It seems to me that it's Frank Bruni, along with a few hundred thousand upper-income NYT readers, who are "obsessed" with college rankings. Most of America is worried about how to pay for college at all. Then there are those of us who've learned to ignore the ivy-industrial complex and get on with education. My daughter left an elite private school for a state university that happens to have a MUCH better program to prepare her for her chosen field. Each school has its strengths and weaknesses, good and bad departments, facilities and faculty. Anyone who pays attention to the US News & similar rankings, deserves the fleecing they will undoubtedly receive at the bursar's office.
78
Go Frank! Our son goes to a college, Hampshire, which no longer participates in the rankings. It's a joke. And it's driven a lot of bad stuff, as colleges maneuver to move up. My wife and I went to Hampshire too, amazing place.
26
Top tier (1-15) and second tier (16-40) are pretty accurate. After that the rankings are largely a joke.
16
The USNWR rankings are nuts. About as silly as our elections which now have Trump nearly tied with Clinton.
23
There is something corporate and soulless about these US News rankings. Reed College in Portland, OR, the last time I checked, refused to participate and therefore did not get ranked, though it's ranking surely would have been high. I would rather send a child to a college like that (and have attended, myself) than to the corporate sycophant others. I would love to see some of the elite schools have the courage to follow Reed's lead.
39
In a former life as a college PIO, I got into it once with a rep from US News who called to make sure I got the email feed of the rankings. When I challenged her about the importance of the rankings, her response was, "It's important because we say it is." Glad we got that cleared up.
37
College rankings are not a joke. They are big business. Media companies have found a profitable niche in slicing and dicing academia into sell-able tiers. Far from disdain, the ranking system(s) have become the marketing branch of the higher education industry.
With regret, undergraduate education in the US can no longer be understood as an altruistic endeavor, but as a commercial enterprise. Universities are solely in the business of acquiring freshmen each fall. An in-coming cohort at a typical school is worth tens of millions of dollars. In the crowded academic marketplace, reputation and marketing supersede quality. To gain prominence, one simply needs to stand out in some small ways to competitors.
UMBC is a perfect example of this phenomena. As you noted in your column, UMBC supports the innovative Meyerhoff Scholars and a winning chess team. How does UMBC pay for these two illustrious accomplishments? How many lives are actually changed by these programs? It doesn't matter. These two talking points make UMBC distinct in the higher education sphere and a distraction from the fact that it graduates under 40% of its freshmen class every 4 years (IPEDS).
Post-secondary schooling is too important to be treated like a commodity. Undergraduate education is the primary means of creating social mobility. Until Americans can unravel games numbers and interesting anecdotes from reality, our collegiate system will remain a joke.
With regret, undergraduate education in the US can no longer be understood as an altruistic endeavor, but as a commercial enterprise. Universities are solely in the business of acquiring freshmen each fall. An in-coming cohort at a typical school is worth tens of millions of dollars. In the crowded academic marketplace, reputation and marketing supersede quality. To gain prominence, one simply needs to stand out in some small ways to competitors.
UMBC is a perfect example of this phenomena. As you noted in your column, UMBC supports the innovative Meyerhoff Scholars and a winning chess team. How does UMBC pay for these two illustrious accomplishments? How many lives are actually changed by these programs? It doesn't matter. These two talking points make UMBC distinct in the higher education sphere and a distraction from the fact that it graduates under 40% of its freshmen class every 4 years (IPEDS).
Post-secondary schooling is too important to be treated like a commodity. Undergraduate education is the primary means of creating social mobility. Until Americans can unravel games numbers and interesting anecdotes from reality, our collegiate system will remain a joke.
19
As a Baltimore resident, I enjoyed reading Frank Bruni's article about the US News College rankings and University of Maryland Baltimore County. Marylanders are very proud of UMBC for its diversity and for the quality of its undergraduate instruction. What Mr. Bruni neglects to mention is the fact that UMBC has, for many years, been ranked by US News as one of the best
universities in the nation for excellence in undergraduate instruction. While this
list does not create the stir that the general rankings usually provoke, more parents and students should pay attention to it. Many of the prominent universities in the United States rely on graduate assistants and adjuncts to do much of the undergraduate teaching. The full professors are doing the research that places the universities in the "National Research Institutions" category. The differences between the general rankings and the excellence in undergraduate instruction rankings are revealing. Princeton is number 1 on both lists because the focus at Princeton is undergraduate education. Harvard usually ties Princeton on the general rankings, but does not appear in the excellence in undergraduate instruction rankings. UMBC has always been listed in the top 10 or 12 on the undergraduate instruction rankings. Students and parents sometimes conflate academic and social prestige. They shouldn't.
universities in the nation for excellence in undergraduate instruction. While this
list does not create the stir that the general rankings usually provoke, more parents and students should pay attention to it. Many of the prominent universities in the United States rely on graduate assistants and adjuncts to do much of the undergraduate teaching. The full professors are doing the research that places the universities in the "National Research Institutions" category. The differences between the general rankings and the excellence in undergraduate instruction rankings are revealing. Princeton is number 1 on both lists because the focus at Princeton is undergraduate education. Harvard usually ties Princeton on the general rankings, but does not appear in the excellence in undergraduate instruction rankings. UMBC has always been listed in the top 10 or 12 on the undergraduate instruction rankings. Students and parents sometimes conflate academic and social prestige. They shouldn't.
17
Interesting comments. In the USA, not exclusively of course, it is all about the dollar sign and gaining a competitive edge. So you pay, and market the product in order to maintain that edge. Universities compete for quality students and will do what they legally can to attract the best and the brightest. The problem is with our ability to reason. Just becuase a bright capable person doesnt go to a highly ranked institution does not mean they will not get a quality education that suits their individual proclivities- it could be quite the opposite
8
I was always dismayed at the factors considered when the rankings are computed. As a Guidance Counselor, I found that a few short moments of showing parents and students how to read the statistics of schools helped them far more.
One that always impressed: Number of Frosh that continue to graduate. If the Admissions Dept doesn't match students wisely, the Support system; Academic, social,health isn't sufficient, and the Financial Aid system fails a student, they leave. A high number leaving should elicit questions.
One that always impressed: Number of Frosh that continue to graduate. If the Admissions Dept doesn't match students wisely, the Support system; Academic, social,health isn't sufficient, and the Financial Aid system fails a student, they leave. A high number leaving should elicit questions.
10
What so few seem to understand is that one can get a good education at hundreds of schools, which are not big name or ranked high. Much of a degree is in what the student is willing to put into it - effort. Do well, move on to grad school. No one cares where her doc got her bachelor's.
17
None of the Ivy Leagues chose my relative who was top of her class at excellent private schools all her school life. Evidently, she was the wrong colour and not poor but nevertheless managed to collect $1,000,000 in scholarships when applying for entrance to top and 2nd tier Universities in the US. Her intelligence, hard work, polite and educated manners will see that she achieves a 1st class medical degree despite Ivy League disinterest. We and she are very happy with the Uni she eventually chose. There are 1000's of good students just like her at good Universities other than Ivy leagues.
19
Well said, Frank !
I'm impressed.
Thank you for the research.
I'm impressed.
Thank you for the research.
6
Not only college rankings, but the U.S. News and World Report entire roster of ratings is a joke. An eye clinic in Lower Manhattan that is a disaster administratively received its "high rating". Like everything else, it seems, money interests and politics, not quality, play a heavy role.
4
If you think of college not as "higher education", but as "adult day care" everything makes a lot more sense. There are a lot of fun activities for your adult campers to do, and they get to have fun with friends that they will have for life!!! There are cheaper, better, faster, stronger methods and over time the model will fall, but for now, most programs are no more than that-- very expensive adult day care.
9
With an UMBC Tech Corporate Incubator Paid Internship as a Jr. Engineer for 2 years while @ UMBC under her belt, my daughter graduated, continued with that firm as a Software QA Engineer and completed her first year with almost 1 month work abroad experience that was instrumental in a 20% salary bump high in her field's expected range. UMBC is a fantastic University at a less than fantastical price tag: Tuition 11k per year. My daughter graduated with 0 college debt.
A GT student, yet challenged with learning issues, she benefited from UMBC's stellar undergrad ed. (# 5 in Undergrad. Teaching - US News...) Some of the sub categories are useful indicators. Many study groups that benefit minority students also are helpful for students with learning differences.
A GT student, yet challenged with learning issues, she benefited from UMBC's stellar undergrad ed. (# 5 in Undergrad. Teaching - US News...) Some of the sub categories are useful indicators. Many study groups that benefit minority students also are helpful for students with learning differences.
11
The point of going to college is not to get a "good education." Whatever that means. The point of going to college is to get a good job.
Higher ranked schools, for better or worse, are typically better at placing their graduates into lucrative jobs, ceteris paribus.
Higher ranked schools, for better or worse, are typically better at placing their graduates into lucrative jobs, ceteris paribus.
15
I think the rankings matter much more to those out east than anywhere else in the country. In truth school reputations are very regional. In the NE/Mid Atlantic, state schools came late to the game and as such do not carry as much prestige as the private schools. But elsewhere in the country, the state flagship is often the most prestigious in each state and is typically the most popular destination for in-state top students.
Small liberal arts colleges are even more regional in reputation. Few outside of WA state know about Gonzaga or Whitman, and few outside of ME know about Colby or outside of MN know about Carleton.
Small liberal arts colleges are even more regional in reputation. Few outside of WA state know about Gonzaga or Whitman, and few outside of ME know about Colby or outside of MN know about Carleton.
20
The fact that the rankings are not perfect does not lead to the conclusion that they are worthless. They are valuable. Bruni is simply wrong.
14
Rankings could be off a bit, and that's why we don't say Harvard is better than Stanford or the other way around. But seriously, comparing Harvard and some whatever unranked college is the beat joke I've ever heard of.
10
The elite schools are fabulous and the cream de la creme of them even better, though there are lots of really good schools as Bruni argues, though I'm not exactly sure what the fact that having an openly gay mathematics professor makes him a better or worse mathematics professor, but perhaps next time Bruni can elaborate on this conundrum.
12
Frank: Your (near) obsession with the inequities and undemocratic footings, rankings, self-importance and success of the "best" universities is starting to mold and mildew. Now it's time for you to visit (slip and drop into) some of the top ten universities to see if the life of those schools is wholesome and the students are motivated, meeting your standards for diversity, achievement and learning.
Here's a topic for your next university article: The University of Chicago letter to new students regarding no support for "trigger warnings" and "safe spaces."
School rankings will never be correct, by any standards, unless of course, you quit your day job and start your own company to rank universities. And your readers will understand if Chapel Hill is #1.
Here's a topic for your next university article: The University of Chicago letter to new students regarding no support for "trigger warnings" and "safe spaces."
School rankings will never be correct, by any standards, unless of course, you quit your day job and start your own company to rank universities. And your readers will understand if Chapel Hill is #1.
9
A commenter stated "The hardest-working, most intelligent, ambitious, young people naturally want to be accepted by the university that their societies consider the best, to learn the most, and to rise the highest professionally and academically."
During my academic career, I taught at an Ivy League college as well as a state university. I can tell you with confidence that those statements reflect more "truism" than actual truth.
The belief that all of the "best, brightest, and hardest working" students strive to attend the top schools, that only the cream of the crop are accepted, and the "lesser mortals" go to "lesser schools" because they were rejected by loftier institutions just doesn't hold up under scrutiny.
I'd estimate that about 25% of the students I taught at state universities were easily as smart and hard-working as those at the Ivies. (Keep in mind that state universities have enrollments upward of 30K while the Ivies's enrollments are a fifth of that.)
These students typically wanted to attend a school closer to home, didn't want to burden their parents with crippling tuition costs, or didn't know how to build a dossier that makes the college recruiters sit up and take notice. Many times it just never occurred to them to apply to schools that they'd certainly heard of but were just as certainly not a part of their social venues.
Meanwhile, there are "trust fund babies" at Ivies who are certainly not there because of their academic acumen.
During my academic career, I taught at an Ivy League college as well as a state university. I can tell you with confidence that those statements reflect more "truism" than actual truth.
The belief that all of the "best, brightest, and hardest working" students strive to attend the top schools, that only the cream of the crop are accepted, and the "lesser mortals" go to "lesser schools" because they were rejected by loftier institutions just doesn't hold up under scrutiny.
I'd estimate that about 25% of the students I taught at state universities were easily as smart and hard-working as those at the Ivies. (Keep in mind that state universities have enrollments upward of 30K while the Ivies's enrollments are a fifth of that.)
These students typically wanted to attend a school closer to home, didn't want to burden their parents with crippling tuition costs, or didn't know how to build a dossier that makes the college recruiters sit up and take notice. Many times it just never occurred to them to apply to schools that they'd certainly heard of but were just as certainly not a part of their social venues.
Meanwhile, there are "trust fund babies" at Ivies who are certainly not there because of their academic acumen.
151
Thank you! I turned down an Ivy League acceptance to attend a state school for financial reasons and I don't think it has affected my career one iota. I still ended up at all the top firms. By my second job no one even knew or cared where I went to school.
I'm very proud of the fact that WA state recently became the first and only state in the country to lower in-state tuition for all our state universities, by 15% over the next 2 years. It was proposed by a Republican state senator from Centralia John Braun who originally proposed a 25% cut across the board, but the Democrats shot it down!! They wanted instead to freeze tuition and increase financial to low income students. They eventually came to a compromise at 15%.
Every step of the way, the Democratic party finds a way to benefit the few at the expense of the many. In fact, that should be their party slogan: The Democratic Party: Always hard at work seeking to benefit the few at the expense of the many.
I'm very proud of the fact that WA state recently became the first and only state in the country to lower in-state tuition for all our state universities, by 15% over the next 2 years. It was proposed by a Republican state senator from Centralia John Braun who originally proposed a 25% cut across the board, but the Democrats shot it down!! They wanted instead to freeze tuition and increase financial to low income students. They eventually came to a compromise at 15%.
Every step of the way, the Democratic party finds a way to benefit the few at the expense of the many. In fact, that should be their party slogan: The Democratic Party: Always hard at work seeking to benefit the few at the expense of the many.
8
Oh, please. The author discounts any metrics of the US News rankings while offering the usual liberal twaddle that "diversity" is some sort of magical, utterly unsubstantiated yet patently superior measure of value. Send your kids wherever, Frank. I'm sure U.M.B.C is a fine school. But I'm guessing M.I.T has some value, too.
19
I believe that no one really cares where you went to college except you and your parents. I went to all kinds of colleges in my lifetime, some "great" and many simply to meet credential requirements. The real test of your education is what you do with it. The test is what you do with it in the world of work and the community you inhabit. Do people see you as a "mensch" or a fraud?
4
Bruni makes excellent points—the rankings are fraudulent. There is a difference between excellence and cachet, between deserving the ranking and owning the ranking. Said another way: precedent perpetuates error.
This is not to say that there is not added value of, say, a Princeton degree or, conversely, that a degree of dubious value exploits and defrauds the poor and the vulnerable by definition.
This is not to say that there is not added value of, say, a Princeton degree or, conversely, that a degree of dubious value exploits and defrauds the poor and the vulnerable by definition.
3
I am a physician from a middle level medical school, UNC-Chapel Hill. My classmates have done well including Dr. Francis Collins the head of the NIH or Dr. Jeff Jamison, the head of University of Pennsylvania. I learn from my good friend, Dr. Michael Caplow, UNC Biochemistry that in medicine it's a spectrum from Harvard, Stanford, Johns Hopkins at the top down. When I want advice I call Harvard or Johns Hopkins who kindly offer it without pretense. If I call a lower level medical hospital, I get rigid, anal answers or silence. But the NIH system works shifting money out of the Ivy leagues into lower level teaching centers so the best expertise can be surprisingly in Arkansas or New Mexico or other less prominent schools. The American system has been an amazing success at building truly the best in the world. Every other country respects the USA system as the best, one we should be proud of. It allows the smartest, hardest working graduates to excel.
8
Most rankings I have seen have been of questionable value. I see rankings of the best city to retire, the best city to do this or that and best college for dorms or the best for food. There is a never ending parade of listings coming your way and if you look into most of them they are all works of fiction.
I think what all these rankings prove is that people really like lists and people read them. For writers this is heaven to know there is an audience for something you create. No matter how little value these lists have I think they will continue to be created, simply because they are liked and will always have an audience.
I think what all these rankings prove is that people really like lists and people read them. For writers this is heaven to know there is an audience for something you create. No matter how little value these lists have I think they will continue to be created, simply because they are liked and will always have an audience.
6
College rankings are the way for certain schools to extort the most amount of money they can from the public to advance their agenda.
4
College rankings. The intellectual equivalent of male chimpanzees beating their chests and throwing rocks to show how dominant they are. Pathetic.
9
Status consciousness vis-à-vis the university one attends is rather silly. But, if your kid gets into an Ivy League or other "elite school", good for the kid and good for you.
But, you know what impresses me much, much more, and often creates a far more inspiring story? A situation where a troubled or disadvantaged or "late blooming" young man or woman manages to gain entry into, and succeed in, a local community college . . . and then goes on to enjoy a life that may not put them in society's upper echelons, but is nonetheless comfortable, fulfilling, and meaningful.
But, you know what impresses me much, much more, and often creates a far more inspiring story? A situation where a troubled or disadvantaged or "late blooming" young man or woman manages to gain entry into, and succeed in, a local community college . . . and then goes on to enjoy a life that may not put them in society's upper echelons, but is nonetheless comfortable, fulfilling, and meaningful.
12
Rankings only matter for those who want certain careers - law, academia, investment banking, management consulting, and for those who want a terminal bachelor's degree in liberal arts. A philosophy major from Stanford may end up at Google, but a philosophy major from Chico State is more likely to end up serving latte at Starbucks. But even then, geography still matters a great deal. Those who want are a career on Wall Street are better off going to NYU then Pomona.
For STEM degrees, flagship state universities are the big kahunas. The top feeder schools to top IT firms out west like Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon are schools like San Jose State, UC Berkeley, Cal Poly SLO, UW, i.e. location matters, proximity to where you want to work is much more important than the name of your school.
