Best Universities are Blue

Yet another university ranking now out by the Times of London. This one ranks universities worldwide. From the top 50 U.S. schools, all but one are from blue states. What does this mean? Draw your own conclusions.

Harvard (1) Blue
Berkeley (2) Blue
MIT (3) Blue
Cal Tech (4) Blue
Stanford (7) Blue
Yale (8) Blue
Princeton (9) Blue
Chicago (13) Blue
Texas, Austin (15) Red
Columbia (19) Blue
UCSF (20) Blue
Cornell (23) Blue
UCSD (24) Blue
Johns Hopkins (25) Blue
UCLA (26) Blue
Penn (28) Blue
Michigan (31) Blue
Illinois (35) Blue
CMU (38) Blue
UMass (45) Blue

 

Good catch Tom. The con's like to keep their masses dumbed down (the gimmie gun and bible crowd - the type who beleive everything they are told as long as they have their gun and bible). Notice that UT-Austin is in the most "liberal" town in Texas.

I suspect the more education that you acquire, the more you question your government and its actions.

 

Calling Stanford "Blue" is an insult beyond forgiveness.

 

We've had the IQ chart, now the university chart, to show that red state citizens are dumber rolleyes: ), how about a new chart for the most generous states?

 

I'd be glad to.

As I pointed out in a previous post, the red-blue map, broken down by counties, shows a clear urban/rural split. Urban areas tended to vote Democrat, rural areas tended to vote Republican. That's a pattern that's reproduced nation-wide.

Looking at this London Times list (I wonder what criteria they used to make their selections), I see that all but three of these schools are located in urban areas. The three exceptions are Cornell (New York State), U. Illinois and U. Mass. All three of these are located in states that are massively influenced by urban voters, and U. Mass. is in Kerry's home state as well.

I think that you find lots of things located in urban centers (from museums to prostitutes) because these serve as social foci.

I wonder how believable the list really is. I didn't see UC Santa Barbara on the list, despite the fact that it's hauled in five Nobel Prizes in the last six years. (Oxford can only dream.) Arizona State University scored a Nobel this year as well, but I doubt if it makes a blip on the London radar. They seem to prefer the safe established names.

Another thing. The London editors really seem to be most interested in the Northeast and California. (America's two most highly urbanized areas.) Perhaps these are the kind of places that have higher visibility in London. Of the 20 schools, 10 are in the Northeast and six in California. The Midwest gets three and the South one. (The West outside California was ignored. Too bad for the Nobel winners from Boulder.) This is a very "coastal" list that simply disses "flyover country".

Personally, I think that it's asinine to try to rank universities in this way. It's interesting and provocative certainly, and it obviously sells publications, but it doesn't tell us a whole lot.

Harvard (1) Boston metro area NE
Berkeley (2) San Francisco metro area CA
MIT (3) Boston metro area NE
Cal Tech (4) LA metro area CA
Stanford (7) San Francisco metro area CA
Yale (8) SW Connecticut metro area (Greater NY) NE
Princeton (9) No. NJ metro area (Greater NY) NE
Chicago (13) Chicago metro area Midwest
Texas, Austin (15) Austin metro area South
Columbia (19) New York metro area NE
UCSF (20) San Francisco metro area CA
Cornell (23) Rural upstate NY NE
UCSD (24) San Diego metro area CA
Johns Hopkins (25) Washington/Baltimore metro area NE
UCLA (26) LA metro area CA
Penn (28) Philadelphia metro area NE
Michigan (31) Detroit metro area Midwest
Illinois (35) Rural downstate Illinois Midwest
CMU (38) Pittsburgh metro area NE
UMass (45) Western Mass. I'll count it as rural, but I'm not sure that it really is. NE

 

Re: Re: Best Universities are Blue

Yes, but you haven't really provided an explanation other than to say that urban areas tend to vote democratic. Why is that? Clearly, there tends to be a higher percentage of liberals in urban areas. Why is that? Could it be that higher education correlates with liberal thinking? I would contend that the best universities tend to be composed of a liberal majority as well. Why? Probably because, at its roots, academic inquiry requires exactly the kind of thinking that is prized by liberals - thinking that considers more than one view point and is critically based. That's just a guess on my part, but I think there's some validity to it.

