Drew Dixon
The University of Florida campus is a long way from the legacy Ivy League campuses located in the Northeast United States. But Forbes magazine says Gator Country could easily fit in with those elite schools.
In a new analytical report by Forbes this month, the money management magazine listed 10 public “New Ivies” colleges and universities. That list includes public schools Forbes says could fit neatly into a classification of an Ivy League school, which includes institutions such as Harvard, Yale and Princeton, among others.
UF officials said they are grateful for the Forbes ranking. But they’re not overly surprised at the honor recognizing the school’s academic excellence in Gainesville.
“The University of Florida is committed to excellence, and we are producing some of the most incredible graduates in the nation,” Mori Hosseini, chair of the UF Board of Trustees, said in a prepared statement. “We know that employers need the kind of skills our students are building here. Forbes’ recognition is a great honor, and the best is yet to come.”
The Forbes report published in April said many employers are “souring on Ivy League grads” and are seeking new hires elsewhere from public universities that are graduating students just as capable of entering the workforce. A significant shift in the Forbes analysis focused on public colleges and universities.
UF is the only Sunshine State school on the list. All 10 of the public colleges on the list are located between the Midwest and the Eastern seaboard. The University of Texas at Austin is the furthest west.
Other colleges on the “New Ivies” list include Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, University of Maryland in College Park and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, among others.
According to the Forbes report, 42% of hiring managers surveyed say they’re more likely now than five years ago to hire graduates from public colleges and universities. Another 37% say public universities are better at preparing students now than they were half a decade ago.
“This new recognition underscores UF’s commitment to being both elite and practical,” said UF President Ben Sasse. “The University of Florida does incredible work, and we are becoming a no-doubt-about-it leader in higher education at a time when too many institutions are losing public trust. We reject the false choice between education that enriches and education that prepares — we want both. We want Gators to engage life’s most enduring questions and solving today’s most pressing challenges.”
Forbes researched 1,743 colleges with enrollment of at least 4,000 students to establish its list. The magazine also factored SAT and ACT scores.
11 comments
Karl Rove, III
April 30, 2024 at 10:44 am
I bet this really upsets every Florida Politics employee…to think the policies over the last five years result in continued educational improvement for children through college can be very frustrating to FP. Heck, some are probably feeling triggered as they read this!
rick whitaker
April 30, 2024 at 3:21 pm
KARLROVE3, what a partisan bs statement. forbes magazine, whatever dude.
Rudy
April 30, 2024 at 9:20 pm
Florida is the ASU of the south, total party school. Forbes must be high.
Dont Say FLA
April 30, 2024 at 11:26 am
I guess that explains the move away from being so sports oriented. Football jab aside… Good for UF!
Nobody but Ivy Leaguers want other Ivy Leaguers because they are mostly a bunch of nepo babies who look down their noses at everyone who went to any other school, even pretending during interviews not to know the names of the local schools where the local hires pools attended.
Ivy League normally = nothing special, but damnnnnnnnnn they think they special.
But yeah, as public universities got costs externalized from state budgets to student’s pockets, creating the student loan epi-disaster for the middle class, that also shifted public universities away from control and oversight by the state in which they are found.
Effectively this is a story of successful privatization of so-called “public” universities. It’s nothing to brag about for state government education policies. Those are more in play in state colleges and community colleges where state budgets still pick up a lot of the tab for the student.
Bill Pollard
April 30, 2024 at 2:50 pm
Considering the hot mess that higher education has become in Florida, I’m happy that my daughter graduated from UF before all the meddling has taken place in Florida higher education.
rick whitaker
April 30, 2024 at 3:34 pm
sounds like the statement, ” 42% of hiring managers said they’re more LIKELY to change their preferences for ivy over public schools “, is a guess from the choir as to what the sermon was about. in other words, bs
Mike
April 30, 2024 at 7:51 pm
Wow I didn’t realize Ivy League schools had 20k transfers from Junior Colleges
Susan
April 30, 2024 at 8:07 pm
As A UF graduate from many years ago, I’m embarrassed that my public university would be classed as an elite “Ivy League” school. I don’t think public dollars should be used to support such exclusivity.
rick whitaker
April 30, 2024 at 8:25 pm
SUSAN, desantis is a want-a- be . he is trying to be the modern day savior to the white christian nationalist maga cultist’
My Take
May 5, 2024 at 3:24 pm
As a Land Grant school, it was really supposed to be for regular people. Not exclusively, but substantially.
Joseph McDuffie
April 30, 2024 at 9:53 pm
it’s Forbes; further objectivity begs humor!
Comments are closed.