In truth, USNews rankings really doesn't matter. Most people who chase prestige know what the top 5, 10 or 20 schools are, the pecking order hasn't changed for the last 25 years, regardless of how USNews rearrange the ranking each year. How many people turned down Harvard for Princeton vs. the other way around? Every elite worshipper knows what HYPSM stands for.
At the end of the day, what you get out of college equals what you put into it. And after your first job, *no one* cares where you went to school.
For STEM degrees, flagship state universities are the big kahunas. The top feeder schools to top IT firms out west like Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon are schools like San Jose State, UC Berkeley, Cal Poly SLO, UW, i.e. location matters, proximity to where you want to work is much more important than the name of your school.
In truth, USNews rankings really doesn't matter. Most people who chase prestige know what the top 5, 10 or 20 schools are, the pecking order hasn't changed for the last 25 years, regardless of how USNews rearrange the ranking each year. How many people turned down Harvard for Princeton vs. the other way around? Every elite worshipper knows what HYPSM stands for.
At the end of the day, what you get out of college equals what you put into it. And after your first job, *no one* cares where you went to school.
11
Go panthers
3
More than 15 years ago, I worked at a university that was trying to break into the tier above the one in which it had languished for many years. In the spring of that year, the university purchased a multi-year advertising package in US News. Lo and behold, when the rankings came out later that year, the university had risen into the next tier? Coincidence?
21
I'm an alumna of a good non-Ivy private college. I confess it took awhile to get over my 'Ivy Envy', born of too many conversations along the line of:
'Fordham? You're so smart; I can't imagine why Princeton turned you down.'
'I never applied. Didn't even occur to me.'
'What?! But you could've gotten into Princeton!'
Implication: Everyone must want to go to an Ivy; if you went anywhere but an Ivy, it must be because you're too dumb; if you deliberately chose not to try for an Ivy, and you're not dumb, then something else must be wrong with you.
However, over the years I've met too many Ivy grads whose post-college careers fizzled, settled into dronelike mediocrity, or crashed and burned. I also spent a year as a 'townie' working in Princeton at a job that offered some campus privileges, and got a good look at Princetonians. They were the same mortal clay as any other new-fledged post-teenagers - sometimes a little worse, in their sense of entitlement.
An Ivy may have bragging rights, a nice campus, and the opportunity to get in with an 'old boy network. It's no guarantee of success, happiness, or even an education, because a college doesn't educate you; it offers you the means and opportunity to educate yourself, if you choose to take it.
'Fordham? You're so smart; I can't imagine why Princeton turned you down.'
'I never applied. Didn't even occur to me.'
'What?! But you could've gotten into Princeton!'
Implication: Everyone must want to go to an Ivy; if you went anywhere but an Ivy, it must be because you're too dumb; if you deliberately chose not to try for an Ivy, and you're not dumb, then something else must be wrong with you.
However, over the years I've met too many Ivy grads whose post-college careers fizzled, settled into dronelike mediocrity, or crashed and burned. I also spent a year as a 'townie' working in Princeton at a job that offered some campus privileges, and got a good look at Princetonians. They were the same mortal clay as any other new-fledged post-teenagers - sometimes a little worse, in their sense of entitlement.
An Ivy may have bragging rights, a nice campus, and the opportunity to get in with an 'old boy network. It's no guarantee of success, happiness, or even an education, because a college doesn't educate you; it offers you the means and opportunity to educate yourself, if you choose to take it.
21
Increasingly, I'm seeing more and more top kids in my area aiming for flagships out west, mostly in-state but schools like UCB, ASU, UCO-Boulder are very popular. The most popular reach school for kids in my area is Northwestern, which has become a very hot school in the last decade. Top STEM majors who are looking to get out of the area are all gunning for Georgia Tech, which has become the mecca of CS majors.
Most top kids in our area have given up on the Ivies or Stanford knowing that they only care about athletes, URMs, legacies and children of celebrities, while MIT is only for the USAMO/Intel Science winners or URM/girls who are into STEM. No one I know actually apply to schools based on USNews rankings. The only people who even pay attention to that is the media.
Most top kids in our area have given up on the Ivies or Stanford knowing that they only care about athletes, URMs, legacies and children of celebrities, while MIT is only for the USAMO/Intel Science winners or URM/girls who are into STEM. No one I know actually apply to schools based on USNews rankings. The only people who even pay attention to that is the media.
7
Totally agree. Why is applicant rejection rate part of academic standing? Why not add family income? Why are public universities penalized under financial resources, even when well financed with large endowments. Why are academic reputation and graduation rates not ranked higher in the methodology. Is flunking out of Notre Dame or Emory better than graduating from UCLA? The entire USN&W ranking is a sham.
Much like any Forbes ranking of anything - best places to retired, find a job or find love the list and metrics is bogus. In some ways USN&W list has even less finesse than a Forbes survey.
Now if USN&W said its rankings reflected snob appeal in its current format it might have some stronger validity. Remember at one time CCNY had more graduates going on to get Ph.ds and MD's than any other university in country. How would it have rank in USN&W? But, if we had the family income rankings of students, I imagine the USN&W rankings would fit closely.
Much like any Forbes ranking of anything - best places to retired, find a job or find love the list and metrics is bogus. In some ways USN&W list has even less finesse than a Forbes survey.
Now if USN&W said its rankings reflected snob appeal in its current format it might have some stronger validity. Remember at one time CCNY had more graduates going on to get Ph.ds and MD's than any other university in country. How would it have rank in USN&W? But, if we had the family income rankings of students, I imagine the USN&W rankings would fit closely.
2
Many international students, huh. I wouldn't be so quick to chalk that up to altruism. Public universities love international students because they have to pay the exorbitant out of state fees and normally aren't eligible for financial aid. The university doesn't care about diverse points of view, those students are just cash cows.
10
All US universities love international students. They are cash cows for all our schools. That's why their numbers are ballooning on all college campuses, including many private LACs.
6
I agree with Frank. There are many schools that are both private and public that excel in teaching in various disciplines. Students have to do their home work before selecting a school where they are going to spend four years of their life that are critical for development. Going to top ranked schools give bragging rights to parents, but not necessarily the best for the kids. All children are different and the choice should be based on where they can excel. I learned this from my children who followed different paths and got their Ph.Ds from the same top school. The role of parents should focus on the joy of learning. The kids would do well on their own. No need for punishing discipline. Creativity doesn't come from discipline.
2
Ranking universities is a rank and silly effort.
It brings top-listed schools material benefits --endowments and corporate research grants, potentially fine students, prospective employers, and sometimes a phony guarantee of a great future. Ask G.W. Bush why he went to Yale and Harvard and what he got.
A great education was hardly on Dubya's mind. It is often not on the Top 10 list of what universities even care about. And for many it is far behind cash and football.
A great education demands is great teachers and access to strenuous courses, critical reading, the fellowship of good minds, books and labs -- remember, 90% of undergraduate labs and about 70-90% of lectures are from underpaid untenured unknown, but often fine, graduate "assistants".
The Top lists rarely evaluate that. Check out Harvard College and most public institutions. Tuition costs matter little in this area -- teachers and assistants often are over-burdened and sometimes lack English language skills.
We want "Top 10" lists of everything and the Internet offers hundreds, all subjective and ad-delivering. Pick a school with well-equipped labs and libraries (or access to collections nearby), and ask graduates what teachers inspired them. Tell the enrolee that 99% of the burden is on him or her. Learning happens where great minds deliver great efforts, not where endowment funds and "ranking" are great.
Disclosure: 3 degrees and 40 years teaching at4 universities)
It brings top-listed schools material benefits --endowments and corporate research grants, potentially fine students, prospective employers, and sometimes a phony guarantee of a great future. Ask G.W. Bush why he went to Yale and Harvard and what he got.
A great education was hardly on Dubya's mind. It is often not on the Top 10 list of what universities even care about. And for many it is far behind cash and football.
A great education demands is great teachers and access to strenuous courses, critical reading, the fellowship of good minds, books and labs -- remember, 90% of undergraduate labs and about 70-90% of lectures are from underpaid untenured unknown, but often fine, graduate "assistants".
The Top lists rarely evaluate that. Check out Harvard College and most public institutions. Tuition costs matter little in this area -- teachers and assistants often are over-burdened and sometimes lack English language skills.
We want "Top 10" lists of everything and the Internet offers hundreds, all subjective and ad-delivering. Pick a school with well-equipped labs and libraries (or access to collections nearby), and ask graduates what teachers inspired them. Tell the enrolee that 99% of the burden is on him or her. Learning happens where great minds deliver great efforts, not where endowment funds and "ranking" are great.
Disclosure: 3 degrees and 40 years teaching at4 universities)
4
The U.S. is fortunate in the number of college choices it appears to afford, and unfortunate in the association of "elite" college with career and social connections that are beneficial to graduates. Since college costs are so high, both students and parents want the investment of time and treasure to lead to job security and goodish salaries. Community colleges are affordable, but do not typically provide useful networking opportunities. They are seen as pre-college level work institutions for immigrants or students needing remediation. There is more security in making connections with the wealthy, even if the upfront costs are prohibitive for the middle class. Colleges could do a better job of helping students plan, when they enter with no idea of a major, and providing internships and apprenticeships, especially to those in the humanities. A magazine is not going to take on the class bias inherent in college rankings, but the American people can by greatly increasing the federal and state tax support to public universities. Finally, for those planning to work in any human service field, including medicine, education, journalism, criminal justice, or environmental studies, a degree from a public university should be more highly valued.
3
This comment board illustrates yet again that Harvard is the school we love to hate.
Whatever else you might say about Harvard students (and many have a lot to say it seems – – scroll down if you doubt me), it appears that they do generally tend to have quite high IQs. At least that was the case back in the 1980s.
When I was a Harvard undergrad, I worked as an assistant on a research project that, among other things, required me (and other assistants) to administer IQ tests to several hundred subjects. I was was carefully trained by a prominent psychometrician to administer the WAIS-R test (if I recall the version correctly), one-on-one.
After I had administered several dozen tests, it became clear to me that I wasn't getting a decent distribution from the readily available Harvard students I was lazily focusing on. The Harvard IQ scores clustered around 130, with a bit of a tail to the right of a pretty perky curve and not much to the left. A couple of subjects even scored off the test.
This is going to sound unbearably obnoxious, but it is nonetheless simply true: in order to get a broader range of IQ scores, with more scores down in "average" neighborhood, I (and other testers) had to start recruiting students at other Boston-area colleges and universities.
(I share this comment for what it's worth, but I take no position on what IQ does or does not connote.)
Whatever else you might say about Harvard students (and many have a lot to say it seems – – scroll down if you doubt me), it appears that they do generally tend to have quite high IQs. At least that was the case back in the 1980s.
When I was a Harvard undergrad, I worked as an assistant on a research project that, among other things, required me (and other assistants) to administer IQ tests to several hundred subjects. I was was carefully trained by a prominent psychometrician to administer the WAIS-R test (if I recall the version correctly), one-on-one.
After I had administered several dozen tests, it became clear to me that I wasn't getting a decent distribution from the readily available Harvard students I was lazily focusing on. The Harvard IQ scores clustered around 130, with a bit of a tail to the right of a pretty perky curve and not much to the left. A couple of subjects even scored off the test.
This is going to sound unbearably obnoxious, but it is nonetheless simply true: in order to get a broader range of IQ scores, with more scores down in "average" neighborhood, I (and other testers) had to start recruiting students at other Boston-area colleges and universities.
(I share this comment for what it's worth, but I take no position on what IQ does or does not connote.)
8
The quality of the professors and of the educational experience in general is pretty much the same at all of the accredited colleges or they wouldn't be accredited. The difference is the amount of connections one can make during one's time studying at a college. And the more expensive the college the more worthwhile the connections because connected people hang together in order to make new connections. Most college students have no connections that the connected would consider worth the time.
3
Many commenters have said students get a better education in the higher ranked schools. I think that they may be taking credit for the qualities of their incoming students. I teach at a smallish public university and a large percentage of our students are the bilingual children of poorly paid, poorly educated immigrants. The majority of our students work between 20 and 30 hours each week. Some still spend summers in the fields. They do not have the life of intellectual leisure enjoyed by their peers at Harvard or Stanford; of course, they are also not whining about safe zones.
6
Indeed, the rankings are misleading, to say the least. Pace University Business and Economics students won the National College Fed Challenge - a National competition in Monetary Policy- for the last two years in a row. They were judged by senior advisors to the President, and met with Janet Yellen (Federal Reserve Board Chair). They beat Princeton team, for example, which received an honorable mention. Harvard won this competition in 2013, and is ranked best business school. Pace University Lubin School of Business is unranked.
2
I stopped paying attention to US News rankings when I saw them rank nonexistent schools; e.g., Princeton's "law school." I don't know if that has changed in recent years.
I would advise students to (1) look generally for a place where they can thrive (e.g., city vs rural); (2) look for a place where, as far as they can determine, they will be challenged (because that is what life will throw at them); (3) visit and talk to current students, even over alumni (although talk to alumni as well); and (4) focus on doing well because that will buy you more than the fancy school (from someone who went the fancy schools route).
There is no magic bullet to this. Kids (and parents) have to do leg work. This is too important a decision to have someone else "rank" it for you.
I would advise students to (1) look generally for a place where they can thrive (e.g., city vs rural); (2) look for a place where, as far as they can determine, they will be challenged (because that is what life will throw at them); (3) visit and talk to current students, even over alumni (although talk to alumni as well); and (4) focus on doing well because that will buy you more than the fancy school (from someone who went the fancy schools route).
There is no magic bullet to this. Kids (and parents) have to do leg work. This is too important a decision to have someone else "rank" it for you.
5
There are a many of us out here who don't buy into this nonsense. In a lot of ways, it's all local. I taught at a school that was rated as number one in my state by Newsweek, and at the same time it was considered a slightly above average school in the International Baccalaureate rankings, and a total failure according to No Child Left Behind. While the school used the Newsweek ranking on the website, it didn't mention the other two rankings. I didn't really care one way or the other. By the end of each day I just wanted to do a good job and hope what I did got across. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. That's life. The only time anyone ever took this nonsense seriously was back in 1973 when I attended a wedding at the Harvard Club in Boston. I was 24 years old and sat at a table with other guests around my age. As we went around the table introducing ourselves, I was surprised that the others also mentioned their schools. "I'm Brad - Harvard '71" "Hello, I'm Sue - Dartmouth '72" "Hey there! I'm Chip! Yale class of 70!" People nodded, smiled, and looked from one to the next. Then it got to me. "I'm Michael -Northern Michigan University. Class of '73." Smiles faded. Heads immediately turned to the next person, and that was it. Nobody paid attention to me the rest of the night. I was outed as someone from an unranked public school. I guess school ranking counts at weddings, but so what? Food and drinks were free and the bartender didn't care one way or the other.
14
Rankings only matter to those who went to the top 20 or so schools. No one else cares.
2
However true or not that this list of 'best' colleges (what a loaded word) is to sell magazines, I am pretty sure that the dominance of the USNWR college list is perverting higher education while, yes, selling loads of magazines. I would bet just about everyone except USNWR would openly or secretly celebrate it's non-existance. Much the way magazines like Robert Parker's or The Wine Spectator have evolved to rank wine. The net effect is wineries started changing their behavior and focus to make wines they thought would garner a high score. This caused a homogenizing effect - a dumbing down- in the wine world. Most professionals I know in this business are nostalgic for a time before critics started shaping tastes rather than the people who make the wine. Most, except for those who have created businesses that profit by gaming the ranking system, would celebrate the end of assigning scores to wines. Happily, they are starting to lose their influence, but it's had a 35 year effect. Hopefully too USNWR will cease to be meaningful if people start thinking for themselves, and allowing colleges to do the same.
3
These rankings are used by university development offices to drum up more donations. They are all part of the growing market society of branding things without full attention to content. Best current example of this: the RNC presidential candidate. Over the 37 years I have been a professor, I have watched my university become more and more oriented toward the market, one person even suggesting that 'students' be referred to as 'clients'. Money over meaning and ethics, see Michael Sandel's great read, What Money Can't Buy.
4
Huh? I think you meant the Democratic candidates. Obama never would've been nominated if he had gone to University of Northern Michigan rather than Harvard. Both the Clintons went to Yale. Liberals love their big name liberal arts schools. Whereas on the RNC side, almost all the candidates went to non-elite schools. Even Trump started out at Fordham.
2
Although the same names show up at the top of the rankings year after year, college demographics are broadening the number of schools that offer a superlative experience.
As the pool of applicants widens to include more applicants from more diverse backgrounds, the schools historically at the top of the rankings are casting wider nets. They are turning away applicants equally worthy of admission in numbers greater than the numbers they actually admit.
Where do these students go? To other colleges that offer comparable programs. Given the difficulty of attaining professorships almost everywhere, the faculties are outstanding at a vast number of these colleges. As a result, these schools offer an experience that is in every way equal of those at the top of the list, except for rank and reputation. But over time, reputation will follow as the current generation of graduates recognizes the reality of today's college admissions process. The published rankings will become ever more irrelevant, or be reduced to listing many more ties.
As the pool of applicants widens to include more applicants from more diverse backgrounds, the schools historically at the top of the rankings are casting wider nets. They are turning away applicants equally worthy of admission in numbers greater than the numbers they actually admit.
Where do these students go? To other colleges that offer comparable programs. Given the difficulty of attaining professorships almost everywhere, the faculties are outstanding at a vast number of these colleges. As a result, these schools offer an experience that is in every way equal of those at the top of the list, except for rank and reputation. But over time, reputation will follow as the current generation of graduates recognizes the reality of today's college admissions process. The published rankings will become ever more irrelevant, or be reduced to listing many more ties.
3
College rankings are not a joke but they are not as exact as a serial ranking (1,2,3...etc) indicates.
The publications are attended with data, which if waded through, will provide the reader some measure of understanding the rankings. The reader can then re-weight the data and arrive at a more meaningful ranking.
They are helpful in grouping types of colleges (state, private, large, small, specialized). They are helpful in indicating the quality of the student body. They indicate endowment (which itself is a rough indicator of possibilities).
Importantly, they are helpful to the high school students in narrowing their choices.
They serve a purpose.
