I got my BSCS from this school, and landed a great gig within a month of graduation. As a "re-entry" student on a tight budget (30 year-old working food service), I met many others who were similarly driven to build the skillsets and relationships to launch their careers as efficiently as possible.<p>Anecdotally, I will say these factors likely boost the effectiveness of this particular campus:<p>1. Smart, capable students have the "inferiority complex" of being surrounded by CalTech, USC, UCLA. They know they need to push harder to have equal footing when stepping into the industry.<p>2. Several of the industries represented in Los Angeles are more interested in loyal, hard-working candidates than prestigious/elite geniuses. I have talked with many representatives from companies partnering with CSULA on student projects who have expressed this.<p>3. Students I met were generally more interested in launching their careers than in pursuing the quintessential "college life", e.g. parties, campus societies<p>4. Specifically for STEM students: the Los Angeles tech scene has deep roots with the aerospace industry, as well as a lot of companies doing real tech work without the flair of typical SV/NYC companies. I had instructors who work (or have worked) at NASA JPL, AT&T, Boeing, Western Digital, and in medical research at USC/UCLA.
This was a good article and despite the location of CSLA a good look outside of the coastal elite education bubble.<p>Far too often the focus is only on the elite students at the elite schools when its clear upward mobility, just in sheer quantity, is better created at less elite public institutions like the CUNY schools or the CSUs. Hell even the culture war aspects are overstated - the "campus free speech" pearl-clutching is based on the experiences of maybe 5-7 elite institutions, and the entirety of the "Asian discrimination in admissions" controversy is based <i>entirely</i> on the superiority of 3-5 elite schools.<p>Far more needs to be done to extend upward mobility to everyone in this country and that isn't going to happen by focusing energies entirely on the HYPSM.<p>Relevant - <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/shut-up-about-harvard/" rel="nofollow">https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/shut-up-about-harvard/</a>
The top five schools are all in areas with a lot of recent immigrants, of course. That's the best supply of smart kids from low-income households.
One thing I don't understand - if these universities are:
1. Running at a profit (growing endowments)
2. A path to the middle class<p>Why doesn't the government just roll the profits from the current pool of public uni's to new public uni's until prices start falling and demand is satisfied? Seems like it could only be good for society?
Highlight for me:<p>> One of the really striking findings of the study was, that you would in some sense really rather know where somebody went to college rather than how much money their parents make, if you wanted to guess how much money they were going to make in the future
I had a privedged international education and taught at Berkeley and Chicago, but the hardest working student I ever knew was an undocumented refugee who started at CSLA and transferred to Northridge for his junior and senior years. To save bus fare, he slept in the bushes at Northridge. Last year he got his BS and found a good job. He supported himself through school as a sexworker. I'm in awe of his grit and endurance. We need schools that can accommodate hard-working students who succeed despite unconventional lives. And We need such people of remarkable courage and character to become leaders in corporate life. I'm proud to support the Cal State system with my taxes.