[davenbuster]

(full disclosure: I'm a Yale EE grad working as a software engineer for the last 17 years in the valley).

The school has had an ambivalent relationship with applied sciences through its history. They considered closing the engineering departments in the early 90's when I was a student. I am glad to see the school investing in this area, even if it less out of intrinsic interest and more out of market demand and perceiving it as a growth area.

[eugenejen]

It is the same as NYU did in 70s. But now NYU merge NYU-Poly as its school of engineering.

I am always amazed at what criteria are used by school administrators to decide which departments to fund. It is very surprised to me as a foreigner born that U.S. doesn't need engineers from Ivy League....

[tikhonj]

The Ivy League is basically a historical accident. The US has a whole bunch of other incredibly strong engineering schools, from newer private institutions (Stanford, MIT, CMU) to top public schools (Berkeley, UCLA, Georgia Tech). (These are also perfectly competitive in other subjects from English to pure mathematics.)

Historically, engineering and CS was not a priority for the older Ivies, and it was never an issue for anyone else because there were so many strong alternatives.

This department expansion is certainly good for Yale, but the effect it will have on the top engineering education in the US as a whole is marginal.

[kelukelugames]

Ivy League schools breed leaders not us over paid worker bees. Only engineers complain about working under non-engineers. Lawyers at law firms don't have that problem.

[_delirium]

NYU's case was somewhat forced by financial problems in the '70s. They had been maintaining two campuses for decades (one in the Bronx, and one in Manhattan), and in 1973 sold the Bronx campus along with some of the programs that were housed there (most notably Engineering), to try to sort out the budget problems. Nowadays NYU is overflowing with cash, so was able to "acquire" the former Brooklyn Poly to get back into engineering.

[goldfeld]

That's because the Ivy League engineers have come out of Germany, China, India, and ostensibly out of Russia and other ex-soviet block members.