The publications are attended with data, which if waded through, will provide the reader some measure of understanding the rankings. The reader can then re-weight the data and arrive at a more meaningful ranking.
They are helpful in grouping types of colleges (state, private, large, small, specialized). They are helpful in indicating the quality of the student body. They indicate endowment (which itself is a rough indicator of possibilities).
Importantly, they are helpful to the high school students in narrowing their choices.
They serve a purpose.
2
No competent university administrator could claim with a straight face that such ratings are anything better than a very rough, and at least somewhat outdated approximation, and some clearly are much less than even that. But to dismiss them categorically and in their entirety, mainly based on one overdrawn outlier (Veterans admitted to "elite" schools) evidently further motivated by sour grapes about the author's alma mater being down at 159th place, is a slim basis for meaningful conclusions.
Thank you Frank! As a person with a child approaching college age it's great to read about the inaccuracies of the rankings and the successes of UMBC students. Already, years out, my son is receiving mail from colleges wooing applicants, no doubt to lower their admit rates on paper. These kids are the losers in all this, often solicited by schools that will later reject them. Meanwhile, they have been talking about college, and the ivy league holy-grail since fifth grade. Because even if you as a parent attempt to op out of the crazy-race for elite institutions, the kids at school repeat what they hear their parents saying at home. The anxiety starts early. And is based on the anxiety of parents who fear their kids falling out of the middle class, if they don't have the edge of an elite education. Our kids deserve better.
3
Universities are real, groups that rate them do it for publicity, and contribute nothing.
1
Nobody calls their baby ugly. Unless you've attended two colleges you really aren't capable of speaking on the differences. Calling Ivy League colleges overrated when you attended a Tailgate State in flyover country is ridiculous. There's a reason most wealthy and upper middle class family is obsessed with getting their kids into top school - they know the score.
6
I know people who went to Harvard and Yale. My ex went to Dartmouth. I graduated from LSU. I know they're no better educated, they simply have swagger. It's like a high end designer bag, they're labeled and belong to a club. But blazing intellect? Nah. I'm not so impressed, having spent years talking to these people. You can learn the same things anywhere. It's a mystique that people compete for when they apply to Ivy's. Now that's great to have, but it's not a better education.
78
Couldn't agree more
2
That college name should read "Earlham College" on the entry I just submitted.
America has several, and only several, really good schools. The rest are for partying or protesting. These are best if one is majoring in drunk or football.
1
Wow! You have done an enormous amount of personal research.
7
Certainly, there's an arbitrariness to the rankings system as devised by USNWR. Were UMBC a slightly less ambitious institution, it would qualify as a "Regional University," and doubtless enjoy a much higher ranking. As it stands, UMBC is considered a "National University," which means it is compared to the likes of Harvard, Emory, and every single "flagship" state school. However, when one digs through the rankings, two things stand out about UMBC: it is #5 on the "Most Innovative Schools" list, and #18 for "Best Undergraduate Teaching." The amazing school described in this article is reflected in these other rankings. In other words, college rankings are not necessarily a joke. When read intently and carefully, they can provide valuable insight for students and parents as they make crucial decisions.
4
The general rankings are accurate, though nothing is absolute.
The rankings are far from being a joke.
The rankings are far from being a joke.
I think small schools are way underrated. When I went to CSU in Pueblo, CO there were 11 kids in my linear algebra class. In calculus, it was a normal class size of around 30. That was several years ago.
After I retired I went back to CSU-Pueblo and took anatomy. It was in a hall with maybe a 100 kids or so. I decided to take it at the community college instead and dropped it and enrolled at the community college. I was in a class of around 35-40 and got to know the professor on a first name basis. I took several other introductory science courses and most had around 30-40 kids. Across town, at the University those classes would have been over a hundred. In small universities and colleges, kids are far less likely to get lost and help is near at hand.
After I retired I went back to CSU-Pueblo and took anatomy. It was in a hall with maybe a 100 kids or so. I decided to take it at the community college instead and dropped it and enrolled at the community college. I was in a class of around 35-40 and got to know the professor on a first name basis. I took several other introductory science courses and most had around 30-40 kids. Across town, at the University those classes would have been over a hundred. In small universities and colleges, kids are far less likely to get lost and help is near at hand.
3
My husband was one of those rarities: an undergraduate who freely chose to take his undergraduate degree at a "boutique" liberal-arts college over an Ivy League university.
Attracted by the prestige and intrigued by the idea of change, he transferred from a small liberal-arts college into an Ivy League school after his sophomore year. By the middle of his junior year, he realized that he had made a mistake, and he arranged to transfer back to the liberal-arts college for his senior year. He strongly preferred the more personal approach to teaching and learning at the small college, as well as the warm, collegial community, and even now, decades later, he frequently alludes to the powerfully positive formative effect of his three years at that college. And, no, his future prospects were not stunted by the unconventional choice he made long ago: today he inhabits a rarefied professional world in which most of the people around the conference table hold an Ivy or equivalent undergraduate degree.
(Ok, ok . . . I'll put you out of your misery: The institutions in question are Sarah Lawrence College and Columbia University. Fun fact: Obama was in his transfer-in group at Columbia.)
Attracted by the prestige and intrigued by the idea of change, he transferred from a small liberal-arts college into an Ivy League school after his sophomore year. By the middle of his junior year, he realized that he had made a mistake, and he arranged to transfer back to the liberal-arts college for his senior year. He strongly preferred the more personal approach to teaching and learning at the small college, as well as the warm, collegial community, and even now, decades later, he frequently alludes to the powerfully positive formative effect of his three years at that college. And, no, his future prospects were not stunted by the unconventional choice he made long ago: today he inhabits a rarefied professional world in which most of the people around the conference table hold an Ivy or equivalent undergraduate degree.
(Ok, ok . . . I'll put you out of your misery: The institutions in question are Sarah Lawrence College and Columbia University. Fun fact: Obama was in his transfer-in group at Columbia.)
9
I agree, these rankings are a complete sham...
3
Really, the USNWR rankings are just statements of the obvious. Why this gets any play at all stumps me. Maybe people wish it were different, but MIT is MIT and Stanford is Stanford for very solid reasons. The tops schools deserve their reputations. The students who go there are often extraordinary.
Should we work harder to find those extraordinary minds in places wider than elite neighborhoods in our country? Of course we should. But these top schools often offer challenge and then opportunity far greater than schools that are generally unknown.
Should we work harder to find those extraordinary minds in places wider than elite neighborhoods in our country? Of course we should. But these top schools often offer challenge and then opportunity far greater than schools that are generally unknown.
4
But most of the people who go there aren't extraordinary. Plenty of them are rich screw ups. There are extraordinary young people at a variety of colleges and universities. The snooty schools have a pole position and rich alums, not better education. Getting into them means you won at name branding rush, got into a club, not that you're smarter or better.
People should go to the school best for them, and not be subjected to snobbery about it. Do you want competent people rising to run things? Or a club of snotty privileged rich kids? Because even Ivy grads need to prove themselves in the world instead of being fawned over for something that's at least part luck and should just be a minor accomplishment.
People should go to the school best for them, and not be subjected to snobbery about it. Do you want competent people rising to run things? Or a club of snotty privileged rich kids? Because even Ivy grads need to prove themselves in the world instead of being fawned over for something that's at least part luck and should just be a minor accomplishment.
3
Do you lecture your co-workers at The Times about how overrated their (your) elite degrees are? Did you have an intervention with Nick Kristof and Charles Blow before they made the egregious error of sending their kids to Ivy League colleges?
3
I think you have missed the point.
3
As I read this story about the awesome accomplishments of UMBC and of its graduates and faculty, late in the text came the name of its President, Freeman Hrabowski. I said, "of course!" I'd forgotten that he and UMBC are as one. I recall having met Mr. Hrabowski several years ago at a Baltimore Chamber of Commerce dinner, as he spoke of his vision for UMBC, and then reading of him in a magazine published for college and university trustees. I couldn't believe that he could possibly achieve what he set out to do. Et voila! Now, I cannot fathom why people in higher education are not always at his footstool.
5
The repetitive reporting on those college rankings from a fourth-rate magazine is like the repetitive reporting on you-know-who is running for president. The unnecessary coverage translates into free publicity and is, therefore, counterproductive.
7
Mr. Bruni makes a trenchant observation, but misses the one real advantage held by the "elite" schools and that is connections. When you matriculate with someone who will, say, become president, or at minimum CEO, your opportunities are richer. That said, the rankings are nonsense, because an undergraduate degree is more about the student than it is the institution. Most undergrads get graduate assistant instructors anyway. Oh, one other thing. I have an employee who attended UMBC, way out here on the West Coast. UMBC must be pretty good, because their graduate impresses me!
7
Most colleges are good at something and good for someone. The questions are what and who. Ask of people who actually know a particular school: who thrives here and who does not?
6
Does that writer know there is HR software that essentially deletes resumes that don't contain a target university? Has the writer ever sat in on a CUNY lecture and then a Columbia lecture for the same course? Has the writer ever attended a Rutgers career fair and then a Princeton career fair? Has the writer ever talked to frustrated and lost medical school applicants at less selective colleges? Has the writer talked to head hunters who prowl LinkedIn for high-status credentials?
19
Could we just have rankings based on delivering the job the education was aimed toward? A kid signs up for a degree program in sports management. How many get that job or does he become a ball boy for some baseball team?
How many might-have-been medical researchers have taken the basketball scholarship and then couldn't put the time to the books for all the game practice demands?
How many might-have-been medical researchers have taken the basketball scholarship and then couldn't put the time to the books for all the game practice demands?
2
The math proofs and chemistry formulas are exactly the same at a state school and an Ivy League school. The point of the rankings isn't about the quality of education it's about branding. Getting a degree from a top school places you in the elite of the US and many places around the world. Don't attend Davos without one.
4
The students make the school. You can dress a school up in all kinds of finery, but the make up of the student body is what counts. Professors get better and teach better because they have students who are ready and willing to learn. Everything else doesn't matter and if Americans could just get that through their heads and stop paying for frivolities like athletics (number one expenditure at many institutions of "higher learning", and other non-essentials we wouldn't have the student loan crisis we have today and young people who graduate with loans the size of mortgages.
3
Good schools would be more affordable if they didn't have stellar student unions, state of the art gyms, beautiful landscaping, delicious restaurants, beautiful meeting halls etc. People should look and see what a highly ranked public or private campus looks like and realize why the cost of a college education has skyrocketed. Let's focus on education and matching skills to jobs. All the other fluff seems silly. It's only 4 years, you don't get to live there forever.
2
Rankings may not matter so much, but if you can go to certain schools, you are generally speaking, set, unless you do something really stupid. Foremost - Harvard and Yale. But also to a lesser degree Princeton, Stanford, Berkeley, M.I.T. and, depending on your field, some others. If you can get in to these, they will open doors that no other of the many schools available can - particularly the first two. Some fields are simply open only for Ivy Leaguers (there are exceptions to most everything). The ultimate example is, of course, getting on the S. Ct., which has for a long time been virtually closed to all but Harvard/Yale grads. We can hope that will change someday, but, where do you the current nominee went to school? You got it. But many law firms only hire from those schools, and the same is true of some businesses.
But, if you can't get in to one of the brand names schools, go to one that will not leave you with the equivalent of a mortgage payment before you can get a job, so long as you can get a decent education, and best some contacts in your field. Some schools are better suited for certain field than others. None of this dismisses hard work in high school or college wherever you go (not that I did at all in either, but I'm a bad example) or suggests you can't get ahead or make a lot of money going elsewhere. I'm just saying that some well known schools have established an aristocracy of sorts and doors open for their grads, rankings aside.
But, if you can't get in to one of the brand names schools, go to one that will not leave you with the equivalent of a mortgage payment before you can get a job, so long as you can get a decent education, and best some contacts in your field. Some schools are better suited for certain field than others. None of this dismisses hard work in high school or college wherever you go (not that I did at all in either, but I'm a bad example) or suggests you can't get ahead or make a lot of money going elsewhere. I'm just saying that some well known schools have established an aristocracy of sorts and doors open for their grads, rankings aside.
2
You shouldn't gloss over graduation rate. At Maryland-College Park, UMich, UVA, and your alma mater UNC, 90% of students complete their bachelors, most within four years. But at Maryland-Baltimore County only 68% finish, with the majority of them taking five or six years. According to UMBC, cost of attendance for each additional year of study is over $26,000.
Further, you trump up the STEM offerings but according to AAMC only 3.8%* of Maryland-Baltimore County students will apply to US medical schools. At the flagship campus in College Park, nearly 10%* of students apply to US medical schools.
*https://www.aamc.org/download/321446/data/factstablea2-1.pdf
Further, you trump up the STEM offerings but according to AAMC only 3.8%* of Maryland-Baltimore County students will apply to US medical schools. At the flagship campus in College Park, nearly 10%* of students apply to US medical schools.
*https://www.aamc.org/download/321446/data/factstablea2-1.pdf
3
Ignoring UMBC's 35% 4 yr grad rate (http://collegeresults.org/search1b.aspx?institutionid=163268) to bash a popular ranking site misses the point. These schools are underfunded and core classes needed for majors are "impacted", or over-enrolled, so students take 6 year to graduate. Many dont: UMBC's 6 yr grad rate is 40% for Latino men. Bragging about the chess club while ignoring that freshmen can't enroll in core classes is practicing the same misinformation Bruni complains about. If I can't trust the NYT to give me real college data, how can Bruni expect me not to read US News?
1
What exactly are we really ranking in these universities? I've never understood how small 2000-10,000 enrollment) liberal arts colleges can even be evaluated against major state research universities. The top LACs are excellent at what they do, but how can they match up with universities that have undergraduate and graduate programs in engineering, architecture, business, natural sciences, geosciences, public affairs, computer sciences, communications, international relations, etc. (and, of course, liberal arts)?
These are two separate educational realms, frankly, as the breadth and depth of educational offerings are massively different. Yet, they are ranked side-by-side as if their offerings are interchangable. Can William and Mary really be evaluated against U Michigan that is fair to either school?
These are two separate educational realms, frankly, as the breadth and depth of educational offerings are massively different. Yet, they are ranked side-by-side as if their offerings are interchangable. Can William and Mary really be evaluated against U Michigan that is fair to either school?
1
Well, are you planning in majoring in engineering, architecture, business, natural sciences, geosciences, public affairs, computer sciences, communications and international relations? Otherwise, all you need is a college you love that is a good fit, with several majors that you find of interest.
And what do smaller colleges offer? Attention. Professors who love teaching. And any college with 10,000 students isn't small by any stretch of the imagination.
And what do smaller colleges offer? Attention. Professors who love teaching. And any college with 10,000 students isn't small by any stretch of the imagination.
2
I am not defending the U.S. News & World Report rankings, which I think have had a net negative effect on higher education in this country. However, to be fair, US news and world report does feature rankings by category.
3
What you do matters for undergraduates, but for certain professions, such as law, the school name matters more than anything else. Making the top 10% at Fordham is needed for a top job in law, making the top 50% at NYU would be needed.
But even for undergraduates, some employers continue to only recruit from top schools because it is a safer bet that they will get a high performer, rather than have to sift through resumes at less selective institutions.
If you want to be a social worker or a civil engineer, you can go anywhere and perform well. If you want to work at google as an engineer or be a partner at an NLJ 250 law firm, you need to go to a top school and perform well.
So no, college rankings are not a joke for those who are ambitious.
But even for undergraduates, some employers continue to only recruit from top schools because it is a safer bet that they will get a high performer, rather than have to sift through resumes at less selective institutions.
If you want to be a social worker or a civil engineer, you can go anywhere and perform well. If you want to work at google as an engineer or be a partner at an NLJ 250 law firm, you need to go to a top school and perform well.
So no, college rankings are not a joke for those who are ambitious.
5
From Fordham Law or other "local/regional" New York law schools, such as Brooklyn law or New York Law School), it's not the "top 10%" who have a shot (if you are talking about offers from top-tier law firms). You would need to be one of the top two or maybe three students in your class and have outstanding – – read cultured and polished – – interpersonal skills to have a decent chance of receiving such an offer.
And the "top 50%" at NYU, a top-five "national" law school? That's also an overly generous estimate in today's hypercompetitive legal employment market. Top 30% plus Law Review is more like it in 2016.
Those are the harsh realities in the legal employment world. It's simply efficient to let prior filtration systems do a lot of the vetting for you even if such an approach seems unfair in some individual cases.
And the "top 50%" at NYU, a top-five "national" law school? That's also an overly generous estimate in today's hypercompetitive legal employment market. Top 30% plus Law Review is more like it in 2016.
Those are the harsh realities in the legal employment world. It's simply efficient to let prior filtration systems do a lot of the vetting for you even if such an approach seems unfair in some individual cases.
3
Google co-founder Sergei Brin is a graduate of University of Maryland. The other co-founder Larry Page went to University of Michigan for undergrad. Co-founder of Microsoft Paul Allen went to Washington State. Co-founder of Twitter Biz Stone went to Northeastern, co-founder Jack Dorsey went to Missouri University of Technology. The biggest feeder schools to Apple are San Jose State and Cal Poly SLO. Tech is the most level playing field. As long as you can code, no one cares where you went to school.
5
One of my first jobs out of college was clerk in the admissions office of a prestigious law school. I was continually impressed by the enhanced attention given graduates from so-called lesser institutions, even more so for the reason that interviewers themselves had graduated from name schools. This was far from an indication of the cherry or plum-picked candidate gaining "affirmative" or preferred human interest. The fact of the matter was that whoever avails himself best of the resources available merits most attention, and that achievement is second to none.
2
I retired as a UMBC professor a few years ago. It is indeed a special place, as Mr. Bruni indicated. Full-time faculty actually care about teaching and mentoring, something that does not always occur at our more famous universities. The diversity of the student body is stunning. The campus on any given day resembles the UN General Assembly. That is an education in itself. Unfortunately, the old boy (and girl) network of the Ivies continues to exert its snobbish influence. Paul Fussel claimed that the American version of aristocracy is not money or land, but graduation from a prestigious college. US News does its best to promote this idea.
