There's an argument that it's harder to sell a university and its football program if the university is in the "middle of nowhere" and/or if the location has bad weather (read: cold, windy winters) for certain programs like the University of Illinois. This is blatantly false since some of the most successful and historic football programs are located in or near medium metros or college towns. Let's just look at a number of Big Ten football teams and then a few other programs who share location "issues" and bad weather.
Big Ten
Michigan (Ann Arbor): Sometimes referred as A2, Ann Arbor, is about an hour drive to Detroit, though how many students actually spend a night in Detroit to party it up?
Michigan St. (East Lansing): The city of East Lansing has a population of approximately 48,870 according to wiki.
Penn St. (State College): Again, according to wiki State College has a population of approximately 41,992.
Iowa (Iowa City): Population is around 74,398.
Nebraska (Lincoln): Located in the capital of Nebraska, it only has a population of 258,379. The last time I heard Lincoln wasn't New Orleans in terms of night life.
Purdue (West Lafayette): The city of West Lafayette has a population of 45,872.
Wisconsin (Madison): Probably, besides A2, the best college town within the Big Ten but still suffers the Midwest winters.
Mid-Majors
NIU (Dekalb): Arguable the most successful football program in the state of Illinois and one of the few MAC football powerhouses. They have a horrid track record when it comes to bowl games: They simply get crushed. Plenty of NFL players from NIU's program. Dekalb, located west of Chicago, is about an 1 hr and 15 min. drive from the city.
Boise St. (Boise): Like Wisconsin, the university is located in its state capitol which is home to about 205,671 people.
Independent
Notre Dame (South Bend): Located in South Bend which has a population of about 101,735. About an 1 and 30 min. drive to the city of Chicago. Probably the most storied football program besides Nebraska and Penn St. listed.
When Ron Zook was hired to be Illinois' head football coach in 2005 top recruits came to Urbana-Champaign. Part of it was because Zook was a great recruiter and the other was implanting the idea that they were pioneers in helping Illinois become a winning program, something that it wasn't in years past. So the recruits came and they started winning, sorta (out of seven seasons, the Illini went to three bowl games, winning two of the three). This in spite of where the university is located - central Illinois, two hours south of Chicago - and the bad Midwest winters top recruits came. The Urbana-Champaign metro has about 231,891 living souls, which, besides Madison, is the largest metro in the list.
It helps to have a winning a program. It's better to have a head coach that knows how to recruit and how to recruit the right players to fit his system. The winning will come, slowly but surely, but until that happens the recruits need to buy into the vision of the coaching staff.
Verdict: Location and weather doesn't really matter. The vision and system of the head coach, aided with his recruiting abilities, matters more.
Showing posts with label college. Show all posts
Showing posts with label college. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 17, 2018
Wednesday, November 8, 2017
Free Education: America and Western Europe.
Money Grows on Trees
How America's college tuition costs, which started to rise in the 1980s, is a complex issue. I've come across many in Europe, specifically the Nordics, who boast that they have it rights: free college. Yet they can't seem to explain why it's "free." They also fail to acknowledge that despite it being "free", US higher education is, at least on the doctoral level, is seen as the epitome of research. A vast majority of the undergraduate level universities also are seen as tops when compared to their European counterparts. People flock to get into American doctoral programs which, depending on the field and ranking of the program, is funded with a living stipend. But this doctoral funding doesn't come out of the blue: many program's charge an arm and leg in their master's programs that acts as the funnel to zero tuition for doctoral students whose course of study tend to last for five years. The money has to come from somewhere. Besides, Cambridge, Oxford, UCL, St. Andrews and maybe even Trinity (Ireland) and Sorbonne (France), where do Spain, Portugal, Denmark's universities stack up against American universities for research? Not that well.
Yale
Harvard
Princeton
Cornell
UPenn
Columbia
Johns Hopkins
UChicago
Duke
Northwestern
Stanford
Notre Dame
MIT
Caltech
Berkeley
Wisconsin
Illinois
UNC-CH
Vanderbilt
Virginia
UCLA
There's probably more leading research universities I'm missing.
Americans Don't Save
One American posted a good point that public K-12 education in the US is practically free (so, yes, there is "free" education - paid for by every single taxpayer in their respective district). You only have to pay a yearly fee which isn't back breaking. With this in mind I also find that those who attended public schools throughout the K-12 levels have found themselves in insane debt just for their undergraduate degree. Unless there parents did not save the moment they were born, or at least when they turned 8 (a decade to save) or if their parents are working at poor paying jobs (less then 35K yearly) there's some serious financial irresponsibility.
