Michigan State University

4th Year Male -- Class 1986

Faculty Accessibility: A, Campus Aesthetics: F

I'm a student in James Madison College, part of MSU. It's a very intense residential college that challenges students to think critically. It's opened my eyes and has been a huge influence in my education. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who has a passion for politics, social issues, international relations, policy, or government work. Students should look into the residential colleges at MSU; while they are difficult compared to the rest of the university, they are worth it.

2nd Year Female -- Class 2015

Education Quality: A+, Collaboration/Competitive: B

Ignore the survey above... I did.
I'm a '78 MSU alum and this an objective summary of Michigan State University... one shared by a growing number of individuals, talented observers with the ability to fairly analyze, understand and report what they observe.

Yes, the MSU campus is one of the most beautiful in the United States, but don't let that sway you into enrolling. The big beautiful trees were planted over 150 years ago when there existed only 5 or 6 buildings and a handful of Agriculture students. Much has changed at MSU since then... and sadly, not for the better.

Since the 1950's when the world was truly a gentler, kinder place... MSU has come to be about $$$ and nothing else. If there were a way to charge people to breathe the air on campus, MSU would do it. There are probably individuals on campus researching how to do precisely that, right now.

MSU is an extremely IMPERSONAL, generally unfriendly, gigantic bureaucracy where students quickly realize that they are nothing more than a number and a source of cash flow (to pay for all the tenured profs who run their consulting businesses out of their academic offices on college time). Incidentally, PHD's are truly ignorant individuals with big egos who know nothing about the real world. But don't try to tell that to them. They cry easily.

At MSU You WILL find yourself in classes of 100, 500 and even 1,000 or more students where you will too often be taught by closed circuit T.V or Graduate Assistants (Grad Asses). You may never see or meet the professor whom you thought was going to teach the course you signed up for. That reality can be, however, a blessing.

MY ADVICE: Investigate the smaller universities, like Siena Heights U. in Adrian and a number of other universities and colleges where the classes have 30 or fewer students... the profs know you by name and they work closely with students to help them grow and to succeed in college and in life. There are really 'schools' where students are seen and treated as human beings by instructors and professors. MSU is NOT one of them.

The City of East Lansing, the CITY police and the notoriously corrupt district court, in particular, target and victimize naive students who are away from home for the first time and on their own. Why? Because doing so is easy and extremely profitable(fines). "I hate f***ing students" is a phrase you'll frequently hear inside City Hall.

You will NOT feel ENERGY (Chi) on the MSU campus or anywhere in E.L. It is palpable... one can feel it, in other college towns, especially Ann Arbor.... and I have valid reasons to hate the arrogant asses of U of M.

Famous, world class entertainers who come to East Lansing to perform at the 'Wharton Center for the Arts' quickly sense the 'deadness' and 'lack of enthusiastic feedback' (energy) from the audiences there. As a result, what should and usually would be stellar performances, are often sub-standard... just plain out flat and those entertainers don't come back to MSU a second time. Sadly (because of the high price of Wharton Center tickets) I've witnessed that phenomena too many times.

I sincerely don't understand why so many alum who were treated like cattle and viewed by the administration only as $$ signs in an account ledger, remain so loyal to MSU. Many grads, during their careers, work with top notch people from other universities that actually care about their students and produce respected, capable leaders... something MSU persistently fails to do.

BOTTOM LINE: The clubby, incestual and nepotistic MSU administration and it's thousands of employees, really don't give a lab rat's ass about anything or anyone other than themselves. That is something one can sense and feel at MSU.

If you happen to prefer mindless bureaucracies, miles of red tape, problems around every corner, institutional inflexibility, conflict and far more insensitivity and 'drone' (employee/staff) generated hostility than anyone between the ages of 18 and 22 should be subjected to... you will probably enjoy MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY. Otherwise, be kind to yourself and attend college elsewhere.

U of M people have long said "MSU suffers from an inferiority complex" and several decades after graduating 'Spartan', I must reluctantly agree with that old but accurate observation/conclusion that I once deemed to be slander rather than substantive. The Spartan sport teams have never been consistent winners even when Nick Saban was the football coach. When coaches leave MSU and move elsewhere (Nick Saban left for The University Alabama)and immediately create national champion football teams year after year after year, one has to ask oneself.... "Why do obviously first rate coaches like Saban leave MSU?" and "Why couldn't they do that same thing in East Lansing?". Aside from intentional inside interference from a former football coach and administration insider, George Perles, I'm convinced that MSU's legacy of athletic mediocrity has much to do with a deeply embedded and self-defeating attitude, a permanent sense of inadequacy that explains the 'absence of energy and spirit'. Institutions, like individuals, can assume both positive and negative personality traits. MSU's core personality is unarguably dysfunctional.

There are numerous institutions of higher education, big and small, that are better than MSU... colleges where one can spend four years of one's life and $40, $50, $60,000 or more that will take decades to pay off in the form of student loans. At MSU... you get lost in the crowd of 46,000+ students and generally speaking, nobody there cares enough to go look for you.

Alumnus Male -- Class 2000