5
The campuses of most public American universities resemble a UN general assembly on any given day. The whitest, least diverse campuses in America are the expensive, private small liberal arts colleges like Denison, Colby, Whitman etc. which also pump out the highest number of the most liberal left wing nuts in this country. Coincidence?
The rankings count. The rankings count. The dominant paradigm dominates.
Those not enjoying the benefits of these conditions have much to learn to exit alternative conditions. The beneficiaries of the status quo have no short run incentive to help those less fortunate or ensconced.
I recall not one time when a famous Clinton or Obama counseled the less fortunate that they have a rigged system to overcome and how they might overcome.
Instead they excelled at mastery of status quo values and have little common appeal as over achievers. There is a persistent separation between bootstraps and a fresh pair of lifts from ones better ranked mens stores.
Small wonder an angry alternative resonates with so many. Tough luck sucker is a policy, too.
Those not enjoying the benefits of these conditions have much to learn to exit alternative conditions. The beneficiaries of the status quo have no short run incentive to help those less fortunate or ensconced.
I recall not one time when a famous Clinton or Obama counseled the less fortunate that they have a rigged system to overcome and how they might overcome.
Instead they excelled at mastery of status quo values and have little common appeal as over achievers. There is a persistent separation between bootstraps and a fresh pair of lifts from ones better ranked mens stores.
Small wonder an angry alternative resonates with so many. Tough luck sucker is a policy, too.
2
Frank, two things. First, statistics and even actual numbers are too narrow an approach when identifying "under-representation". Since we now have an all volunteer military, this skews the characteristics of the military population v. the general population. I suspect that the military group, on average, is less inclined toward or qualified for college, based simply upon my military experience. I doubt that anyone in my company had ever read a book. A grunt, is a grunt, is a grunt.
Second, as to college rankings, in my undergraduate days I had a dramatic experience when I transferred from U.C.L.A. to the New School here in New York. There were only eight students in a class, no lectures but rather guidance in discovering your interests, passions, strengths and weaknesses. No textbooks; as juniors it was felt that we had had enough input and now was the time for output. We read our reports in class and were cSchoolritiqued by our peers and we were constantly writing, writing, writing. The curriculum was highly flexible and could, within limits, be tailored to a student's needs or interests. I could go on and on in this comparison of a "prestigious" U.C.L.A. with my tiny, but highly selective, New School. And tuition was only $800 per year (this was 1968). I like to say that we looked down our noses at Harvard. At Harvard they show you how to be successful and at the New School they show you how to be fulfilled.
Second, as to college rankings, in my undergraduate days I had a dramatic experience when I transferred from U.C.L.A. to the New School here in New York. There were only eight students in a class, no lectures but rather guidance in discovering your interests, passions, strengths and weaknesses. No textbooks; as juniors it was felt that we had had enough input and now was the time for output. We read our reports in class and were cSchoolritiqued by our peers and we were constantly writing, writing, writing. The curriculum was highly flexible and could, within limits, be tailored to a student's needs or interests. I could go on and on in this comparison of a "prestigious" U.C.L.A. with my tiny, but highly selective, New School. And tuition was only $800 per year (this was 1968). I like to say that we looked down our noses at Harvard. At Harvard they show you how to be successful and at the New School they show you how to be fulfilled.
4
I have to take exception with your comment that "a grunt is a grunt is a grunt". I too was a "grunt" (Marine Corps Infantry) and I recall that on deployments and at sea chess, whist and reading were very popular past times when off duty. In fact the library at Camp Pendleton was well stocked and patronized by the common "grunt"!
1
I never write comments on any social media, but this article really resonated with me.
I left the Army in 1977 and after a lot of work I was admitted to the University o California. I graduated as a chemical engineer and then went on to law school and was admitted to the California Bar. I think I was the only veteran on campus. felt I was alone. The point of my comments is that it is a very hard transition to go from military life to academic life. While the discipline may be there the intimidation of dealing with others who are already a step ahead based on their AP classes and other advantages is real.
Regardless of rankings colleges and business would be well served by helping veterans make the transition to civilian life. They have the discipline and fortitude to succeed -- but some just need help pushing them in the right direction and help when they stumble.
Helping with those challenges is an investment in people who have already served you that we will benefit from.
Bill
I left the Army in 1977 and after a lot of work I was admitted to the University o California. I graduated as a chemical engineer and then went on to law school and was admitted to the California Bar. I think I was the only veteran on campus. felt I was alone. The point of my comments is that it is a very hard transition to go from military life to academic life. While the discipline may be there the intimidation of dealing with others who are already a step ahead based on their AP classes and other advantages is real.
Regardless of rankings colleges and business would be well served by helping veterans make the transition to civilian life. They have the discipline and fortitude to succeed -- but some just need help pushing them in the right direction and help when they stumble.
Helping with those challenges is an investment in people who have already served you that we will benefit from.
Bill
4
I graduated in the 60's from the University of California at Berkeley, then a top rated university. I knew my professors were excellent. As a memento I even once took the chance to steal an ashtray from a Nobel Prize winner ... good grief. But what in retrospect what I most value was the chance to meet others from all over the globe, from India and France, from Nebraska and South Africa. As a student from a bland white suburb of Los Angeles, my world exploded open. I began to understand that everyone else was not just like me. For that I am deeply grateful.
2
"then"?
2
I appreciate this column so much. What should be front and center is publicizing the characteristics and strengths of schools so that students can look at criteria that fit their passions, learning styles and provide opportunities for new explorations. I went to a small college, Earldom College, in Indiana years ago. At that time people responded with a "Huh?" when I told them where I went--a tiny Quaker inspired college that has a policy of everyone being on a first name basis (no titles used in day to day dialogue or interactions) and a huge emphasis on a student being aware that s/he is part of a learning community. That community emphasis made all the difference for me in understanding others, being open to different opinions and realizing that intellectual growth is also social, political and humanitarian. Many schools have distinguishing characteristics that are not reflected in these competitive comparison reports and do a disservice to students, who need to understand that there is no one "right" school but rather a choice. Community colleges, four year public institutions, private small schools, part time options....all have their value and have different offerings.Students should feel good about the research they do to find a "good fit" rather than be made to feel good if their college choice feels like a new badge to put on a resume.
3
Now read this same op/ed inserting the word hospital for school and care for education. Similar issues. I have nothing against ratings and rankings (or U.S. News specifically) and I can easily argue that these systems of measurement provide value, but they also distort marketplace reality for consumers and often overlook high quality alternatives.
3
Have you examined the resumes of the people in power in this country? It is rare that someone does not have an Ivy/Stanford degree. And you wonder why parents obsess over the rankings? I cannot help thinking of all the equally talented graduates of public universities who are being passed over. The elites justify this as the natural expression of a meritocracy. Now, someone tell us -- are the Ivy schools providing a superior education or are they not? Given the state of this country, I suspect the answer, whatever the degree of their superiority, it is not sufficient to matter.
9
It's not so much the quality of education you get once you're there. It's more the filter that is applied before you get there; the other ultra-competent, super-motivated students you compete with (and learn from) once you are there; the relationships you maintain with those peers after you leave; and the boost you get forevermore, in every situation, as a result of your association with an institution that is widely esteemed.
6
Ranking -- choose you basis.
Primary: Quality of faculty -- teaching faculty and integration of research faculty into the curriculum. Availability of tutor for academics and counselors for adjustment to college life. Activities outside of academics -- teams, clubs, etc. Open environment for discussion. You are going to university to learn, not be coddled.
Now look at how alums view their experience and education -- and this is not necessarily tied to donations. Are graduates generally successful. And yes, is there a strong alumni network.
Finally come the socio/political aspects of diversity in all its forms. If that has strong meaning to the applicant then it ranks high. If simply a welcoming non discriminatory experience is desired then the academics take precedence.
Financial aid and affordability are determinants, not a ranking. But there is the "bang for the buck" analysis that needs be done.
So yes, there are some universities that will always be universally well regarded but this does not preclude the fact that there are many other schools offering a stellar experience.
Primary: Quality of faculty -- teaching faculty and integration of research faculty into the curriculum. Availability of tutor for academics and counselors for adjustment to college life. Activities outside of academics -- teams, clubs, etc. Open environment for discussion. You are going to university to learn, not be coddled.
Now look at how alums view their experience and education -- and this is not necessarily tied to donations. Are graduates generally successful. And yes, is there a strong alumni network.
Finally come the socio/political aspects of diversity in all its forms. If that has strong meaning to the applicant then it ranks high. If simply a welcoming non discriminatory experience is desired then the academics take precedence.
Financial aid and affordability are determinants, not a ranking. But there is the "bang for the buck" analysis that needs be done.
So yes, there are some universities that will always be universally well regarded but this does not preclude the fact that there are many other schools offering a stellar experience.
2
The US News & World report rankings are based on factors that have nothing to do with undergraduate teaching: size of endowment, number of Nobel prize winners, graduation rates, reputation. My undergraduate years were spent at an unknown at the time small college where I sought out the best professors, received an excellent education, graduated Phi Beta Kappa and won a fellowship to graduate school at Stanford. All for $600 a semester.
4
How do you think people should choose a school? I don't know what the US News methodology uses but there are a few obvious KPIs and some more qualitative preferences. Things like:
1) tuition and cost of living.
2) student to teacher ratio.
3) percentage of tenured faculty/tenure-track versus adjunct.
4) faculty background and research areas in your selected field.
5) percentage of school funding to that department.
6) success rates by department
7) average student financial assistance by department.
8) break out of administrative versus non-administrative spending.
9) student demographics.
10) school offers to student acceptance ratio.
11) student participation/involvement by activity.
12) proximity to family, friends, loved ones.
13) break out of support services and their funding.
14) finally, there's something about the look-and-feel of a student body and campus that either works or it doesn't.
Unfortunately, campuses won't provide you all this information. There is indeed a massive marketing effort involved. The school is branding and they want to sell you on it. Highlight the good. Suppress the bad. Differentiate yourself from the competition. How can you expect a 17 year old, a recently returned veteran, or even a whole family to adequately navigate this nonsense in a brief application window? Absurd though it may be, the ranking is easy to understand and much less effort. Hence, the popularity.
1) tuition and cost of living.
2) student to teacher ratio.
3) percentage of tenured faculty/tenure-track versus adjunct.
4) faculty background and research areas in your selected field.
5) percentage of school funding to that department.
6) success rates by department
7) average student financial assistance by department.
8) break out of administrative versus non-administrative spending.
9) student demographics.
10) school offers to student acceptance ratio.
11) student participation/involvement by activity.
12) proximity to family, friends, loved ones.
13) break out of support services and their funding.
14) finally, there's something about the look-and-feel of a student body and campus that either works or it doesn't.
Unfortunately, campuses won't provide you all this information. There is indeed a massive marketing effort involved. The school is branding and they want to sell you on it. Highlight the good. Suppress the bad. Differentiate yourself from the competition. How can you expect a 17 year old, a recently returned veteran, or even a whole family to adequately navigate this nonsense in a brief application window? Absurd though it may be, the ranking is easy to understand and much less effort. Hence, the popularity.
2
I attended a large Midwestern university (and now teach at a large Western university). While an undergrad said large Midwestern university, I worked in the public relations office and was given all of the "student surveys" for these public rankings systems to fill out as were all of the student employees of the PR office. Student life, happiness, compatibility, satisfaction, partying, all of that was done by about 5 students and the same 5 students every year for all of the surveys. And I will say that we were not a wide selection of the student body at all, nerdy, quiet, and all from art or communication majors. So if Bruni wants to point out that there is quantifiable bias in these rankings, there certainly is in more way than one.
5
College rankings claim to measure excellence across the whole institution. But most students major in a single subject, which means they take many or most of their courses in one department. So what matters most is the teaching in that department, and almost as significantly, the quality of the other students with the same major. The strengths and shortcomings of the other twenty or thirty academic divisions are of secondary importance.
3
Using (or critiquing) one method of rating colleges implies there is only one type of college student. But can we possibly use the same criteria to make recommendations to a student who has already found an academic and career focus and one who has no clue, to a student from a financially secure family who can afford to indulge some curiosity for at least part of their degree program and a student who is self-funding and driven by a financial return on their college investment, or to students with their infinitely variable life experiences and personal baggage that can both enrich and challenge their college success?
What we really need is a way of parsing the data, some of which USNWR may have compiled, that takes into account the individual character and needs of each potential student.
What we really need is a way of parsing the data, some of which USNWR may have compiled, that takes into account the individual character and needs of each potential student.
1
What about the school with the #1 refund rate in the nation, Trump University ?
Court documents show that nearly 40% of the students who signed up received a refund.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/elections-2016-donald-trump-university-lawsu...
Certainly Trump University deserves an honorable mention among higher education jokesters, fraudsters and the Art of The University Con.
Court documents show that nearly 40% of the students who signed up received a refund.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/elections-2016-donald-trump-university-lawsu...
Certainly Trump University deserves an honorable mention among higher education jokesters, fraudsters and the Art of The University Con.
49
But didn't the students learn the Trump con from the best of them - through actual experience? They certainly learned the Trump secret sauce first hand and are now trained to be little Trumps. They got their money's worth!
Trump University should rank #1 for learning how to con.
Trump University should rank #1 for learning how to con.
2
Our college presidents over the years have always used these rankings for our school in their speeches, which makes me cringe. One other thing. I wish the media would quit referring to people of different ancestries as "races." There is only one race, the human race. Let's quit perpetuating a racial category by skin color....
3
I almost did not read this op-ed because of the headline, which did not address the real purpose of it. This is so important. I too know of many successes from programs like UMBC and community colleges are also places, too, where veterans are finding a home and place for their higher education. We can all do more and better. Prestige has multiple meanings, including a movie where magicians play tricks on their marks. Perhaps the elite institutions are doing the same?
2
Education is mind-training for life, not job-training. Modern, ie, Progressive, education is a principled, systematic attack on the mind. Students are taught, in the humanities, to intuit, ie, feel, and then to find coincidences (statistics) to rationalize their feelings. The Enlightenment has been destroyed by modernism/nihilism. Man must learn how to systematically focus his mind on causal, objective, concrete reality.
2
Most colleges and universities can give a decent education to most students. But employers and graduate schools naturally look for ways to pre-screen their applicants and one way this is done is by acceptance rate of the graduating institution - on average the school that has a high volume of applicants and a low acceptance rate will have better quality - better prepared, more intelligent - students right on admission. So while acceptance rate is not necessarily closely related to the quality of the education conferred by an institution, it may nevertheless be important to employers, and therefore important to those applying. So if you apply to a low-ranking college to save trouble and maybe money, you may be putting yourself at a disadvantage.
2
What is really important is how serious a student is about his University/College experience. Students who do well work hard at their studies; those who are experiencing problems should seek the help that they need to solve the academic and social problems they are having; they should not hesitate to do this.
1
I'm in agreement that state universities can offer a great education for a great price and are large enough to have enough alumni for networking. But unfortunately many flagship campuses are geographically undesirable whether to equalize distance for all residents and/or land is less expensive. So unlike Maryland's Baltimore and College Park schools, there are few opportunities for good internships available during the school year. Binghamton is a good example - top notch school (my spouse and many neighbors are alums) but it is not practical for someone who wants what cities like New York, Boston and Washington, D.C. have to offer.
Mr. Bruno, at least half of the criteria used in that system of ranking involve measures of wealth, and nothing to do with education. How large are their endowments, what percentage of their alumni are 'engaged' with their alma mater (read give them money), how much do their alumni make. They have no more relationship to the common good, the education of the young people in this country, that any other measure of the perpetuation of the caste of the ultra rich. While all of the Ivy League schools combined educate only a relatively small number of undergraduates, selective state university systems such as, but hardly limited to, those in NY, MA or CA educate many hundreds of thousands. Yes, the Ivys do it well...they should, given their costs....but it is no more relevant to the educational health of this nation than wringing one's hands in envy over where the ultra-wealthy go for vacations. Ranking systems are self-serving and very biased, and should be rendered meaningless. That they are still a matter of concern is simply sad, and useless.
4
How about less time vilifying prestigious highly ranked colleges and more time vilifying all the drop out factory scam schools that exist largely to exploit desperate people and separate them from tens of thousands on Pell Grant and loans? Wayne State in Detroit 32% grad rate, Chicago State 14% grad rate, most community colleges only have 10% graduation rates. The truth is most of the "students" attending de facto open admissions public colleges are churning low-level courses to live off the financial aid because there aren't any jobs. It's incredibly exploitative to allow most of these people to ever enroll as it's obvious they're never going to be capable of completing a degree.
8
Wayne State is a rather serious research university, with a impactful schools of medicine, law, pharmacy, engineering, etc..
Chicago State and Northeastern Illinois, on the other hand..
And many community college students aren't enrolled in degree programs, just learning new skills. They're enrollment shouldn't be reported in graduation rates.
Chicago State and Northeastern Illinois, on the other hand..
And many community college students aren't enrolled in degree programs, just learning new skills. They're enrollment shouldn't be reported in graduation rates.
4
I send my children to State Universities. I graduated from one. My wife graduated from one. We both have done extremely well. We also graduated debt free. My children will both do well and graduate debt free. Rankings are like buying a car. You buy a highly rated expensive car, drive it off the lot and it becomes a used car with lots of debt. It's just not worth it.
8
My son was recruited by the CFO of the Fortune 500 company he worked for while a student at a well respected, major public university. The CFO was taken that he was working full time and going to school carrying a full load at that particular university, know for being very selective.
My son ultimately ended up at the company's headquarters working in finance and now is a medium-high executive.
I've often wondered if the CFO would have given him a second look had he been a student at some less well-known school, all other things being equal.
My son ultimately ended up at the company's headquarters working in finance and now is a medium-high executive.
I've often wondered if the CFO would have given him a second look had he been a student at some less well-known school, all other things being equal.
5
We all should take it easy in reading the ranking of universities. It gave us a sense of relative quality of college education, not absolute. It should be considered as safety rating of cars and appliances we love to read and want before we go out buying. Do we want such rating? Yes, absolutely! If a car company claims its car is the safest, we want to know it is rated by a reputable rating company. If a university claims its the best, we - parents and students want to know why it says so before we pay and send our kids there!