If the parent makes 35K a year, starting when the child was born until he reaches the age of 17 that's 17 years of saving if that parent saves. Let's say that parent puts in 5K of that 35K yearly - that comes out to 85K once that child turns 17. Add in another parent who makes also 35K working as a waitress. That's a total of 70K yearly family income (pretax) if we don't factor in that yearly 5K savings. This second parent also adds in 5K yearly for 17 years, so that doubles that 85K to 170K. The then newborn child later turns 17 years old and enters a Amherst College, one of the top liberal arts colleges in the States. The institutions yearly tuition for 2014/2015 was $47,720. You read that correctly; that's more than a newly minted MSW makes, about as much as a newbie finance worker from a target school (makes about 50K at E&Y as of 2016) and more than a newly hired elementary music teacher in suburban Illinois (40K). Over four years that tuition comes out to $190, 880. That's $20, 880 in tuition debt. This isn't doesn't take into account debt for housing and food. Now, if the student was able to be accepted into Amherst I'm positive that the kid received some sort of scholarship to offset the remainder tuition debt given the family's income.
As I demonstrated there are ways to decrease debt significantly. If the student attends a state school then tuition could be even less, if not free.
But what was my experience? My father invested in a college program for our state called College Illinois for prepaid tuition. My mother was then a state hospital nurse which afforded my sibling and I half tuition off to any in-state public university. My family was middle class. I graduated debt free. I had a peer also graduate debt free because his father also invested in College Illinois.
There are ways to decrease tuition: save the moment your child is born (5K one year, 7K another, if you can afford it) and invest/or in your state pre-college tuition program if one is available. I was very fortunate that both of parents had ways to counter the sticker price of public universities. Remember: my parents still had to pay for my college, just that it wasn't near the full load and it wasn't during my time at university. It was all done before I entered.
Parents need financial literacy and need to be aware of the options that are available to them. Just like scholarships, the options are out there, it's just people don't look for them and ignorantly see that it's a no win situation. Put the hard work in now before it's too late, and if it's too late don't blame the system entirely.If you you know there's a storm coming, prepare for it the best way you can.
How America's college tuition costs, which started to rise in the 1980s, is a complex issue. I've come across many in Europe, specifically the Nordics, who boast that they have it rights: free college. Yet they can't seem to explain why it's "free." They also fail to acknowledge that despite it being "free", US higher education is, at least on the doctoral level, is seen as the epitome of research. A vast majority of the undergraduate level universities also are seen as tops when compared to their European counterparts. People flock to get into American doctoral programs which, depending on the field and ranking of the program, is funded with a living stipend. But this doctoral funding doesn't come out of the blue: many program's charge an arm and leg in their master's programs that acts as the funnel to zero tuition for doctoral students whose course of study tend to last for five years. The money has to come from somewhere. Besides, Cambridge, Oxford, UCL, St. Andrews and maybe even Trinity (Ireland) and Sorbonne (France), where do Spain, Portugal, Denmark's universities stack up against American universities for research? Not that well.
Yale
Harvard
Princeton
Cornell
UPenn
Columbia
Johns Hopkins
UChicago
Duke
Northwestern
Stanford
Notre Dame
MIT
Caltech
Berkeley
Wisconsin
Illinois
UNC-CH
Vanderbilt
Virginia
UCLA
There's probably more leading research universities I'm missing.
Americans Don't Save
One American posted a good point that public K-12 education in the US is practically free (so, yes, there is "free" education - paid for by every single taxpayer in their respective district). You only have to pay a yearly fee which isn't back breaking. With this in mind I also find that those who attended public schools throughout the K-12 levels have found themselves in insane debt just for their undergraduate degree. Unless there parents did not save the moment they were born, or at least when they turned 8 (a decade to save) or if their parents are working at poor paying jobs (less then 35K yearly) there's some serious financial irresponsibility.
If the parent makes 35K a year, starting when the child was born until he reaches the age of 17 that's 17 years of saving if that parent saves. Let's say that parent puts in 5K of that 35K yearly - that comes out to 85K once that child turns 17. Add in another parent who makes also 35K working as a waitress. That's a total of 70K yearly family income (pretax) if we don't factor in that yearly 5K savings. This second parent also adds in 5K yearly for 17 years, so that doubles that 85K to 170K. The then newborn child later turns 17 years old and enters a Amherst College, one of the top liberal arts colleges in the States. The institutions yearly tuition for 2014/2015 was $47,720. You read that correctly; that's more than a newly minted MSW makes, about as much as a newbie finance worker from a target school (makes about 50K at E&Y as of 2016) and more than a newly hired elementary music teacher in suburban Illinois (40K). Over four years that tuition comes out to $190, 880. That's $20, 880 in tuition debt. This isn't doesn't take into account debt for housing and food. Now, if the student was able to be accepted into Amherst I'm positive that the kid received some sort of scholarship to offset the remainder tuition debt given the family's income.
As I demonstrated there are ways to decrease debt significantly. If the student attends a state school then tuition could be even less, if not free.
