and outrank us substantially.
They do, but I also don't think those are fair comparisons.

At least when I was in high school, Iowa, Iowa State, and UNI all had the same admissions requirements and as long as you met the minimum standards you were given automatic admission. It looks like it's the same now. That's not the case at those other schools. It's much harder to get into Illinois, Minnesota, Ohio State, and Wisconsin (I don't know about Indiana). They really are flagship universities and their states have significantly more universities to handle all of the other students.

What is Purdue ranked? Because that's who I think we really need to be focused on.

I'm not saying that Iowa State's ranking aren't a cause for concern, they are and we should work to improve them. But the State of Iowa has chosen a very different idea for higher education than Illinois, Minnesota, Ohio State, and Wisconsin have.
 

cygrads

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Do these rankings have any impact on our status with the AAU? If so we need to get this figured out and if not maybe it's not something to be concerned about.
 

cyfan4St8

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What are you even saying? I agree that Culver was a bad governor. That doesn’t change which side has decreased funding for education.

Yeah cutting budgets can not help in that but why would that be the reason in total that our ranking dropped . I wasn’t in school at the time the enrollment was at its highest but from what I heard from interns and family we had in school in that era. Class sizes were far too big and accommodations for that many students on campus did not help in a great experience for the student body and maybe trying to have that many enrolled and growing the student body their might have been a few thousand that were not fit for that level of education or at least without a better transition from high school to college and they couldn’t handle it without having better support from the school since it grew so fast.
 

NWICY

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Enrollment increases do affect some criteria indirectly. That explains part of the decline.

The main cause is no secret. Look at the state's history of investment in higher education. State government has consistently failed to provide Regent's universities with funding that is even close to budget requests. The causes are many but this is by far the most significant driver of the decline.

A drop like this over a single decade is not caused by increased population alone. Not to mention ISU is down 4,000 students from its peak enrollment.

Are we at 32,000 this yr?
 

Halincandenza

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Enrollment increases do affect some criteria indirectly. That explains part of the decline.

The main cause is no secret. Look at the state's history of investment in higher education. State government has consistently failed to provide Regent's universities with funding that is even close to budget requests. The causes are many but this is by far the most significant driver of the decline.

A drop like this over a single decade is not caused by increased population alone. Not to mention ISU is down 4,000 students from its peak enrollment.
They cut millions every year it seems. Just complete idiocy.
 
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