The listing is ego driven (and marketing driven as you suggest) - not a measure of how "Great" a school is. And it is not only incoming students who intelligently (or not) follow their egocentric drive. Employers fall for the list too - excluding highly competent graduates from so called "lesser" schools down the ranks.
1
It would be ideal to view a ranking systems that looks at personal satisfaction and ability to provide service to society. Vague as these sound, these may be more useful criteria than those used by present publications.
Here in Denver, the best teaching program is through Metro State University. The University itself is not terribly competitive and is not expensive; but in Denver Public Schools, I have found that the best prepared teachers came from Metro. I have worked with a few people from Columbia, Princeton, and Pepperdine: one quit week one because she couldn't handle it, one had zero social skills to deal with students or colleagues, and one routinely vomited before meeting new students. I didn't attend any of these places but based on my personal experience, I'd hire a Metro grad over the fancier college grad any day. Now as for what teachers actually earn, and whether that's a good indicator of real success is a different story.
4
Colleges are like people - actually each individual is far less diverse than any one school since the latter comprises thousands - and we know (or should) that you can't rank people in order from first to last.
1
I thought this article was going to tee up and clobber the US New and World Report college rankings -- which truly are a joke. Instead, it turns out to be a puff piece for UMBC.
4
Look at Reed College in Portland, OR. Reed refuses to het involved in the college rankings game. They have 50 Fulbright Scholars, 60 Watson Fellows, 2 MacArther Fellows and 31 Rhodes Scholars. This is the second highest number of any liberal arts college. But it ranks far down the list. Is Reed for everyone? No. But it is hard to argue with the quality of education.
7
It's always the man behind the machine!
3
The hype about college rankings is a great way to distract everyone from the fact that most college degrees today aren't worth the paper they are printed on.
4
College-bound students in this country generally know the real thing from the snake oil.
UMBC like most flagship state universities _can_ offer the focused and highly-motivated student an excellent education, but this is already understood. The value of college ratings is their signal regarding the education available to the median student, not the outlier achiever.
It may well be true that African-American students will do better, on average, at UMBC than they would at an Ivy. But there is no question that the average Columbia or Princeton or U Chicago student will get a better education than the average UMBC student: the courses are more challenging and cover more material on average, the class discussions will be deeper, and there is far better access to accomplished, well-connected and thus insightful alumni whi can help the student navigate US society's upper reaches after graduation.
Please do not dumb down the ranking system. Colleges and the students they attract vary greatly. Students and parents need rankings.
UMBC like most flagship state universities _can_ offer the focused and highly-motivated student an excellent education, but this is already understood. The value of college ratings is their signal regarding the education available to the median student, not the outlier achiever.
It may well be true that African-American students will do better, on average, at UMBC than they would at an Ivy. But there is no question that the average Columbia or Princeton or U Chicago student will get a better education than the average UMBC student: the courses are more challenging and cover more material on average, the class discussions will be deeper, and there is far better access to accomplished, well-connected and thus insightful alumni whi can help the student navigate US society's upper reaches after graduation.
Please do not dumb down the ranking system. Colleges and the students they attract vary greatly. Students and parents need rankings.
2
What do you do if your kid actually gets into Harvard or MIT? After all, from kindergarten forward, you've told them to work as hard as they can for academic success.
Most parents won't have that problem. However, if it happens to you do you tell your kid, "never mind, the community college is all we can afford."?
The truth is that the particular school does matter. Look at any bio of any CEO. Their school is always mentioned first. Quite a few were from the Ivys. I know it's unfair but that's how the system works.
Most parents won't have that problem. However, if it happens to you do you tell your kid, "never mind, the community college is all we can afford."?
The truth is that the particular school does matter. Look at any bio of any CEO. Their school is always mentioned first. Quite a few were from the Ivys. I know it's unfair but that's how the system works.
7
Obama's College Scorecard (www.collegescorecard.edu.gov) is much better than US News and World Report's. You just have to appreciate that the average salary after graduation is strongly influenced by the college's location.
Go to College Scorecard first and then to USN&WR.
Go to College Scorecard first and then to USN&WR.
3
My daughter attends a small college that has been ranked #1 for the past 17 years in one of the subsets - best undergraduate engineering education where Masters is the highest degree granted. This ranking has been determined by other engineering schools deans and faculty. The school appeals to a certain type of student; it's not for everyone as it's small, located in the Midwest and is known as a study school with limited partying. For people who know engineering, they know this school and the incredible education these kids get. The graduation rates and placement rates are mind-boggling, as are the statistics on ROI, career income and contributions in science and engineering. I am proud that my daughter found this school as it is a great fit for her. All the rankings did was urge us to take a look -- after that all of the other dimensions of the school had to match up. Yeah for Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology!
7
Criticizing the most selective colleges as "fostering a myth" is disingenuous considering the source. Why do we read the NYT? Is it not because someone , somewhere has ranked it as a top newspaper? Simply put, I have been involved in private education, public education and private industry for over 50 years. There are two important decisions a young person will make in their lives: 1) whom they marry 2) where they get their undergraduate degree. One of these choices will stay with them for the rest of their lives, the other only hopefully so.
3
After high school I attended Wellesley and graduated from Grinnell. Then I earned a Master's degree from Harvard. I felt I had had a terrific education. But much later in life I took up music composition. I lived in Idaho Falls which is no where near an elite school like Harvard. But my violinist friend suggested there might be someone to help me in Pocatello at Idaho State University. Sure enough, I began taking private composition lessons from a fine composer at ISU. Thom Ritter George was such a great teacher that I went for a lesson every Tuesday for 7 years until he retired. I don't know where ISU ranks in the US News and World Report ratings. I'm sure it's no where near the top, yet my experience there was life changing.
1
Rankings sell. Disputing rankings sell. There is nothing new here. The student that is a super star at a less prestigious school is going to have to scratch and claw to be afforded the same opportunities that a graduate from an elite college will be afforded.
4
Ironic that Mr. Bruni rejects the make-believe assessment characteristics of US News but wants to replace them with the equally silly characteristics centered on race, ethnicity, gender, household income, or veteran-status.
The politics of identity should be bankrupt in the real world and the education world as well. Go to the school that works for you.
The politics of identity should be bankrupt in the real world and the education world as well. Go to the school that works for you.
2
As someone who works in the marketing and communications department of a big university, I can tell you that one of the ways the university in which I work tries to improve its standing in the rankings is for the Public Relations department to get its name mentioned as many times as possible in the media. This brings the university to the attention of the folks who do the ranking and, apparently, influences their decision to move the university up or down in status. I have always thought that this was the height of hypocrisy; it doesn't matter what the quality of education is. The rankings are based on hype.
Isn't it ridiculous?
Isn't it ridiculous?
3
Membership in the Association of American Universities is a better indicator of academic quality than are USNWR rankings for major universities. USNWR ranks undergraduate experience unless otherwise specified. Ironically, they also publish the Times Literary Supplement rankings of would universities, which frequently contradict theirs.
Marquette University in Milwaukee, my alma mater, should have ranked higher than 86. After all, that's where Gail Collins graduated!
1
Thank you Frank Bruni, for continuing to shine a light on these issues.
2
The rankings thing is a joke, and yes the 'elite schools' play the game, they are Claude Rains saying "I am shocked there is gambling" then being given their earnings. After all, when you are declared 'elite' you have swarms of kids who want to go there, who spend their whole lives to go there, and you can pick and choose among them, and then sit back all proud how you have 'the best and brightest' (doubtful, lot of Ivy league and elite school graduates are great at gaming the system, but don't do much with their lives after school). It feeds unto the paranoia these days that to get a good job if you don't get into a 'elite' school your future is doomed. Some of it is cultural, many of those going the elite college route are Asian, coming from places where your whole future is decided upon what school you go to (I am keeping my finger crossed, along with the Asian education system being predicated on standardized tests, we don't go that route, the diversity of our college system is one of our strengths), but part of it is feeding into scare tactics, as if there are only a handful of colleges that really can have you live 'the good life'. There is a joke with a lot of seeds of truth that the Ivy league graduate often ends up working for the person who went to State College, did okay, but moved up the ranks because they had things like soft skills the elite college kids had no time to develop, there have been articles about this recently.
2
I agree with the statement that US News college rankings are a marketing ploy, however, I think that you need to get over not having attended an "elite" institution. We get it, you can get an excellent education at other schools. You fail to mention though that elite institutions provide connections and name recognition that other schools do not. I went to the University of Chicago, my husband Cornell, and we observe that our children who went to Yale and Stanford have had a much easier time getting into an elite medical school and getting job at a premier company. I know that you did well with the combination of talent and luck, however, do not deny that there is a cache to having top schools on your resume.
5
The US News rankings are a major factor in the rise in tuition over the last generation. This is because virtually every metric in the ranking system can be improved by spending more money. Want to improve your academic reputation? Throw big bucks at some famous professors (who are too busy to teach) to move to your school. Want to see an increase in freshman GPA and SAT scores? Increase scholarships for the kids at the top and jack up the tuition for everyone else to pay the bills. No university president can refuse to play the game for long because their job depends on the rankings. Meanwhile, the poor and middle class are squeezed out of higher education, to the detriment of the entire nation. And all to sell a lousy magazine.
3
I went to college a long time ago, and it was free (CCNY). I truly am grateful for the opportunity. My college always bragged about the famous alumni and how so many graduates went on to earn doctorates. Nevertheless, having continued my education with a couple of doctorates, I see how certain schools have so much more to offer. If you need a formal education (most of us do), you are going to benefit from your surroundings, your colleagues, and your mentors. Certainly better to be in a place where the people are doing the front-line research, not where they are just reading about it. The prestige universities are where most of the original thinking is taking place.
3
Thank you Mr. Bruni! I'm a professor, have been at multiple institutions, and it's always depressed me to see the influence of these rankings on decisions of substance. Schools aim resources at improving rankings, for this one for-profit magazine.
8
I wonder what UMBC's ranking is.
1
Look, the premise of college rankings is meant as guidance for families of applicants. Bruni's mistake in criticizing US News and World Report is that he focuses on ideology rather than the goal of many families - to send their kids to a school where they can get an education and ultimately a well-paying job.
Instead, Bruni focuses on schools where you are “part of something more than just your individual attainment.” (How dare students try to attain something for themselves !) He praises UMBC for its "unrivaled record for guiding African-American undergraduates toward doctorates". He lauds Prof Suri because he is "openly gay". (Of course, this is unrelated to the fact that Bruni is gay.)
All of this focus on helping the "oppressed" is noble - but again, it does not address the main goal for many families. College is a very expensive proposition but in many ways is increasingly the ticket to a decent life in America. Shouldn't that be the focus ?
There are certainly valid criticisms of US News and World Report. It may surprise some to learn that the textbook used for entry level Economics is the same at Harvard as at a well known state school. What US News promotes is "information advantage". Employers hire from top schools because they know that the schools have already done much of the screening for them. Whether this is fair is debatable. But the idea that Harvard enjoys this informational advantage just because of US News is laughable.
Instead, Bruni focuses on schools where you are “part of something more than just your individual attainment.” (How dare students try to attain something for themselves !) He praises UMBC for its "unrivaled record for guiding African-American undergraduates toward doctorates". He lauds Prof Suri because he is "openly gay". (Of course, this is unrelated to the fact that Bruni is gay.)
All of this focus on helping the "oppressed" is noble - but again, it does not address the main goal for many families. College is a very expensive proposition but in many ways is increasingly the ticket to a decent life in America. Shouldn't that be the focus ?
There are certainly valid criticisms of US News and World Report. It may surprise some to learn that the textbook used for entry level Economics is the same at Harvard as at a well known state school. What US News promotes is "information advantage". Employers hire from top schools because they know that the schools have already done much of the screening for them. Whether this is fair is debatable. But the idea that Harvard enjoys this informational advantage just because of US News is laughable.
5
When an alumnus of U of M Baltimore County penetrates the elitist mentality and is appointed to the Supreme Court, a Cabinet position, or presidency of Harvard I'll believe that "rankings," however dubious, don't matter.
79
Well George W. Bush went to Yale/HBS and Trump went to Wharton and its clear that they both have limited thinking capacity. So perhaps the rankings truly don't hold much merit.
3
Sooner or later the research that goes into these rankings will look at the composition and treatment of the faculty who do the teaching, advising, and mentoring of students that make college mean anything at all to anyone. As long as colleges continue the trend toward poorly supported contingent faculty doing the gigantic majority of teaching, none of the rest of the data means anything like the inferences you're being asked to draw from them.
3
My son goes to Georgia State University where the diversity is very real and the rigor of study is top notch. I was so happy to hear him share with me how the cafeterias are sprinkled with colors, shapes, and gender, with very little clumping in those categories. I attended integrated schools that were truly diverse in numbers as a kid in Evanston, Illinois, but there was never real mixing, and my son went to a fully diverse/integrated school in Savannah, GA, but also without real mixing. I know this article is about how the rankings are ridiculous, and that the diversity aspect is only one part of it, but I strongly believe our young adults might learn more from true diversity than they will in all their classes. Perhaps it is time to recognize that there are many fabulous schools that offer even more than education.
1
If you are an intelligent and motivated high school student and don't know the so=called "best" schools to apply to and need to read a magazine for a list, I would be suspicious of your so-called "intelligence."
Marketing universities with the goal of reaching "most rejects" to supposedly gain a "quality education" is a move worthy of a trump--carnival barker. "Come and get it--a great edumacation, rat here, rat now!"
Such foolishness. As a university professor, I see many types of students come through the door. Some of the ones from "elite" homes expect an "A" based on their parents' bank account. I try to help them with that since, like trump, I am tired of an America that actually works on brains. We clearly need more braggarts and "look at me, look at me" people here.
Money is the only real arbiter of quality, friends, and with only 38 BILLION in the bank, Harvard is clearly our "best" educational institution. Poor Princeton and Stanford with only 24 and 22 billion respectively. How will they ever survive by charging students 50 or 60 grand a year to attend? Quick, donate some cash to one of these poor schools or their "academic magazine ratings" may decline.
Good grief.
Marketing universities with the goal of reaching "most rejects" to supposedly gain a "quality education" is a move worthy of a trump--carnival barker. "Come and get it--a great edumacation, rat here, rat now!"
Such foolishness. As a university professor, I see many types of students come through the door. Some of the ones from "elite" homes expect an "A" based on their parents' bank account. I try to help them with that since, like trump, I am tired of an America that actually works on brains. We clearly need more braggarts and "look at me, look at me" people here.
Money is the only real arbiter of quality, friends, and with only 38 BILLION in the bank, Harvard is clearly our "best" educational institution. Poor Princeton and Stanford with only 24 and 22 billion respectively. How will they ever survive by charging students 50 or 60 grand a year to attend? Quick, donate some cash to one of these poor schools or their "academic magazine ratings" may decline.
Good grief.
2
Rankings sell. Disputing rankings sell. There is nothing new here.
Branding begets branding in the Information Age. Diddly squat you can do about it but coach and prime and prod your kids into getting to a name college if they can. Sad but necessary. Its way way easier at the top because the 1% make the world for the 1%. So you just have to hammer your way in there .
Silly me, I thought the article was going to be about college football rankings. Now there's a joke.
College rankings may be almost as important as the actual quality of your education for African Americans. Sadly, significant numbers of people in our nation have doubts about the intellectual abilities of African Americans, so going to a top ranked school can be an important factor in finding a good job. While U.M.B.C may be a fine school , and Harvard may be overrated. a Harvard degree my be more useful at least until your are being judged by your actual ability.
4
But if we stop ranking schools, we might end up having to rank students, and then what would schools be for?
Schools often fail to teach, but they never fail to sort. The sorting is always partially bogus, and Bruni should grapple with the fact that this sorting is the very heart of education in America—far beyond one wretched ranking. Sorting and ranking is how you have a meritocracy that hides the fact that America is increasingly stratified with little mobility. The children of the poor stay poor and the rich rarely fall from their perch atop society.
Schools often fail to teach, but they never fail to sort. The sorting is always partially bogus, and Bruni should grapple with the fact that this sorting is the very heart of education in America—far beyond one wretched ranking. Sorting and ranking is how you have a meritocracy that hides the fact that America is increasingly stratified with little mobility. The children of the poor stay poor and the rich rarely fall from their perch atop society.
2
I have a graduate degree from a Big 10 school, after undergrad in the Big 12. One of the students in the program attended Williams College. He remarked, "Wow, I didn't know that state school students were so smart."
2
It's less the school and more the student.
4
The US News and World Report college rankings issue was the desperate ploy of of a failing (failed) newsweekly that was failing long before the the disruptive technologies that totally upended the publishing world came on the scene. Ironically, though, this desperate ploy was the forerunner and is now the mother of that abomination that fuels and funds electronic publishing: click bait.
These rankings are nothing more than click bait -- and they have the value that all click bait shares: dumbing down human beings by making them feel like they are reading actual bona fide useful information instead of junk. Junk that corrupts not only the reader, but also the institutions about which they push their junk.
THAT is the legacy of US NEWS and World Report.
These rankings are nothing more than click bait -- and they have the value that all click bait shares: dumbing down human beings by making them feel like they are reading actual bona fide useful information instead of junk. Junk that corrupts not only the reader, but also the institutions about which they push their junk.
THAT is the legacy of US NEWS and World Report.
3
Thank you for this column. There are so many colleges that are short changed by these ridiculous rankings and so many students who suffer under the delusion that there are only a tiny number of "the best" schools and if they don't get in their lives are ruined. Shame on the parents and "guidance" counselors who perpetuate this nonsense. Granted there are bad schools out there - for-profit schools lead the pack in that category. Help your student find a good fit and toss the nonsense rankings.
1
I usually love Bruni. The title of this piece is a bait and switch article. I, too, don't agree with college rankings, but rather than highlight the faults inherent in the way rankings are determined, Mr. Bruni uses this article to praise one school. Excuse me, sir, there are many colleges who are not highly ranked that deserve mention notwithstanding the wonderful things UMBC does.
3
The main reason it is a joke to rank colleges is because they offer so many majors in useless liberal arts fields and other areas of study that only have openings for a handful of graduates. There is no longer any way to validate the value-proposition and that leaves a pile of student debt and no job upon graduation. Colleges must stop offering those worthless liberal arts programs and raise the standards for entrance to better match supply of graduates with the demand. However, we know this will never happen because the profits take precedent over the students.