But what was my experience? My father invested in a college program for our state called College Illinois for prepaid tuition. My mother was then a state hospital nurse which afforded my sibling and I half tuition off to any in-state public university. My family was middle class. I graduated debt free. I had a peer also graduate debt free because his father also invested in College Illinois.
There are ways to decrease tuition: save the moment your child is born (5K one year, 7K another, if you can afford it) and invest/or in your state pre-college tuition program if one is available. I was very fortunate that both of parents had ways to counter the sticker price of public universities. Remember: my parents still had to pay for my college, just that it wasn't near the full load and it wasn't during my time at university. It was all done before I entered.
Parents need financial literacy and need to be aware of the options that are available to them. Just like scholarships, the options are out there, it's just people don't look for them and ignorantly see that it's a no win situation. Put the hard work in now before it's too late, and if it's too late don't blame the system entirely.If you you know there's a storm coming, prepare for it the best way you can.
Friday, June 23, 2017
Liberals, "being judgemental" and sex.
The people that tend to complain about being judged are liberals. I'll probably eve say it's an actual fact, at least in the US. Do people liked to be judged? Of course not. But if they are, to what degree and in what context? This is where liberals show some sort of pathology - no judgement whatsoever unless it's judgement towards those that disagree with our views. When liberals feel judged they think it's an attack on their character, which may be the case.
I don't agree with same-sex unions, whether some religious sect approves of it or the secular state does. I'll lay out my case the best way I can. I'll most likely be called a bigot, as if my stance is true bigotry. I don't agree with premarital sex. I view those that who do engage in it part taking in a mini-tragedy and, yes, they are unpure. Premarital sex is a form of depravity and a lack of respect for both parties involved. Does this make me judgemental? Yes, but so what. If a woman switches boyfriends every two years and has sex with them does that mean she's a slut? No, she's sorely misguided. Does this make me a jerk? I don't believe so. Am I offended if some woman says I am? Not really.
Say if a person says they aren't going to do all the "bad stuff" in college (e.g. premarital sex, drink, do drugs) and quotes the bible are they being judgemental? Maybe. If anything, the feeling of irritation or shame, if one feels those things, when met with this type of person should reflect on why they feel irritated or shameful. The "judgemental Christian" may have a very good point.
In general, I find this "you're being so judgemental" immensely weird. Liberals feel slighted even at the mention of restraint, especially when it comes to the topic of sex. Paranoia disorder? I'm just entertaining the idea. They love to talk about sex, or at least have a sense of comfort, when it's brought up. But be critical of modern practice and thought on sex? An avalanche of judgement is thrown your way, ironically. The standards of the social conservative world is clear: no sex before marriage. Being a virgin is the ideal. Not being a virgin before marriage is a sin and one should repent via confession; one should also "sin no more." Mention this on a comment section in youtube and watch heads explode or people typing, "Ugh. I hate your kind."
But hey, I'm a guy - an honest one. If you have no standards the "world" will barely disappoint you. If you're anything like me, you hold out hope yet at the same time realize that their is forgiveness, from yourself and from the divine. Yea, I went there.
I don't agree with same-sex unions, whether some religious sect approves of it or the secular state does. I'll lay out my case the best way I can. I'll most likely be called a bigot, as if my stance is true bigotry. I don't agree with premarital sex. I view those that who do engage in it part taking in a mini-tragedy and, yes, they are unpure. Premarital sex is a form of depravity and a lack of respect for both parties involved. Does this make me judgemental? Yes, but so what. If a woman switches boyfriends every two years and has sex with them does that mean she's a slut? No, she's sorely misguided. Does this make me a jerk? I don't believe so. Am I offended if some woman says I am? Not really.
Say if a person says they aren't going to do all the "bad stuff" in college (e.g. premarital sex, drink, do drugs) and quotes the bible are they being judgemental? Maybe. If anything, the feeling of irritation or shame, if one feels those things, when met with this type of person should reflect on why they feel irritated or shameful. The "judgemental Christian" may have a very good point.
In general, I find this "you're being so judgemental" immensely weird. Liberals feel slighted even at the mention of restraint, especially when it comes to the topic of sex. Paranoia disorder? I'm just entertaining the idea. They love to talk about sex, or at least have a sense of comfort, when it's brought up. But be critical of modern practice and thought on sex? An avalanche of judgement is thrown your way, ironically. The standards of the social conservative world is clear: no sex before marriage. Being a virgin is the ideal. Not being a virgin before marriage is a sin and one should repent via confession; one should also "sin no more." Mention this on a comment section in youtube and watch heads explode or people typing, "Ugh. I hate your kind."
But hey, I'm a guy - an honest one. If you have no standards the "world" will barely disappoint you. If you're anything like me, you hold out hope yet at the same time realize that their is forgiveness, from yourself and from the divine. Yea, I went there.