I too am dubious about most university rankings. I don't know that this one is any more questionable than any other, however. I doubt that the London editors consciously favored the "coastal" universities. Their survey polled academic peers. The Ivies, MIT Stanford, Berkeley, Cal Tech et al. always rank high among academics. UCSB has received a lot of Nobels recently. I think that, by and large, Nobels are a poor indicator of academic quality. For one, the Nobels are generally awarded to practical scientific discoveries. Experimental physicists are generally favored over theoretical physicists, for example. Often, the opposite is true when academics are polled. Second, Nobels tend to be awarded for breakthroughs that are fairly old. As such, they tend to be poor indicators of current research at a university. Often the Nobel winner did most of his/her work at a different school from the one he/she works at today. This is true of many of the UCSB winners, and is also true of ASU's economics winner this year.

And to Oxpecker, yes Stanfordites would cringe at being called Blue, especially after being drubbed by Cal 41-6 in the Big Game. However, the entire Bay Area is most definitely Blue when it comes to national elections.

 

Re: Re: Re: Best Universities are Blue

I think that there are all kinds of sociological reasons.

One way to look at the Democrats and the Republicans is as outsider's and insider's coalitions.

Democrats group together people who, for whatever reason, feel alienated from the American mainstream. The party has been most attractive to immigrants, to racial minorities, to feminists, to Jews, to Catholics (though that's changing as Catholics are assimilated into the mainstream). Labor has always been Democratic. The South has traditionally been solid Democratic, going back to the Civil War and its aftermath. It's only been the last generation that white Southerners have defected to the Republicans en-masse. Democratic politics has always been based on promoting a sense of grievance and championing social change.

Republicans group together people who identify themselves with the American mainstream. White males are Republican by about 2 to 1. The party has attracted Protestant religious groups that identify themselves as the historical American core. It is attractive to business, both small and large. It gets lots of support in the military. Families with children are often Republican. Republicans tend to be more comfortable with their lives than Democrats and less eager to change things dramatically. Republicans value things like patriotism, flag and country, all of which symbolize a sense of belonging.

Seen in that light, it's easy to explain why big cities tend to be Democratic.

They attract immigrants. That means that urban areas are more ethnically and racially diverse. Cities play host to many groups who still identify strongly with 'home' (which isn't here, and that's the point). Cities play host to most of America's Jews, who often feel uneasy and a little at risk in a country that they don't perceive as entirely theirs. Cities attract internal migrants, often young people who leave more conventional places in search of something alternative and edgy. Cities are host to many people with psychiatric or substance abuse problems, These people feel at risk and depend on social services. Cities are extremely anonymous. People often don't even know their next door neighbor's name. Extended families break up and people live by themselve or in childless couples.

 

http://www.urbanarchipelago.com

A discussion of the urban v. suburban/rural vote.

 

Well, duh. Ever stop to think population density (i.e., length of time a state has been heavily populated and has had a chance to evolve its educational institutions) has anything to do with it? I live in North Carolina, and we're being inundated with snobby, chic-left New Yorker know-it-alls moving in by the tens of thousands every year. If blue states are so great, why don't you people just stay up there and leave us alone with our moonshine stills, racecars, Bible-thumpin' churches and cousin spouses?

 

I suppose those relocating just want to benefit from all the tax money we send to the red states.

 

Before one can present such a post and use it to validate an idea or theory one needs to dig deeper.

How many professors at these schools came from or were educated in "red state schools," how many graduates from the "blue state schools" go back to "red states," and how many graduates from the "blue state schools" go back to "red states" and vote GOP?

 

When the Times of London becomes an authority on the quality and utility of university education I'll register as a Democrat. Until then perhaps they could examine their dentition.

