[Windchaser]

Yes. If you want a really high quality education, you don't go to a big research school. You go to a small school, like a liberal arts school, where the teachers are both highly trained and really passionate about teaching.

I went to a small liberal arts school for an undergrad degree in STEM, and to a R1 research university for graduate work.

The absolute best classes at the big-name research university were about as good as the average class at my small undergrad. The classes at the small school were of distinctly better quality: more engaged teachers, more engaging work, and simply higher quality teaching.

[bpt3]

Did you go to an elite (or close to it) liberal arts school? I have gone to only R1 schools myself, but my exposure to liberal arts schools would indicate they are a mixed bag, especially in the sciences (not disagreeing with you or saying that R1 schools aren't also a mixed bag in some/many senses).

Most undergraduates don't realize it, but the purpose of going to an R1 is access to an alumni network and (for the small percentage that are interested) access to people performing cutting edge research in a discipline and their physical resources.

I suspect that honesty in their marketing materials would not increase applications though.

[eszed]

Not the poster you asked, but I think their point stands for (at least many) non-elite liberal arts schools. (Heck, I think it stands for some community colleges, too.) Teachers at those institutions have often attended elite programs, and in any case have self-selected into (primarily) teaching roles, and you'll get a lot of their individual attention, which you wouldn't at a big school.

(For the benefit of students reading this: go to office hours, especially early in the term, even if it's just to shoot the breeze. If you don't, you're cheating yourself out of the main advantage of that institutional model.)

Where your take is correct, and even demands greater emphasis, is the value of the alumni network, and the "name recognition" of a degree from somewhere people, well, recognize. As someone who deeply believes in the value of education for its own sake it pains me to be this cynical, but those are the only things that matter in the world at large.

That's the honest take, which, indeed, no one in higher education will ever put so baldly.

Disclosure: graduated from, and also spent five years teaching at a (very) non-elite liberal arts college. The education was good - even great, in some programs / by some professors - but the professional advantages absolutely nil. I will council my own son not to attend a similar school (should any of them even survive by the time he gets there - they're by and large on life-support right now); even tuition-free it wouldn't be (economically) worth it, and at the actual price it's the worst life decision many of those students will ever make.