1) The point of a liberal arts degree is to teach critical thinking, not to prepare you for a specific field. The name of the degree doesn't matter if it is teaching that.
2) He also has been known to say: you can get a world-class education at [name your large, public school]; at Stanford [and schools like it] they will make sure you get a world-class education. In other words, there is a lot more hand-holding at the elite schools--and their selection criteria ensure that they aren't taking many chances.
3) In my opinion, state universities--largely funded by taxpayer dollars--should serve their state's population.
4) Because of USN (and other similar rankings) a lot of money spent in higher education is aimed at recruiting. More applicants means more selectivity, which means higher rankings, which means more applicants...etc.
5) Now, the reality of the job offers coming out of those places does have a connection, primarily when you look at small, private universities with elite reputations. Those schools open more doors. Does that mean a better education? No. Does it mean they may be worth their insane price tags? Maybe.
6) I like that my alma mater is well-regarded in these rankings, but most of it is still BS.
1) I think that's what utee was saying, and I think myself and Badge agree with that.
2) I think that's largely correct, although there's something to be said for genuine differences in running a tight ship. I don't work on accreditation or curriculum assessment, although some people in my department do, because for some reason we all fall under the same VP. I gather just enough from them to glean that accreditation and assessment are perpetual grinds, and a school can easily run afoul of the accreditation outfits....and they do. At the particular accreditation conference our people attend put on by the body we're beholden to, they apparently have a Wall of Shame where they publicly list the universities who are either behind or plainly slipping on meeting their accreditation standards. I also gather that there is an identifiable correlation between maintaining curriculum/accreditation standards and the overall quality of education available (independent of admission standards).
3) I agree. And while I can't detail this further without going super-TLDR, I also think that's a core reason why there is inevitable mission-drift in the state university. Mind you, I don't pretend to have the answers, I'm just noting that there are some inherent problems in sticking to the goal of a classical liberal education.
4) Exhibit A for #3 above. It is an understandable, even inevitable, I'd say, yet unhelpful cycle.
5) That's a big thing I'd encourage youngsters to look into, when considering what field they'd like to work in. One of the shortcomings of these university rankings is that the metrics are not always static across departments, or even colleges. I can tell you that one of our colleges is more highly regarded than the others. Now, we're not a school that ranks high on any of these lists, and I'd guess those intra-university differences seem less likely to be as pronounced at higher ranking institutions, which is going to be a part of why they're highly ranked. But it highlights an important point, which is considering the specific degree as opposed to the general institution. The flagship school for my home state is pretty middling on these lists. Is it truly a middling education or is it more like your dad says? Well, it's possible the answer is "it depends." I've mentioned before the examples of journalism and accounting for undergrad degrees. The Big 4 accounting firms love the bayou, and they recruit there heavily. Wherever that department is "ranked," it has a good reputation with major employers. I've heard good things about majoring in journalism there, though I have less personal familiarity with that. Does that mean an LSU degree on the whole is attractive, or that they should be ranked higher on these lists? I think clearly not, though as your dad might remind me, it doesn't prove the negative either. But it does mean that some schools are known for certain things, and that may be a lot more important to an individual considering a field of study than an overall rankings list.
6) I think it's hard to know. There's not a lot of objective data that measures the "quality" of the education present other than accreditation standards and adherence record. Although even that is a limited picture. And leaning to the cynical side as I am prone to do, I don't discount
@betarhoalphadelta 's suggestion that perverse incentives are created which could taint the educational quality. But I also have some confidence in the free market, and--referring back to #5--I think the reputations of the departments of particular schools are likely to be partially grounded in the actual track records of employees from those schools, wherever their university in total ranks on these lists. So, using Wisconsin as an example, is being ranked higher than most other institutions BS? Well, in some cases, maybe...dunno. But I bet Wisconsin has at least a few departments that are known to turn out highly sought-after graduates, and those programs are, imo, unlikely to be dismissed as products of rankings BS or admissions standards that skew the metrics. I'm not arguing against your dad's assertion that you can receive a quality education many places; in fact, I heartily agree with him. But I am suggesting that nearly everything in the world has a hierarchy, and usually we can find indicators of what that entails, even if we don't have easily-parsed hard data.
TLDR--In summary, yes, the rankings are BS, but also kinda not.
