by Robert A. Scott
rawf8/Shutterstock
Ranking colleges is a big business. Among the most popular are U.S. News, Fiske, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and Niche. Amazon lists 100 guides. Why do Americans devote so much attention to these books when most students go to college nearby and most colleges are not selective? Why do we want to know what is deemed “best” even if we do not understand the criteria used in the ranking and decisions on where to go to college seem so unrelated to the rankings.
As a university president, I was often asked about my institution’s ranking, and I would try to explain why the ranking was or wasn’t important. The trustee or alumnus who asked would often insist that we needed to be higher up in the rankings even if most of our students came from nearby and commuted. During a strategic planning exercise, even faculty and staff would refer to ranking guides and our institutional position in them. I tried to explain that the personal and societal benefits of college would accrue to our students no matter where their pillow was located.
Research has documented over time those benefits include better life outcomes in terms of employment, income, health and fitness, and civic engagement. And this is true whether a person graduates from a regional public institution, a small private college, or an elite university.
Unfortunately, most pundits and publications that discuss higher education focus on the most selective institutions as if they are representative of the 5,900-plus total. Less than 1% of all college students attend the Ivy-plus group of the 12 most selective campuses that recruit nationally. Only 6% of colleges admit less than 25% of those who apply. 38 of the most selective colleges enroll more students from the top 1% of income than from the bottom 60%.
Simply put, most colleges are not selective and do not enroll mostly wealthy students. Why, then, are ranking guides so popular? Most colleges enroll students who live nearby. According to the Institute for College Access and Success, nearly one-half of students who enroll in private non-profit Bachelor’s/Master’s institutions live within 50 miles of campus. For public colleges with the same profile, nearly 80% live within 50 miles.
So, what should rankings count? Most of them count “prestige” or reputation among higher education leaders and the number of applicants rejected, not the number of students educated. To me, the rankings that are most helpful are the ones that focus on fit, the fit between the student and the campus, helping to assure success in class and graduation, not the fit between the college and public opinion.
Most rankings ignore these measures of fit. They are more concerned with input measures such as faculty and institutional resources, faculty research and publications, and “reputation.” A few, like the valuable Fiske Guide, focus on the culture of the campus and its support for students. Most do not. An exception is the non-profit Washington Monthly’s College Guide, which gives priority to regional colleges that help non-wealthy students get ahead while serving society.
Surely, the more important way to rank is to use measures related to student success in and out of class, the social mobility of graduates, and campus contributions to the community and society. This way of ranking is also important because it focuses on the campuses that most students attend.
To underscore what it thinks is important in ranking colleges, the Washington Monthly College Guide compares its ranking with some of those ranked by U. S. News and World Report. For example, Florida International University is #16 on the Monthly list but #124 on the U.S. News ranking. Likewise, Utah State University is #54 on the Monthly list but #269 on the U.S. News ranking. The Washington Monthly Guide offers similar comparisons for independent colleges and universities with a more regional reach. The differences are explained by the criteria used for ranking campuses and whether input or output measures are given more weight.
This Guide is particularly helpful because it features the colleges that prepare the greatest share of four-year graduates and serve the most every-day Americans. It considers social mobility, i.e., helping students advance in terms of socio-economic status; research, i.e., preparing students for graduate education; and public service, i.e. rewarding students for military service, Peace Corps participation, teaching, and other community contributions.
These colleges are not as well-known as their flagship sisters. These are the institutions that E. Alden Dunham of The Carnegie Commission on Higher Education called Colleges of “Forgotten Americans: Profile of State Colleges and Regional Universities.” (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1069.) While Dunham profiled state colleges and universities, his criteria could encompass regional private colleges as well. In this case, his book title was doubly unfortunate. Who forgot these Americans? Equally forgotten were the colleges themselves. Was it because mainstream media thought college meant “Ivy”?
Regional, not wealthy, largely unselective, these regional colleges lacked brand awareness yet prepared the teachers, accountants, and dentists who built the American middle class. They lacked the “reputation” that earns 20% of the score at U.S. News.
One result is that these regional colleges experience disparities in funding when compared to the larger state flagship universities, even though their graduates are more likely to stay in state after graduation and provide a local yield on the public’s investment.
College faculty and staff, whether commenting on strategic plans that include institutions to benchmark for comparison purposes or providing input on enrollment management strategies, would do well to study this 19th annual guide prepared by the Washington Monthly.