 

Biggest Joke in Politics

Everybody from a big city loves to scream about where their tax money goes. Funny thing is, the money on which the taxes were paid was earned somewhere else than in that city. Boeing is in Chicago but it earns its money worldwide. So it isn't Chicago people paying those taxes it is people all over the world. Especially, since Boeing is selling more planes these days to foreign airlines than to US airlines. Same with NYC, the money earned on Wall Street doesn't all, or even most, come from NYC investors. So who is really paying the taxes on Wall Street earnings? The local city where I work benefits greatly from the sales tax revenue from the residents of the rural towns around it. Retail has almost dried up in those small towns so the rural residents have to shop in the city. Since there are more of them than city residents, the city residents are benefiting from the out of towner's money. John Deere is one of the largest Ag company's in the USA and it is home based in a small city in Illinois. Is it the city's residents paying John Deere's taxes or the rural farmers who buy John Deere's implements? Granted, this can be taken a step further to who pays the farmer but that just further makes my point. The liberals on this board need to take a few classes on economics and location theory (especially the Central Place Theory) before they speak...

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: Best Universities are Blue

I agree for the most part. The diversity that is present in urban areas is a recipe for strong academics (by and large). The best universities usually exist in dynamic, open environments where lots of diferent ideas and viewpoints are tossed around. Education can be an equalizer for many of the groups you mention.

 

Think of it this way: intelligence is like heat; a relative lack of intelligence is like cold. It's physics.

 

Re: Biggest Joke in Politics

What, they aren't all shopping at the neighborhood Walmart?

There is actually a link (I'll have to find it, it came out a month ago) that shows that red states pay less taxes than blue states and red states, overall, benefit more from those taxes paid.

Before you claim I'm a liberal (labels are useless), and before you pounce on my economics education, you'd do better not to use anecdotal evidence....

ah yes, here it is
Red States feed at Federal trough

http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2004/09/red_states_feed.html

 

Re: Re: Biggest Joke in Politics

Yeah, that's pretty enlightening. The Bush backers will have to don their "freedom earplugs" and "liberty blindfolds" once again to ward off these unwelcome facts.

 

Apparently you didn't read or understand...

my post. Go back and read it again and you should see why the below comment is meaningless when it comes to paying taxes. If you still don't understand, so be it..

Another point to your worthless stats forget is that red states also have a lot of public works projects which benefit the nation as a whole but for the purposes of the tax stats they benefit the state where they reside. Interstate's benefit everyone and because the red states have a lot of wide open spaces they get a lot of road building. Do the residents of the red states use them? Yes, but so do the trucks in the tens of thousands which haul goods to the cities. Do a lot of military bases reside in the wide open red states? Yes, but you can't very well maneuver tanks on Long Island. Does the military not benefit the nation as a whole? Farm supports help farmers but they also help city folk because their food is now cheaper than if it was raised unsupported. Your favored stat is pretty worthless when macroeconomics shines upon it. Of course, it fits the agenda of some....

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: Best Universities are Blue

Interesting opinion. Completely void of any factual basis, but interesting nevertheless. I guess since over 50% of the country are registered democrats, they are deemed, in your opinion, out of the mainstream. And what is the mainstream? If bible thumpers and backwoods country boys are what you consider to be mainstream, then count me out.

If Republicans are more patriotic (according to your post), then how can you explain that nearly the entire Republican leadership of this country are draft dodgers/skirters?

 

M.E. I am so glad you posted this. You are making a huge mistake if you assuming the mass of intelligence is in the blue states.

Let's look at the facts.

The IQ average in your beloved blue states (having universities on the list)
PA - 100
CA - 100
NJ - 100
PA - 100
MI - 101
NY - 101

Are ALL beat by the following red states
OK -102
NE - 102
ND - 102
MT - 102
KS - 102
IA - 102
CO - 102

And equal to (or in some cases beat) by the following red states
AK - 101
MS - 101
OH - 101
UT - 101
WY - 101
AZ - 100
ID - 100
NV - 100
SD - 100
VI - 100
WV - 100

Only MA at 103 has a higher IQ, somewhat statistically nuetralized by TX that bottoms out at 97 (Since TX was listed among the states with top universities).

The state with highest average IQ is NH at 104 voted 331,237 for Bush and 334,511 for Kerry (50.2% vs 49.8%)

In fact there are 33 states with an average IQ of 100, 101, or 102 and Bush carried those states by a margin of 53 to 47.

So much for your idiotic theory.