Colleges and universities are often in the news, particularly those with high profiles - elite schools. These however do not educate most of our college graduates, nor is life on the second tier of schools necessarily like that of those in the limelight.
Washington Monthly has a column dealing with this group which it labels “regional public universities.” The DrsC both graduated from CA RPUs, went on to elite schools for doctoral work, and then spent our work lives teaching at various RPUs.
The article reports results of a survey of students at RPUs and finds them to be as we experienced them. Within the RPU group, there are some variations.
The RPU at which we both spent the preponderance of our higher ed. careers was located in rural northern CA. Unlike most such schools, its students mostly came from other parts of CA. They’d chosen not to attend other RPUs of our system much nearer home.
Far fewer of them were holding down locally scarce off-campus jobs which in turn meant their parents were more affluent. And fewer of them ended up staying the region after graduation as most jobs were elsewhere.
Intriguingly, recruiters told us they preferred our graduates to those of RPUs in more urban areas. We privately speculated this was a reaction to the grads’ somewhat higher social class profile, though of course no one said this.
