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Florida's schools improve national standing; Bowden's FSU still lags Paterno's PSU

By DAVID SEDORE, Palm Beach Business.com Staff

Good news, bad news on the higher education front.

The Washington Monthly has released its annual rating of colleges, and both the University of Florida and Florida State University rank higher than they did a year ago.

Florida comes in at 26, up 15 places from a year ago. FSU ranked 107, up 21 places from a year ago.

The Monthly ranks universities based on their contributions to the greater community as engines of social mobility, research and community service. Some of the measuring sticks used — number of ROTC graduates produced, for example— don't mean much for our purposes. But generally, we find the rankings, especially the emphasis on research, useful as a way to measure Florida’s ability to create a significant homegrown biotech industry.

State and local governments have spent well over $1 billion to attract topflight biotech research labs from California, but without a strong education system to support and complement those labs, we might as well have flushed that money down the toilet.

The bad news is that UF remains the only Florida school among the top 100 universities. By contrast, California has five universities among the top 10.

UF, by the way, ranks 36th nationally in terms of federal research dollars awarded ($179 million), 10th in term of bachelor’s recipients going on to earn PhDs, and 7th in number of PhDs awarded (438).

FSU ranked 97th in federal research dollars ($51 million), 35th in terms of bachelor’s recipients going on to earn PhDs, and 75th in number of PhDs awarded (118).

Take note Bobby Bowden fans: Joe Paterno’s Pennsylvania State University ranks fifth, same as last year. Go State. Beat Pitt.

One more piece of good news; For the first time, the Monthly put together a list of the top 30 community colleges in the nation. Five of them are in Florida: North Florida Community College (5); Lake City Community College (12); Chipola College (18); Valencia Community College (23); and Florida Community College at Jacksonville (25).

The rankings are based largely on the Community College Survey of Student Engagement, plus graduation rates.

Pink slips

HomeBanc Mortgage has let go of 183 workers at four Florida offices, including 37 in Palm Beach Gardens and 43 in Deerfield Beach.

HomeBanc filed for bankruptcy on August 10 as a result of the subprime loan crash.

The rankings are based on Community College Survey of Student Engagement data and graduation rates.

An interesting idea but don’t hold your breath

Brent Ambrose, professor of real estate at Penn State’s Smeal College of Business, says in an upcoming book that the type of car bought affects the probability of a borrower defaulting on a loan. Loans secured for European cars and Japanese cars are 50 percent and 56 percent, respectively, less likely to default than loans on American cars.

Ambrose bases the claim on a review of 6,996 auto loans from January 1998 to March 2003

Ambrose suggests that banks adopt the practice insurers use — setting rates by make and model of the car being financed.

Sound investment advice

Headline on The Miami Herald’s online edition: “Bankrupt companies aren’t good investments.”

Missing alum

Whatever happened to Lionel Reifler, Forest Hills High School class of 1956?

Reifler, perhaps the dean of South Florida con men, went to high school with Art Garfunkel and Paul Simon, who were members of Forest Hills class of 1958.