Friday, August 26, 2016
Friday, April 15, 2016
University of San Francisco's Intercultural Center goes full-retard.
You cannot make this stuff up.
Are any of the staff practicing Christians? As a Catholic I never asked for a day off nor did my parents or their friends who are also Catholic. I never needed one for religious reasons. I don't know how they came up with this Christian privilege.
The other sad part is other universities thought it was a good idea and implemented it on their campus as well, reports the San Francisco Foghorn campus newspaper.
If we just look at the staff group picture there are a few white females who are no doubt feminists. There's one white guy who I will presume is a White Knight. There's a couple of fat chicks, a black guy trying to act cool, a bunch of Asian girls, an Indian girl, couple of black chicks and a fat Hispanic. No Asian guy. No Middle Eastern or Indian guy. Heck, there's not one person who is physically handicapped in one way or another. Are any of these people veterans?
We have a bunch of indignant assholes whose "awareness" is making naive college & high school students believe that "Check Your Privilege" is some legit movement worth investing in.
Are any of the staff practicing Christians? As a Catholic I never asked for a day off nor did my parents or their friends who are also Catholic. I never needed one for religious reasons. I don't know how they came up with this Christian privilege.
The other sad part is other universities thought it was a good idea and implemented it on their campus as well, reports the San Francisco Foghorn campus newspaper.
“The posters were shared thousands of times on social media sites, especially Tumblr and Facebook, and published in feminist online publications Jezebel and Bitch Media. As a result, there have been numerous requests from colleges across the nation to use the materials on their campuses.”This is something straight out of tumblr's Loserville section. If you check the Intercultural Center's staff bios you can get some idea of how this became about.
If we just look at the staff group picture there are a few white females who are no doubt feminists. There's one white guy who I will presume is a White Knight. There's a couple of fat chicks, a black guy trying to act cool, a bunch of Asian girls, an Indian girl, couple of black chicks and a fat Hispanic. No Asian guy. No Middle Eastern or Indian guy. Heck, there's not one person who is physically handicapped in one way or another. Are any of these people veterans?
We have a bunch of indignant assholes whose "awareness" is making naive college & high school students believe that "Check Your Privilege" is some legit movement worth investing in.
Monday, July 28, 2014
Things I disagree with conservatives (that I find on the internet) + "Game"
(A) Their views on education
and
(B) their view when pertaining to the arts.
(A) Makes them look like "I pick things up and put things down" types or bitter "them 1%" types - yes, I bet you took "risks" (though undefined and never explained what these 'risks' were) while (B) helps them fulfill the stereotypical simpleton from inner America (though there are simpletons everywhere, even in cities and in every profession). But then again this coming from someone who admires & believes in John Henry Newman's view on education and someone who has great interest in the arts (painting, sculpture, writing, poetry, ballets, operas, symphonies, plays & musical theater, photography).
GAME
I'm new to this whole blogosphere thing. I'm glad that I found blogs commentating on what would be deemed as modern thought (e.g. modern day feminism, modern day views on sexuality). What really gave me a "what the fuck" feeling was learning that the writers of these blogs (some are Catholics, some are Christians) also seem to adopt the "game" mentality. In some odd ass way they're Catholics on one foot yet are Darwin-esque on the other. How this pairing happened I have no clue. This makes up for one messed up manosphere. It's like they bought into the "player" mentality when it comes to wooing and courting the opposite sex.
More on this "Christian + [insert whatever modern day Kool-Aid myth that's believed on _____ ]." It's thoroughly depressing.
and
(B) their view when pertaining to the arts.
(A) Makes them look like "I pick things up and put things down" types or bitter "them 1%" types - yes, I bet you took "risks" (though undefined and never explained what these 'risks' were) while (B) helps them fulfill the stereotypical simpleton from inner America (though there are simpletons everywhere, even in cities and in every profession). But then again this coming from someone who admires & believes in John Henry Newman's view on education and someone who has great interest in the arts (painting, sculpture, writing, poetry, ballets, operas, symphonies, plays & musical theater, photography).
GAME
I'm new to this whole blogosphere thing. I'm glad that I found blogs commentating on what would be deemed as modern thought (e.g. modern day feminism, modern day views on sexuality). What really gave me a "what the fuck" feeling was learning that the writers of these blogs (some are Catholics, some are Christians) also seem to adopt the "game" mentality. In some odd ass way they're Catholics on one foot yet are Darwin-esque on the other. How this pairing happened I have no clue. This makes up for one messed up manosphere. It's like they bought into the "player" mentality when it comes to wooing and courting the opposite sex.
More on this "Christian + [insert whatever modern day Kool-Aid myth that's believed on _____ ]." It's thoroughly depressing.
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