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UMass Lowell: The most underrated college in America
Photo by Tony Sampas
Congratulations to University of Massachusetts Lowell for being ranked by Business Insider as the most underrated college in America. To obtain these rankings, Business Insider plotted U.S. News’ ranking of the best colleges against PayScale’s mid-career salary rank.
Here’s what was said about UML (with the full report HERE):
Located in Lowell, MA, UMass Lowell earned the top spot in our ranking this year. The public school ranked low on US News’ list at #170, but its graduates earned a high average mid-career salary of over $92,000. Most of the 14,000 students major in business and engineering, which can lead to well-paying careers.
So congratulations to Marty Meehan and everyone at UML. It’s nice to know that the rest of the country is learning what we in Lowell have known for some time now.
I concur – congratulations to Marty, his team and the students. Proud to be a alum and still connected!
Message to the trustees: that doesn’t mean you have to raise tuition or “fees” again.
I agree with Steve here.
My concern is with Div I sports, this spring as the Hockey team was enjoying their success, one of the team ‘quit’ school to go professional. How much money did UMass Lowell go to recruit him? Did he get scholarships?
Everyone pays the athletic fees to support the sports programs as students.
The university is always asking alums for money, but I want to see retention and graduation rates of local students rise. In the Lowell Sun they highlighted one of the local graduates, he didn’t have a 4.0 but he had incredible motivation.
None of the UML players “quit” during the season to go pro. Once the college season was over, Chad Ruhwedal signed with the Buffalo Sabres because the NHL was still going on. He was a junior for NCAA purposes since he had another year of eligibility left, but actually a senior in terms of academics. As far as I know he went back and finished his finals and graduated. As someone who also got a full-time job before graduating (albeit far far far lower paying) I fail to see what the problem is.
Steve, thank you for including the facts about Chad. Athletics are a big part of an academic institution’s reputation. All of the teams in America East are highly regarded universities in terms of academic performance and national rankings. We would love to lower fees but the state has dramatically cut their contribution to UMass over the last decade. The UMass system receives funding from the state for 16 percent of its 2.8 billion dollar annual operating costs. We are constantly raising money privately so we can invest in more and better faculty and stronger academic programs. And the great part is….. We are succeeding !!
That was James! Not Steve
Chancellor,
Thank you so much for responding and being mindful how the alums can be concerned with recent changes with UMASS Lowell. I understand universities are judge by their national reputation, which includes sports, but every year there is a discussion how sports can conflict with the educational goals of the institutions.
James,
Here is the link to the story I read. Many students work full-time, but considering the travel/practice of the a professional hockey player, not sure how the student could get back to campus for his remaining classes for the semester. Are college professors this accommodating for ALL full-time students?
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The situations I hope UMASS Lowell will completely avoid, are the ‘tweets’ like Ohio State Buckeyes’ quarterback,
“”Why should we have to go to class if we came here to play FOOTBALL, we ain’t come to play SCHOOL classes are POINTLESS,””
Of course the student has the right to state his opinion, but I hope student athletes value their education as much as their sports.
Renee, Not to belabor the point but that article, which was again, after the NCAA season was over so he didn’t quit on his team, was on April 22, the last day of classes was May 1 and then there was exam periods. So at the very most he may have missed one or two actual classes and then worked out things with his professor for classes. In my experience when I took the last two semesters of my degree as online classes, the professors were indeed accommodating.
In fact, if he had stayed for an extra year, as you seem to argue that he should, then its more of an argument that he would have really been on campus as a hockey player first rather than a student since he would have already finished his degree (although its possibly he would be interested in a graduate degree, I have no idea).
I’m not sure what the argument is. In fact, I think in most cases, if someone is presented a take-it-or-leave it job offer that meant the person had to miss one week of classes and maybe have to make special arrangements for exam period, then the school would work it out. Of course, its silly to compare most job offers and professional sports contracts that operate under much different circumstances.
I just took a tour of the new building on South Campus, wonderful building with a lot of thought to make sure students engage face to face, when we live in a world where it takes that extra effort to physically get together. For instance there was an investment for special chair/ desks on wheels, so students can arrange themselves for lecture or smaller groups. These chairs cost hundreds of dollars a piece, if used they are worth every penny. I want every student’s warm tushy in those seats, hockey players get no exemptions.
He quit April 12th and played professionally on April 13th. I’m not talking about quitting the team. I’m talking being excused from class, due to his choice to go pro. He choose to quit class? I’m not asking him to stay an extra year if he graduated, I just stating the article stated he was a junior, so it was reasonable to assume what junior means for us non-hockey individuals.
Also, we never would have gone division one if we had football…too expensive!
So you made an assumption based on poor information and threw out a loaded accusation. Not that it would have even mattered if he did still have a year of classes to complete. And going professional is not the same as “quitting” school. All that going pro means is they lose their NCAA eligibility. The student athletes can still go on get their degrees if they choose and many do during off season classes etc. Like I said, I “went professional” in my field and took online classes to get my degree. Was that “quitting” school?