1
Clearly you believe there is no purpose to college other than vocational training. That is short-sighted and imposes limits on human achievement.
Human beings are more than a paycheck.
Human beings are more than a paycheck.
3
You go to college to learn, yes, but you also go to college to get a good job, and this is where the rankings matter. Unfortunately, the rankings mean that if you have Yale on your resume (or any other elite school vs. the local community college) you will get an interview, get published, and get promoted to the executive ranks more quickly (see recent NYT article) than if you have the other college on your resume. This does not necessarily mean that this person is smarter from an education received at Yale, it means that Yale has already sifted this person through an elite test that implies that this person must be smarter than others that didn’t get into Yale. We all know this and perpetuate this, including human resources staffers. Having an elite school on your resume opens doors for a lifetime.
Though there are smart students at local community colleges, you are more likely to find well connected classmates at elite schools, who can then help you succeed, through connections from before college, as well as afterwards. Your friends in college are usually your friends for life, so what are the chances that your best man is going to help you when you need it? All the better if he is a top executive who went to Yale too, right? This is why the rankings matter to parents and students. It’s not about the quality of the school, it’s about it’s perceived reputation, how elite the student body is, and how that is perceived in the job market.
Can we change this; suggestions?
Though there are smart students at local community colleges, you are more likely to find well connected classmates at elite schools, who can then help you succeed, through connections from before college, as well as afterwards. Your friends in college are usually your friends for life, so what are the chances that your best man is going to help you when you need it? All the better if he is a top executive who went to Yale too, right? This is why the rankings matter to parents and students. It’s not about the quality of the school, it’s about it’s perceived reputation, how elite the student body is, and how that is perceived in the job market.
Can we change this; suggestions?
144
It really isn't in the interest of many that are well positioned to be able to perpetuate change (Wall Street nepotism via Ivy League ties, academia...). The "new economy" is making some headway. Google makes claims about their hiring policies.
It is worse in Europe.
It is worse in Europe.
We can learn to think outside the box. That is what a truly educated and intelligent person does. Unfortunately, rarely found.
2
I fully agree with Mr. Bruni that university rankings of U.S. News & World Report are misleadingly hot air. But there must be valid criteria for ranking colleges, and these criteria cannot be necessarily lumped into one scale. For example, colleges may be ranked according to the starting salary of their graduates or by the number of future recipients of Nobel Prizes. To each one one's own ...
11
>>>
Are there schools and/or educations far better than the Ivy, most certainly yes.
But that fact and $4.99 will get you a loaf of bread at Whole foods.
When 500 resumes come into a company for a position which ones do you think they immediately toss to the wayside?
In short, you're paying for a name on a diploma. This name will allow you to fake your intelligence for the rest of your life.
“Consider any individual at any period of his life and you will always find him preoccupied with fresh plans to increase his comfort”
Alexis de Tocqueville
Are there schools and/or educations far better than the Ivy, most certainly yes.
But that fact and $4.99 will get you a loaf of bread at Whole foods.
When 500 resumes come into a company for a position which ones do you think they immediately toss to the wayside?
In short, you're paying for a name on a diploma. This name will allow you to fake your intelligence for the rest of your life.
“Consider any individual at any period of his life and you will always find him preoccupied with fresh plans to increase his comfort”
Alexis de Tocqueville
2
So at the University of Lake Wobegon everybody isn't above average?
Veteran status is the most accepted form of stereotypical bias perpetrated by the intellectual elite. It is just fine to be prejudicial toward military people if you are a college professor. Of course, the rankings you write about seldom, if ever, measure a school's ability to produce leaders. Hence we have power brokers from elite schools like Yale and Wharton running for president who could not lead their way out of a bucket on its side.
1
Thank you for highlighting the extraordinary, good work that UMBC has been doing in this area over the last couple of decades. They are likely the best in the country at inspiring URM, first-gen, and less wealthy students not only to succeed in STEM fields, but to be well prepared for graduate and medical schools, with a strong sense of belonging and meaning that drives lifelong career and scientific success. Those of us who teach or have taught at elite schools have modeled many of our programs on the pioneering work of Dr. Hrabowski.
1
Here's some good advise for college or college bound kids:
Go to a good college that is strong in the field you want to study and at which you and your family can afford - work your tail off and come out with a high GPA.
Maybe not at Goldman Sachs (and its ilk) but there will be many opportunities for those who work hard and succeed at many colleges other than Harvard.
Go to a good college that is strong in the field you want to study and at which you and your family can afford - work your tail off and come out with a high GPA.
Maybe not at Goldman Sachs (and its ilk) but there will be many opportunities for those who work hard and succeed at many colleges other than Harvard.
i have a problem lumping colleges and universities into the same category. The former simply do not have the same kind of funding or advanced research facilities that the latter do. Let's break out the oranges and apples.
1
Being brilliant and highly motivated can sometimes get you in the door at the prestige schools. Sometimes, but the odds decline rapidly with your family's financial and social status.
On the other hand, if you are moderately smart and not especially motivated, your best bet is to go back and choose parents from the 1 percent income range. Bill Clinton is an example of the brilliant and motivated, and George W. Bush of the adequate mental ability and socially connected. True, that was years ago, but things have not changed much for the current generation. Actually, not much has changed since F. Scott Fitzgerald went to Princeton.
On the other hand, if you are moderately smart and not especially motivated, your best bet is to go back and choose parents from the 1 percent income range. Bill Clinton is an example of the brilliant and motivated, and George W. Bush of the adequate mental ability and socially connected. True, that was years ago, but things have not changed much for the current generation. Actually, not much has changed since F. Scott Fitzgerald went to Princeton.
3
The ignorance of the public regarding the fatally flawed rankings of US colleges and universities (and this goes beyond US News and World Report) reflects the power of marketing and "brand" in America. Is it any wonder that someone so unqualified as Donald Trump is perceived by so many as an ideal candidate for the most powerful political position in the world? And the irony in this story is cruel: the point of education is to inform judgment through the inculcation of rational analysis....
1
We've only been having this discussion about the silliness of the college rankings for how long? Only since they first began. Everyone knowledgeable about the college admissions process knows they are a joke. But guess what, they comes out every year like clockwork and cause a stir.
Agreed completely. And you didn't even mention the Princeton Review's rankings, which are based off of student surveys--students who, for the most part, have no other comparison because they've only gone to one college.
1
So, Mr. Bruni, have you been able to convince the HR department and hiring managers of the NYT to stop using educational pedigree as a criteria when considering applicants?
4
"Oh yeah, that's a good school." - Affirming an Ivy status.
"[So-n-so] went to [Ivy League School]." - Meant as a compliment.
"Look at what schools the senior class got into." - Meaning, Ivies.
Having not gone to a "good school," I am weary of these comments. It betrays a built in bias. I fail most HR departments' smell test. I may still get a foot in the door if I know somebody, but having not gone to a "good school," it's hard to know the right somebody.
If you go to a lesser school, you have to find some modicum of joy in surprising people with your intelligence. They guy who was rejected by every good school is smart after all. Oh yeah. I have a chip on my shoulder. Ask any lesser school graduate.
I fantasize that some day I'll be asked to join the faculty of Harvard or Princeton or Yale and that I'll turn them down like they have turned me down on numerous occasions. I wonder what I'd really do. I still have loads of student loans since my schools didn't have enormous endowments to help me out. I could use the money. I now work in non-profits but can't get enough hours to qualify for those loan-forgiveness deals. I work multiple jobs. And... truth be told... I'm quite happy. But I really hate the "good schools." These are the schools who produced such luminaries as the Bush Family, Ted Cruz, Bill O'Reilly, Lloyd Blankfein, and Larry Summers. They produce the ruling class. They are power. Amoral power. They are the guardians rigging the world to benefit themselves.
"[So-n-so] went to [Ivy League School]." - Meant as a compliment.
"Look at what schools the senior class got into." - Meaning, Ivies.
Having not gone to a "good school," I am weary of these comments. It betrays a built in bias. I fail most HR departments' smell test. I may still get a foot in the door if I know somebody, but having not gone to a "good school," it's hard to know the right somebody.
If you go to a lesser school, you have to find some modicum of joy in surprising people with your intelligence. They guy who was rejected by every good school is smart after all. Oh yeah. I have a chip on my shoulder. Ask any lesser school graduate.
I fantasize that some day I'll be asked to join the faculty of Harvard or Princeton or Yale and that I'll turn them down like they have turned me down on numerous occasions. I wonder what I'd really do. I still have loads of student loans since my schools didn't have enormous endowments to help me out. I could use the money. I now work in non-profits but can't get enough hours to qualify for those loan-forgiveness deals. I work multiple jobs. And... truth be told... I'm quite happy. But I really hate the "good schools." These are the schools who produced such luminaries as the Bush Family, Ted Cruz, Bill O'Reilly, Lloyd Blankfein, and Larry Summers. They produce the ruling class. They are power. Amoral power. They are the guardians rigging the world to benefit themselves.
2
Years ago the business manager of my alma matter (Haverford) wrote an article for the alumni magazine. He mentioned that in the U.S. News ratings Haverford was ranked overall below several competitors, although it was ranked equal or above them in quality of teaching and several other measures. The factor which lowered the school's rating was expenditures per student - the other schools spent more. The article pointed out that in most lines of work, if you produce a product which is equal in quality to your competition and you do it at a lower cost, you are considered to have done a better job, not a worse one. One of the many bizarre quirks in how we evaluate education.
1
The really interesting thing about the rush to attend a prestigious college is a well-kept secret: attendance at that school will, at most, passingly help you get your first job. Maybe. After your first job, at least in industry, no one cares where you got your degree, but rather, how you did in your last job and how competent you appear at your interview. I've been on the hiring side of industry for 30 years and even at the Ph.D. level, where you received your degree is way down the list in terms of the determination of whether you will be hired. Again, after your first job with a Ph.D., no one cares where you went to school. Of course, if you are headed for academia, it does make a difference where you got your degree-but only a small minority of grads enter academia. Isn't the purpose of a higher degree to become better informed and to get a job that leads to a pleasant working life?
1
The social pecking order starts in kindergarten as kids choose their ''favorites'' for the dodgeball team or whatever.
The picking favorites continue on through life, except with education, it can set your path with dire consequences.
All for a piece of paper that does not dictate who you are or will be.
The picking favorites continue on through life, except with education, it can set your path with dire consequences.
All for a piece of paper that does not dictate who you are or will be.
1
These rankings really are ridiculous. The notion that persons of equal potential will somehow develop better intellectually by going, as an example, to Columbia in Manhattan rather than St. Johns in Queens is absurd. Of course, this kind of nonsense feeds on itself and can prove to be needlessly and insidiously prejudicial.
1
My education started at the University of Cincinnati, then grad school at U of Rochester and finally completed my research thesis at Stanford. I trained 40 PhD scientist, and sat on admission committees for over 40 yrs. Harvard, Stanford, MIT, and Berkley degrees definitely open doors down the road, but the next level of research institutions, often public Universities, are darn good and open to those who are not valedictorian of their high class. Your choice depends on you, if you want to do accounting and go to work at a big accounting firm after graduation, then most of the private colleges will work. However, if you want to be the person who develops the next level of software accounting tools you should attend a major research university where considerably more depth in this and other technical disciplines is available and where faculty are at the forefront of their specialty. If your interests are uncertain, you need your hand held or a strong foot ball team is important, then many there are many more good options.
2
After a lifetime, so far I am 93,spent in higher education, I find that one can get a good education in a poor school and a poor education in the very best of schools.
283
"poor" and "best" want specification here...for a teacher the "best" school can be a hedgerow trench and the "poor" one a tower...there are a number of schools/departments that gained prominence, due to the efforts founding or early leadership, that have slipped from "best" to "poor" as legacy has been rather exploited than renewed...the "social promotion" scheme that has replaced critical processes for tenure and retention, (a parallel to loss of rigor and the rise of customer service) is one of the harshest erosive elements.
of course
The primary purpose of the USNWR rankings is to sell USNWR.
154
One major aspect of college life that the rankings gloss over is the number of full- and part-time contingent professors on faculty--now a whopping 50-75% of faculty, and whose poor working conditions do not allow them to create the best learning environments for students. A category that examines how much of the budget goes toward academics and instructional salaries would be useful, and revealing, too.
I wound up with an MSME from Boston University, which I imagine is a reasonably rated school, but my journey started at UMass Boston, which I suspect does not rank particularly well. None the less, my UMass classmates and I knew why we were there, and we worked our tails off together to learn the subject matter and become engineers. I doubt paying several times the price to attend an "elite" school would have dramatically improved my education. The real scam is that parents think they can buy a good education. They really can't. Teaching your child to know how to learn, and to love doing so, is the key to academic success - no matter what the name is on the college front gate they ultimately attend.
2
As a retired educator my random views of rankings include the following:
1) We (parents, students, consumers) want simplicity -- even simple-mindedness -- to steer us through the complexity of choices.
2) Many of us want a little to a lot of prestige for ourselves - and that comes through bragging on our children's colleges.
3) Few to none of the "big" universities will bow out of the rankings game b/c it's all a systemic dysfunction -- no one can afford to be the "first" to step up and out and take the hit. It's been tried and it's failed.
4) High school counselors often do a great job telling kids and parents to find "a good fit," "a good match." Many parents override their kids' talents, interests, proclivities b/c places like College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine, isn't ranked highly enough, despite its uniqueness.
5) Schools spend so much money on "non-learning" resources now (facilities, food, athletics, etc.) that money spent keeping rankings up have become just one more necessary expenditure -- and perhaps 'ranks' near the top.
6) Trustees ask, "Where are we in the rankings, Prez?" And, "How do we go up a few notches next year?"
7) Everyone is complicit - schools and their administrators, parents, school personnel, consumers of the magazines, even students who cannot yet stand up to all those who push them against their own wishes and decisions.
Any antidotes? Letters of protest to US News? To the colleges? Why not - they'll put them in order of importance...
1) We (parents, students, consumers) want simplicity -- even simple-mindedness -- to steer us through the complexity of choices.
2) Many of us want a little to a lot of prestige for ourselves - and that comes through bragging on our children's colleges.
3) Few to none of the "big" universities will bow out of the rankings game b/c it's all a systemic dysfunction -- no one can afford to be the "first" to step up and out and take the hit. It's been tried and it's failed.
4) High school counselors often do a great job telling kids and parents to find "a good fit," "a good match." Many parents override their kids' talents, interests, proclivities b/c places like College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine, isn't ranked highly enough, despite its uniqueness.
5) Schools spend so much money on "non-learning" resources now (facilities, food, athletics, etc.) that money spent keeping rankings up have become just one more necessary expenditure -- and perhaps 'ranks' near the top.
6) Trustees ask, "Where are we in the rankings, Prez?" And, "How do we go up a few notches next year?"
7) Everyone is complicit - schools and their administrators, parents, school personnel, consumers of the magazines, even students who cannot yet stand up to all those who push them against their own wishes and decisions.
Any antidotes? Letters of protest to US News? To the colleges? Why not - they'll put them in order of importance...
5
I'm not a fan of ranking either, as it looks over many things that are truly important.
But I think it's human nature to want to rank things, not just colleges. Rankings are prevalent in society. We use rankings to help form our judgments, especially the Chinese. And it's not just in America but the whole world does some form of ranking in their society for many things like best restaurant or such.
As humans, we all chase prestige, even though we know against our better judgment, it's not the most important thing. I think as long as we know that prestige isn't everything, and we always remind ourselves that the person's qualifications and ability are more important than where a piece of parchment paper came from, than I think we're generally okay. Although networking does stretch the gap between, smart/rich and the rest of us plebeians.
But I think it's human nature to want to rank things, not just colleges. Rankings are prevalent in society. We use rankings to help form our judgments, especially the Chinese. And it's not just in America but the whole world does some form of ranking in their society for many things like best restaurant or such.
As humans, we all chase prestige, even though we know against our better judgment, it's not the most important thing. I think as long as we know that prestige isn't everything, and we always remind ourselves that the person's qualifications and ability are more important than where a piece of parchment paper came from, than I think we're generally okay. Although networking does stretch the gap between, smart/rich and the rest of us plebeians.
1
look close to nyc and see schools that have student populations inclusive of the under represented groups, including minorities and veterans. queens/cuny and st. johns come to mind, with their long commitments to the underserved and immigrant communities.
2
It is true that the quality of the education delivered at lesser-ranked schools can be equal to or better than that at the highly-ranked schools. But that overlooks a few salient facts.
One is the impact on the individual of fellow students. The "best" schools attract the best and brightest. Rubbing shoulders with this cohort is likely to be more intellectually stimulating and challenging to the individual. In my case, I grew up in a small town/rural setting, but attended a very fine public university (Michigan) as an out-of-state student. To me it was a different world, and have always felt I learned as much from my interactions with my fellow students, in and outside of the classroom, as from the formal teaching.
Another is the effect of a prestigious degree as one moves through one's career. Any list of highly placed individuals in, say, important government agencies, the media, etc. will show a skew to those "better" schools. I have graduate degrees from an Ivy, and in my experience there's no question about it. Regardless of the justice of it, having a prestigious degree opens doors. It just does. Is it a coincidence that nearly all recent Supreme Court Justices have law degrees from just Harvard, Yale, or Columbia?
Go Blue!
One is the impact on the individual of fellow students. The "best" schools attract the best and brightest. Rubbing shoulders with this cohort is likely to be more intellectually stimulating and challenging to the individual. In my case, I grew up in a small town/rural setting, but attended a very fine public university (Michigan) as an out-of-state student. To me it was a different world, and have always felt I learned as much from my interactions with my fellow students, in and outside of the classroom, as from the formal teaching.
Another is the effect of a prestigious degree as one moves through one's career. Any list of highly placed individuals in, say, important government agencies, the media, etc. will show a skew to those "better" schools. I have graduate degrees from an Ivy, and in my experience there's no question about it. Regardless of the justice of it, having a prestigious degree opens doors. It just does. Is it a coincidence that nearly all recent Supreme Court Justices have law degrees from just Harvard, Yale, or Columbia?
