Has public education become an oxymoron?

U.S. News and World Report has released its annual batch of collegiate rankings. And while the University of Wisconsin may have been basking in the marvelous glow of party glory for 24 hours, the more serious poll has now delivered a sobering message.

On a local level, UW slipped from the #32 overall school in America to #34, also sliding in the public rankings from #7 to #8. But what is truly stunning, on a national level, is just how irrelevant those public rankings are quickly becoming.

Toping the list of public universities is UC-Berkeley. Yet when it comes to the big list, the California school only places #20 – meaning that the 19 finest schools in America are all private.

It is more or less a given that the Ivy League will always fill the list’s top slots. Harvard, Yale, Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania battle for preeminence on an annual basis with Brown placing last among the legendary group of eight this year at a rather respectable #15.

But why is it that the University of California system – with three schools in the top 35 – and Virginia’s public school system – placing two schools in the top 35 – are so mighty as to dominate the annual list in terms of quantity but not when it comes to the highest measures of quality? While Wisconsin surely has a lot to learn from these two states (as well as North Carolina and Michigan, apparently), it would seem that public schools everywhere have a great deal to learn from their private counterparts.