Go Blue!
1
I went to Michigan also as an out of state student and it was a great experience. Unfortunately I could not offer the same experience to my son. It is exorbitantly expensive now and as much as I liked it there, my husband (who also went there) and I could not justify the expense. Our son chose Binghamton instead (another excellent school that does not show up in these rankings) and we have been ver impressed with it!
Go Bearcats!
Go Bearcats!
1
With the cost of higher education soaring beyond belief, the primary concern for every prospective student (and their parents) in regard to any particular school they might attend is whether it'll be worth the expense. Unfortunately, that's one area for which truly useful measures are seriously lacking.
4
I hope state legislators across the country read this column and finally decide to start investing in their state colleges and universities again. It used to be that if you couldn't afford an "elite" school, the state school was just fine. That's still true in some states, but not in others, where these institutions court out-of-state and international students, instead of their own, because they have to make up for the loss in state funding. Until we reinvest in state institutions again, we will further widen the achievement/income/success/choose-your-metric gap, as the affordability of state schools slips away from the students who need them the most.
Keep ups the good fight, Mr. Bruni. These columns about higher education are important.
Keep ups the good fight, Mr. Bruni. These columns about higher education are important.
10
I will not name the university at which I taught for more than 30 years, but these absurd and repetitive rankings place it higher--often in a "Top Ten--than conspicuously superior institutions. I now live in a Southwestern state whose largest public university is, in my opinion, among the finest which I have had any opportunity to judge, yet it is not ranked at all. The known, private, and wealthy institutions stay known and wealthy due to analytical inertia and sometimes questionable criteria. Parents who pay their exorbitant and ever-rising fees would do better to invest in an index mutual fund the difference in cost between one of those known, private, and wealthy schools and a good state university, making the student both well educated at lower cost and eventually wealthy.
8
I'd love to hear a more in-depth report on whether these rankings are somewhat benign or if they in some way relate to the big business approach in today's higher educational systems. You raise some serious questions. Exactly how are these rankings arrived at? Is there any correlation between the increased use of poorly paid contingent faculty in lieu of full-time faculty at most colleges and these ratings? Do these ratings affect the increasing cost of college or the growing amount of full-time college deans and administrators?
3
apparently the rise in costs of a college education since when I went to Rutgers graduating in 1979, have gone up so much that the equivalent movie ticket today would cost $64.00 per ticket. So yes inflation obviously has happened in all realms since 1979, but nothing compared to the cost of a college education. The result? An elitist institution especially found in the Ivies where all students are either wealthy or financially needy. The middle class, whatever that is, is stuck. We should all rebel, us parents, and say no to sending our kids off to schools that today cost $70,000.00/year.
4
What you say is true. But when looking at schools for my daughter, we actually found surprisingly little difference in cost between top schools. This was five years ago. The sticker price of tuition, room and board for most of her considered schools was about $55,000.
Don't get me wrong. That's A LOT of money. However, the biggest difference from this average was based not on "sticker prices" but rather how generous was the school's financial aid. Of course, the other exception was whether a student wanted to attend their state school. However, the state school option is increasingly limited. First, top state schools (Michigan, Berkeley, UNC, UVA, etc) are increasingly charging near private prices to out-of-state residents. Second, unfortunately, many of the state schools in the Northeast are not among the most competitive. I suspect that the reason for this is because many of the selective private schools are located in the Northeast and they siphon the stronger students.
Don't get me wrong. That's A LOT of money. However, the biggest difference from this average was based not on "sticker prices" but rather how generous was the school's financial aid. Of course, the other exception was whether a student wanted to attend their state school. However, the state school option is increasingly limited. First, top state schools (Michigan, Berkeley, UNC, UVA, etc) are increasingly charging near private prices to out-of-state residents. Second, unfortunately, many of the state schools in the Northeast are not among the most competitive. I suspect that the reason for this is because many of the selective private schools are located in the Northeast and they siphon the stronger students.
It's not entirely clear to me what the relevance of veterans is the ranking of top colleges. Being a veteran doesn't necessarily endow you with any unique intellectual or artistic distinction. When it comes to admissions standards it is, or is supposed to be, a level playing field. No doubt the ranking system isn't perfect but it's very far from a joke. MIT, Stanford, Harvard et al are exceptionally good schools and some enjoy particular advantages when it comes to specialisms. You can always pull out the odd exception that proves the rule but until somebody comes up with a more rigorous alternative to the various well known ranking systems, all of which tend to produce similar results which can't be entirely coincidental, people are going to stick with the old order.
2
Have you considered that perhaps at least some veterans may need special services directed to them, that other students would not need, due to a major difference in life experience? I think that was part of Bruni's point.
@Philly Girl
Philadelphia
Unless they're disabled what special services do they require and if they are disabled how would the services they require differ from those needed by other disabled candidates. I worked for the government for a couple of years and didn't require special services. It's a complete red herring as far as the value of the various university rating systems are concerned.
Philadelphia
Unless they're disabled what special services do they require and if they are disabled how would the services they require differ from those needed by other disabled candidates. I worked for the government for a couple of years and didn't require special services. It's a complete red herring as far as the value of the various university rating systems are concerned.
I'm familiar with a branch of a public university that hired a staff person and support staff to embellish data for these incessant polls -- a silly waste of limited resources, and paradoxical to the constant fundraising. I don't think admissions improved (nor was there a problem to begin with!) and the president has since been fired for other misdeeds.
4
This could become a series - hospital rankings, online reviews, etc. - they're all a joke!
Ours is the Delusion of Information Age.
Ours is the Delusion of Information Age.
8
A stream of 1s and 0s as reality. Foolishness. It's still "garbage in, garbage out."
I highly recommend that students and parents use a wide range of college ranking sites.
One that is particularly interesting is Washington Monthly, which "rate schools based on what they are doing for the country." They use three criteria: social mobility, research, and service. Because they break out these numbers, you can rank colleges separately based on which criteria is most important to you.
One that is particularly interesting is Washington Monthly, which "rate schools based on what they are doing for the country." They use three criteria: social mobility, research, and service. Because they break out these numbers, you can rank colleges separately based on which criteria is most important to you.
2
Evidently at some "elite" schools, being a veteran does not earn you any diversity points in the admission process.
3
Frank - Yes, college rankings are a joke, and I wish you'd bring the same critical eye to teacher evaluation systems. In past columns you've put so much faith in them that you're ready to fire the "bad" teachers and pay the "good" ones more (once you get rid of tenure, of course), but if you knew anything you'd know they're just as much of a joke as college rankings.
7
Speaking of University of Maryland: They've also got an internationally renowned Center for Vaccine Development.
5
That a different University of Maryland campus, at College Park. This article is about UMBC.
Didn't Malcolm Gladwell write something very similar to this recently?
1
Colleges that Change Lives (CTCL) is an interesting alternative list for many students. Our daughter attends one of these small liberal arts college and has benefitted greatly - I'm not sure she would be as confident and as accomplished at the large state university where our son attends. These schools typically provide generous aid so you are not paying much more than you would at the public university.
6
If a student has a clue, according to economic theory, that student will find (somehow) the best school for (his or hers) degree. And get accepted.
Haha.
Maybe the top of the top, say Physics students in high school, might, possibly, know enough about what colleges might engage them, or have a professor that might have a clue about what the student cares about.
Most potential wondrous STEM stars in high school have little support (because their teachers have no clue)
Haha.
Maybe the top of the top, say Physics students in high school, might, possibly, know enough about what colleges might engage them, or have a professor that might have a clue about what the student cares about.
Most potential wondrous STEM stars in high school have little support (because their teachers have no clue)
1
Perhaps the NYT should take note of Mr. Bruni's column. Its a rarity to find a front page article that hasn't invoked some ivy league professor to quote. The paper prides itself on its obsession with Harvard (and sometimes Princeton too).
6
"In 1988, the school started the Meyerhoff Scholars Program, designed to address the paucity of minorities in STEM fields by giving generous financial aid and extensive mentorship to talented African-American students."
How is it legal for a public university to give financial aid based on race?
How is it legal for a public university to give financial aid based on race?
It's actually quite a bit more complicated than that, and there are students of all races in the program. But it is focused on increasing minority participation at the PhD level in the sciences, and it turns out (no surprise) that most of the students who are best positioned and most committed to do so are themselves members of underrepresented minorities.
2
I don't know why it would not be legal. but I do know that such programs are needed.
We know the problems wth the rankings. How would you improve them to reflect the quality of a college/university.
1
Just out of curiosity, what if newspapers were to be ranked? Where would U.S. News be placed? And would that be an indicator of the quality of their articles? You know, just wondering.
6
anyone who has spent time in the academy knows that schools develop, up or down, often quickly, due to leadership, departmental, in the deanery and, of course, higher up.
not easy to keep up, especially when guidance staff themselves are complacent, purveying pamphlets and such information as the us news rankings.
not everyone can make the tour that mr bruni did but such first hand experience is essential to any determination of a school's character.
not easy to keep up, especially when guidance staff themselves are complacent, purveying pamphlets and such information as the us news rankings.
not everyone can make the tour that mr bruni did but such first hand experience is essential to any determination of a school's character.
1
The University of Maryland College Park came up with a diabolically brilliant plan to bolster its GPA/SAT admission criteria to make it seem even more competitive than it has become to help its rankings. The bottom 20% or so admitted are admitted as "Freshman Connection" students. They are regular admitted students but need to maintain sufficient GPA to keep the admission. And the school does not count these students GPA or SAT/ACT scores for the year, artificially raising admission standards. Just shows how much colleges are willing to play this game.
1
There is the Shanghai university rankings which features more public universities. Cal is and UCLA is 12. Ultimately is your major department that counts. And I would serious and passionate professors would be above petty status seeking. Who reads US News these days anyway ? They've been milking this scam for years .
Education is important. Why does NYTimes place its Education section below so many other sections on the home page? Education is just above Real Estate at NYTimes.
3
Are those graduation rates for 4th, 5th or 6th -year Seniors?
Ranking colleges academically is one of those games Americans like to play. Like Top 10 lists, which are used promiscuously as entertainment, and used promiscuously by the Times, too. Top 10 movies, Top 10 real estate markets, Top 10 football teams, etc. etc., ad nauseum. Of course, the Top 10 game is how public relations & advertising pros create the illusion and conventional belief that the Top 10 (of anything) really is the best... even it ain't.
5
My father told me this story many, many years ago, when I was looking around for a college to attend. A bright young man was chatting with the admissions director at a small, little-known college in the hinterland, the young man's "safe" school. "Your library only has a thousand volumes," the young man said. The admissions director replied, "Well, when you've read them all, we'll send out for some more." I was lucky (read smart) enough to learn that lesson.
2
I just saw a very interesting TED talk given by Julie Lythcott-Haims called How to Raise Successful Kids - Without Over - Parenting. One of the things she emphasizes is the very small number of highly ranked elite colleges that so many stressed out parents want their stressed out children to strive for. Your editorial, as well as Ms Lythcott-Haims talk, indeed shows that there are many good colleges, universities, local state colleges and community colleges that provide a good and stress free college experience, as does U.M.B.C.
Thank you for this important article.
Thank you for this important article.
3
If you look at the global rankings like ARWU or QS, there are maybe 100 US institutions in the top 200 universities. Some are well known, like Stanford, MIT or Harvard. Others come as something of a surprise. Public universities like the University of California or the University of Michigan are ranked more highly than some expensive private universities that I won't mention here.
For students planning a career in science or engineering at the global level, these are the schools to attend. They make the student's next step (to graduate school or industry) a lot easier to take.
For those whose ambitions are more modest, and who don't need to attend a globally ranked school, there's no need to worry about what US News and World Report might think. The truth is that nobody will care, so you might as well pick one that you like.
For students planning a career in science or engineering at the global level, these are the schools to attend. They make the student's next step (to graduate school or industry) a lot easier to take.
For those whose ambitions are more modest, and who don't need to attend a globally ranked school, there's no need to worry about what US News and World Report might think. The truth is that nobody will care, so you might as well pick one that you like.
1
What is sad is the credence that the workplace gives to these schools for the entirety of our careers. I am tired of 38-year-olds reminding me that they must be smart since they went to fill-in-the-blank elite university. I'd rather know what you have accomplished as an adult in the workplace than that you were good at 18 at getting yourself into college.
2
@lara:
As someone who has been in the work world for over 30 years, and as a hiring manager, there are very few jobs that give credence to the elite schools (ie usually the Ivies, especially HYP) , places like investment banks and other financial firms, law firms, some hospitals, won't even look at someone who didn't go to an elite school even with a track record. However, in the real world outside pits like Goldman Sachs, where you went to school stops mattering once you have worked. Are there hiring managers who look at where you went to school (and even as stupidly, your GPA) when you have established a track record? Yes (a lot of them tend to be Asian in my experience, in large part because in China and other places, where you go to school influences what you can and cannot do, it is Goldman Sachs on a macro scale). ...but for the most part, getting hired is going to be based on skills and your work background, most hiring managers don't even bother to look at the school (sadly, idiot HR people might, which is why they should not be allowed to screen resumes)
As someone who has been in the work world for over 30 years, and as a hiring manager, there are very few jobs that give credence to the elite schools (ie usually the Ivies, especially HYP) , places like investment banks and other financial firms, law firms, some hospitals, won't even look at someone who didn't go to an elite school even with a track record. However, in the real world outside pits like Goldman Sachs, where you went to school stops mattering once you have worked. Are there hiring managers who look at where you went to school (and even as stupidly, your GPA) when you have established a track record? Yes (a lot of them tend to be Asian in my experience, in large part because in China and other places, where you go to school influences what you can and cannot do, it is Goldman Sachs on a macro scale). ...but for the most part, getting hired is going to be based on skills and your work background, most hiring managers don't even bother to look at the school (sadly, idiot HR people might, which is why they should not be allowed to screen resumes)
UMBC in the last 30 years has become a high quality institution for sure. Overmanned and overpowered in Baltimore however by Hopkins.
1
Lists like U.S. News & World Report’s are too blunt and too blind to certain gems.". no ,this is NOT why the ratings are a joke. As a professor for thirty years at a major research university in a STEM department that has been for over two decades amongst the very top departments in my field, the faculty were well aware that the rankings are determined using an evaluation process that inevitably leads to biased and inaccurate results. as to whether this is due to a conspiracy or to ineptitude, i suspect that is both.
1
Should I, shouldn`t I? Ok, I will. After finishing high school outside of Seattle in 83, I headed down to my mother`s place just north of San Francisco. I started my 4 year ballet scholarship and took it seriously. I grew up in a very poor, traveling, hippie family. My Buddhist father was very smart, very stable, but our life on the run wasn`t. Born in New Jersey, we lived in Phili, W.V., Maine, Colorado, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, California and some places twice. College was not an option or even a thought. Well, in S.F. I fell in love with a Swiss girl and followered her back to Zurich. Divorced, but 27 years later and 6 kids all is well. Working for Swissair, (no longer exists) learning Swiss Germand and logistics, I am now with a Swiss logistics co. Awesome, great pay, paid vacation, insurance, pension plan and and and. This was my college, my higher education, if you will. I am doing better than my college grads in USA with debts, believe me. I am so proud of myself for coming here, fitting in, taking advantage of the given chances as a foreigner. If I went back, demanding what I am getting here (better than many college grads in America, believe me) I would never get it. Something to be proud of as an American? Nope, but I hope that all of you college grads are happy, meeting your expectations and dreams. My second wife is a doctor, earns much more than I do, but I am happier, with less stress. Thanks Dad, for this head game, feeling wealthy after what we went through.
2
Agree with Bruni that college rankings r a joke. You get out of college what you put into it, and attending LIU can be just as intellectually rewarding as attending Harvard. But FB's rebuke of US NEWS's ranking system is based on factors such as the number of veterans it accepts, diversity of its studentry(Stunk's contribution to the language)and prominence of its faculty But a dirty little secret is that the professorat in general cares little for students themselves, and good teaching is not a major priority.Rather it is the number of works published("publish or perish")their own careers and their ability to get on the lucrative college lecture circuit.Studentry's intellectual welfare be damned, and if a student graduates with lacunae in his understanding of trivium and quadrivum, liberal arts, cannot even pass a diction test, "professorat s'en fout!"Attended 2 schools as an undergrad, U. of Alabama and Tulane which awarded me a B.A.Yet U. of A. had one of the best Classics Dept.'s in southeast, better than Millsaps, or U. of N.C., just 2 examples.But u can't argue with snob value of being able to say ur kids attend Harvard and Yale.Look around u,Mr Bruni:2 of ur op ed colleagues send their progeny to Yale and Harvard.Of course if u r like EH or FSF, u don't need college at all, but rely on ur god given talent.EH's formal education ended when he graduated h.s.and FSF dropped out of Princeton w/o graduating.Yet they r among our best writers.
1
Yeah, yeah...UMBC is as good, if not better, than Harvard. Harvard is not what it's made out to be. You can get as good an education, if not a superior one, at a public university or some rural college--and you come out with better values and more diverse friends. Harvard is not arguing, so why are you, Mr. Bruni? Since you are so convinced of the veracity of your comments and there are many institutions that meet your noble standards, everyone should be happy as there are more than enough spaces to accommodate everyone. What is the problem? So are you good?
2
What makes the illusion of the top colleges worse is that many employers favor and in some cases, will only hire from the top colleges. This means that they are regularly passing over the best students from second and third tier universities in favor of the average, and sometimes below average, from the top universities.
2
Agree. The rankings exhibit the same problem as politicians, name recognition and incumbency. Students need to dig deeper than some superficial rankings to find out where they should go to college. I would posit there is money to be made by putting out a guide written by students that actually went to and graduated from the school.
1
It's the network though. I attended two Ivy League schools, one for undergard and one for MBA, and I basically know everyone. Any top company in America, I'll know someone there. Any government function or post, I'll know someone. It makes a difference.
190
You're leaving out factors in considering enrollment of veterans in colleges. Veterans are older than typical students, may have jobs as well as a family. Ivy League schools typically don't have part time programs. They require full enrollment and place a time limit of 4-5 years for graduation. The schools are usually located in places with scarce or expensive housing such that students have no option but to live in a dormitory. These conditions make the school unappealing to veterans. How do veterans compare to full time students at these colleges that are over the age of 30? State schools are located in cities with more resources for veterans such as a VA with medical care. They offer flexible programs that include night classes, partial enrollment and allow more than 4 years to fulfill degree requirements. They also offer 2 year certificate programs in teaching or management that can get you into the work force faster.
Amherst College, one of the most elite schools, actively recruits vets. You may want to visit to see how well vets integrate with this small, liberal arts college. https://www.amherst.edu/amherst-story/magazine/issues/2014-spring/colleg...
Amherst College, one of the most elite schools, actively recruits vets. You may want to visit to see how well vets integrate with this small, liberal arts college. https://www.amherst.edu/amherst-story/magazine/issues/2014-spring/colleg...
1
No one needs rankings to know what Ivies are like. Posts like this help people understand what people are like there much better than the rankings.
Yes, and not always for the better in my experience as objective reasoning often suffers in the presence of the right diploma.
2
University of Maryland, Baltimore County, sounds like an amazing place -
a true "American University," one we can all be proud of (despite its being nowhere on college "rankings").
If governments and corporations are serious about their intent to "open up educational access," to encourage African Americans and Hispanics to enter STEM fields, then they too need to ignore college "rankings." UMBC is exactly the kind of university they should be pouring money into - not just to the school, but to the research of its professors and the opportunities such research creates for the students of these professors and to the support of its students so UMBC can continue to churn out students for whom any "disadvantage" is overshadowed by the "advantage" their UMBC preparation gives them.
Is there corporate and government will to say "my check's going to UMBC," rather than gloating about how they are supporting such and such program at Harvard or Stanford or MIT? If there isn't, every CEO should be sent a copy of Mr. Bruni's article.
a true "American University," one we can all be proud of (despite its being nowhere on college "rankings").
If governments and corporations are serious about their intent to "open up educational access," to encourage African Americans and Hispanics to enter STEM fields, then they too need to ignore college "rankings." UMBC is exactly the kind of university they should be pouring money into - not just to the school, but to the research of its professors and the opportunities such research creates for the students of these professors and to the support of its students so UMBC can continue to churn out students for whom any "disadvantage" is overshadowed by the "advantage" their UMBC preparation gives them.
Is there corporate and government will to say "my check's going to UMBC," rather than gloating about how they are supporting such and such program at Harvard or Stanford or MIT? If there isn't, every CEO should be sent a copy of Mr. Bruni's article.
2
To publish a ranking of colleges for all high school senors is like publishing a ranking of eligible mates; it misses the point. A good college for one person is not necessarily good for someone else.
1
Really great down-to-earth talk about education. Thank you Frank. I am an education professional - I teach at a private university in Iowa and have gotten support and insight from your articles and book as I deal with students. The rankings stuff is totally nuts - our best here, are as good as you can get, and I teach and mentor them within an inch of my life. The smart kids are getting a great private education at a huge discount (cheap or free) and I go the extra mile for them (happily) and make projects, get them out there, help with career paths and contacts. The students and parents are always thrilled. And yet we always have to work hard at recruitment to do this behind the scenes. We are fighting prestige and status because even though we do well in rankings we are not elite. That is not us. I think I will copy your articles to show to students. And I have friends who teach at UMBC who are great. thank you from the salt mines of academia!!!! It is pretty cool to have a voice of reason at the times!
About the only redeeming value I see in any Top 100 list is that the reader will then, hopefully, start thinking about relative value. If I pay x for y, then what does that give me vs paying x for z. And, IMHO, a student (and tuition-paying parents) need to think long and hard about value. Last time I did the numbers, here in California, community colleges cost $46/unit and Yale charges, roughly, $2200/unit. If you can find a good 'fit' for less, go for it! A cautionary note: be sure to think about ALL the factors that need to be included in your analysis of the 'fit'.
Future scholars and their parents are hereby advised to examine the membership list of the Association of American Colleges & Universities. It lists hundreds of institutions, including most but not all of the most competitive. Harvard, Chicago, Yale, yes...MIT, Princeton, CalTech no.
In particular. look at the remarks in column five. If you see "(high research activity)" or "(very high research activity)," I suggest that you add those schools to your research list.
The Maryland school that blew Bruni's mind is said to have "high research activity." Very good!
Go to http://secure.aacu.org/iMIS/AACU/AACU/Membership/MemberListAACU.aspx
(very high research activity)
In particular. look at the remarks in column five. If you see "(high research activity)" or "(very high research activity)," I suggest that you add those schools to your research list.
The Maryland school that blew Bruni's mind is said to have "high research activity." Very good!
Go to http://secure.aacu.org/iMIS/AACU/AACU/Membership/MemberListAACU.aspx
(very high research activity)
2
Thanks Frank, US News and World Report has always been a joke. In high school debate our team was not even allowed to quote that magazine.
1
The rankings are a joke.
In my freshman year of Law School, my civil procedure professor addressed a case, entitled Shelley v Kraemer, that pertained to discrimination against blacks in real estate. He noted that the case had inspired Lorainne Hansbury's play, "A Raisin in the Sun."
80 percent of my classmates at NYU Law, an overwhelming proportion of whom were alumni of "Ivy League" colleges, had never heard of the play.
So much for their superior worth and value.
In my freshman year of Law School, my civil procedure professor addressed a case, entitled Shelley v Kraemer, that pertained to discrimination against blacks in real estate. He noted that the case had inspired Lorainne Hansbury's play, "A Raisin in the Sun."
80 percent of my classmates at NYU Law, an overwhelming proportion of whom were alumni of "Ivy League" colleges, had never heard of the play.
So much for their superior worth and value.
2
You don't have to go to Harvard to become president, though may help, just ask Dwight Eisenhower, Dick Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton. Harry Truman only needed a library card.
1
This again. Stop obsessing over your nieces and nephews. Everyone will be just fine, going to whatever college or vocation. If at first you don't succeed, get some more education to use skills you enjoy doing.
1
Veterans, statistically speaking, are from the lower 1/2 of their school classes. some only have a GED. Selective colleges do not select students from the bottom of the class, even if Mr. Bruni thinks they should. Students with high academic, athletic and a strong social awareness rarely chose NOT to go to college and to join the Army, where "democracy" doesn't exist. What makes Bruni think the Army is a breeding grounds for Rhodes scholars?
3
U.S. News should be renamed "U.S. Rankings." That's where they make most of their money. And they now go way beyond colleges. Just yesterday, I saw that they now rank COUNTRIES. I didn't bother to check, but I'm sure the U.S. has gone down a couple notches--partly because of U.S. News.
2
Although my father was an immigrant West Virginia coal miner before I was born, I received two MIT masters degrees 1962-64 thanks to the kindness of a generous uncle. The uncle was everyone's favorite, Uncle Sam, and I was an Air Force very junior officer at the time. Three of my classmates in the Aero-Astro program became moon walkers including Buzz Aldrin. At the time, there were about several hundred active duty military officers in attendance at MIT.
I believe MIT still offers ROTC scholarships. My comments may be somewhat off topic, but MIT remains the premier technical school, and there are ways for students of modest means to attend. The Military also enabled my attendance at SUNYB, NYU, and the University of Washington.
I believe MIT still offers ROTC scholarships. My comments may be somewhat off topic, but MIT remains the premier technical school, and there are ways for students of modest means to attend. The Military also enabled my attendance at SUNYB, NYU, and the University of Washington.
4
The college rankings go hand in hand with the corporatization of universities, as donors pay attention to them, and the networks that are developed between donors, corporations, and legacy studies perpetuate a system of falsehoods. I have noticed in my field that Yale and Harvard graduates also dominate among deans these days, and that people who studied or taught there are selected to lead departments even if they are incompetent to do it. This country has betrayed its goals in more ways than, in part because a culture of corporatization and marketing has supplanted real achievement and truth. Universities were at some point the bastions of knowledge. This has been eroded as well. Rankings are only tools for marketing and fundraising strategies.
2
Veterans are teachers by their very existence. They survived something out of the ordinary. They know things you cant know because you didn't know them. I was 18 and stupid when I went to college in the 70's but the guy sitting next to me was a 24 year old freshman who wasn't going to let an opportunity to get an education slip through his fingers, like I was. College should be a benefit of national service, for both the college and and the nation's sake.
118
Thanks for the plug for UMBC. The fact that they don't spend time and money on football and basketball helps them to focus both on scholarship. My granddaughter had a great experience there as a scholarship student in an honors humanities program. The program grouped the humanities scholars in University housing and guided the group in weekly discussions of a few overlapping courses they all took. Firm friendships have formed among young women who now have encouragement from peers in pursuit of higher degrees. When they meet they discuss ideas. They will be leaders.
118
Amazingly, the University of Maryland, Baltimore, uses its taxpayer subsidies from the state's taxpayers to admit students from 100 countries that obviously pay no taxes to Maryland. They take 100 (or more) spots away from those in state students who might be just as worthy. When are we going to start taking care of our own?
Oh, yes, I know, those foreign students tend to pay more, thereby funding the scholarship of the less well off Marylanders. Nevertheless, those students go back home to their country and benefit their residents, instead of ours. That's just wrong.
Oh, yes, I know, those foreign students tend to pay more, thereby funding the scholarship of the less well off Marylanders. Nevertheless, those students go back home to their country and benefit their residents, instead of ours. That's just wrong.
2
You may want to look a little more closely at the finances that so offend you. First, public universities now get much less of their budget from taxpayers because most state legislatures have slashed public support over the years. Public colleges and universities have to make up the gap by tuition revenue. International students not only tend to pay more, they usually pay full tuition. They also don't get subsidized student loans from government lenders, i.e. subsidized by taxpayers. In many cases, they have not "taken spots" from local students; those "spots" have been added to enrollment. Many of the international students hope to stay here to use the education they've gained; many others will go back to their home countries as friends of the U.S. around the world. I'd say we're getting our money's worth.
First of all, the "funding" for colleges is being reduced because the states need to set priorities with their revenues. There is not an unlimited amount of money. Second, those foreign students are not permitted to stay in the United States beyond a short period of time due to immigration laws. We are definitely not getting our money's worth.
1
Garbage in, garbage out.
Metrics are useful, vital even, right up to the point when the person being measured figures out how to game them. Then they are garbage. At that point the metric is most useful only because people believe it to be useful.
Frank Bruni cheers for schools outside of the elites, showcasing the strength of their programs. He calls out the inanity of rankings. But then he circles back, and worries about how veterans don't attend elite schools, how it closes opportunities. Which is it? Are the rankings realistic and veterans have been marginalized, or are the veterans getting great education outside of the phony elites? Bruni needs to pick one stand and stick with it..
Metrics are useful, vital even, right up to the point when the person being measured figures out how to game them. Then they are garbage. At that point the metric is most useful only because people believe it to be useful.
Frank Bruni cheers for schools outside of the elites, showcasing the strength of their programs. He calls out the inanity of rankings. But then he circles back, and worries about how veterans don't attend elite schools, how it closes opportunities. Which is it? Are the rankings realistic and veterans have been marginalized, or are the veterans getting great education outside of the phony elites? Bruni needs to pick one stand and stick with it..
1
The variance WITHIN is generally greater than the variance BETWEEN.
Bruni's "random" observations included meetings with two people working on gay-related issues, and one person who had a film screened at Cannes. Then he criticizes the rankings for using tiny subsets? Pot, meet kettle.
6
Exactly. Bruno's columns, and his book, on colleges are almost wholly anecdotal. And his interviews are all with success stories.
1
US News isn't in the business of providing reliable information about universities; it is in the business of SELLING MAGAZINES. The net effect of these bogus and irrelevant rankings has been to drive up applications for 'top' schools, which allow those schools to look even more 'selective'. And all of these have the effect of driving up te cost of higher education. US News is part of the problem.
2
My wife & I went to then free Brooklyn College-CUNY, she BA, me BA/Ma- Literature (me the latter on GI bill & grad fellowship). I then went for PhD at U-Chicago in a multi-discipline Committee on Human Development with required grad qualifying in anthropology, genetics, physiology, psychology, sociology, all new to me on any level. I expected to be awed by other grad students from undergrad programs at UC, Big Ten, Ivy League & by UC profs. Surprise!!!!! Many BC profs more erudite/better teachers that some at UC, me better prepared intellectually than many other UC students, PhD with honors, career as professor/psychology-professor/neurology at major med school- NIH grants, major consultations! To quote the great philosopher, the late Fats Waller: "One never know, do one"!!!!!
2
Mr Bruni is correct that excellence is more widely dispersed than the various college rankings suggest. And yet academic excellence isn't just something in the tap water. Mr Bruni is a humane leveler, but he may be deceiving himself about the problem with rankings. College football rankings similarly have a subjective component, but it does not mean that rankings are meaningless or harmful.
1
One more factoid for UMBC is they have a collaboration with the Naval Academy for "Cyber Projects". I have no relationship nor do I know anyone related to UMBC but obviously the Naval Academy has a lot of options and they chose UMBC for a reason - https://www.usna.edu/NewsCenter/2015/04/naval-academy-and-umbc-to-collab...
This s not merely commentary. It is the kind of serious journalism we need so much more of.
1
When I was the Associate Head of a department at Purdue University about 10 years, the Head of department asked me and 4 oher faculty to participate in the yearly US News & World Report "survey" despite the fact we all knew it to be a joke and, as a department with many knowledgeable people in measurement and surveys, had never participated in my 30+ years at Purdue. We all "ranked" 4-5 departments across the US highly with our department included but not as #1. Our overall ranking in the report shot up to #43 from 100+ one year earlier! We're #43! We're #43! we shouted, as the overlaid upper administration ( who never listened to our previous complaints about what a joke the "survey" is) went gags with pride and congratulations.
3
Hospitals do the same, except we are told to rank ourselves #1 and fill in the other 4 spots with institutions that are no where near the top.
1
One reason for questioning the relevance of U.S. News & World Report rankings, is the relevance of U.S. News & World Report--a third tier media outlet that would have disappeared from newsstands long ago if they hadn't gotten into ranking schools and made themselves a public relations ploy for them. The ranking should be taken as seriously as something you read somewhere you can't quite remember on the Internet.
1
Frank, two words: Washington Monthly.
Before anyone sends their high school senior off to college, they should read, closely, the Washington Monthly magazine's annual review of American colleges and universities.
Before anyone sends their high school senior off to college, they should read, closely, the Washington Monthly magazine's annual review of American colleges and universities.
1
My son is a veteran with 4 overseas tours who enrolled in Columbia. Now a senior there are enough veterans in Columbia General Studies, which takes the same courses as Columbia College, to actually have a representative on the student council. Columbia, to its credit, started General Studies for WWII veterans and has continued its policy of educating veterans at a very demanding university. Don't put big faith in individual rankings, but if a school as intellectually demanding can recruit and graduate veterans what are the excuses of MIT and Duke (acknowledgement, I am a Duke graduate), and even I salute Mr. Bruni since many of us thought no intelligent person came out of that mediocre state institution 8 miles SW down US 15-501.
3
You can find out some useful things from USN: What percentage of the freshman class comes back for sophomore year. What percentage of the freshman class graduates in 4, 5, and 6 years. Average class size. Size of the debt students graduate with. Sure Frank, is #5 that much "better" (whatever that means, your better might be someone else's poison) than #15? That part of it is kind of dumb. And colleges have learned how to game the numbers by spending a lot of their marketing budget driving applications up (Univ of Chicago) knowing that "selectivity" helps goose their numbers.
2
A few years ago, I was a member of Parents' Association Board at George Washington University, a college located a couple of blocks from the White house and near virtually all government departments and agencies. We were briefed by the University Administration that the USN&WR had lowered GW's ranking because of the number of adjunct professors at the University (as opposed to tenured or tenure-track professors).
It turned out on closer examination -- by the University, not USN&WR -- that many of these adjunct professors were senior government officials teaching a seminar on their areas of expertise (e.g., Ben Bernanke on the Federal Reserve, etc.) and it is a fact that the presence at GW of such eminent adjunct faculty is a terrific draw for would-be GW students.
The USN&WR rankings would probably do us all a favor by ... going away.
It turned out on closer examination -- by the University, not USN&WR -- that many of these adjunct professors were senior government officials teaching a seminar on their areas of expertise (e.g., Ben Bernanke on the Federal Reserve, etc.) and it is a fact that the presence at GW of such eminent adjunct faculty is a terrific draw for would-be GW students.
The USN&WR rankings would probably do us all a favor by ... going away.
2
I am a former Dean of Business for a NYC college. Here is my take. After a year or two of employment, no one gives a hoot where you went to school. Number one vs. Number 100 or 500 is nonsense. Did you do a good job? The that is all that matters. No one cares if you are from the Ivy League or Little League. US News' rankings is just another way of creating revenue sources through a contrived ranking system that has little relevance in the real world.
2
That is true, but graduates from a top-ranked college get more attention from recruiters. It's rational for companies to think that way because the top-ranked colleges attract the brightest, highest-achieving high school seniors.
3
Wondering how many UMBC grads get jobs at the New York Times.
3
The silver lining in all this is that a savvy student, if s/he puts in a little research, can dig out some excellent places to get a real education where the competition to get in won't be so crazy and where the cost won't require becoming a debt slave for decades.
1
I'm sure the UMBC is a wonderful school. I'm sure parents spend too much time thinking about the US News rankings. However, to call them ridiculous is to ascribe way more emotion than is reasonable. Of course a kid may fit better -- and receive a better education -- at, say, ASU than Harvard. But there is some information content in Harvard's ranking relative to ASU's that a family should consider. Hat weight they put on the ranking is their business.
1
The U.S. News & World Report's college rankings are like heroin to the addict. The addict will avow that heroin is bad, but he will always come back for more.
Many parents and students today have been duped into perceiving education as a competition rather than a developmental journey, so they look to that facile ranking number without really understanding the factors that might be most relevant for their son or daughter at a particular university. Happily, though, more parents seem to be rolling their eyes when the latest ranking come out.
Many parents and students today have been duped into perceiving education as a competition rather than a developmental journey, so they look to that facile ranking number without really understanding the factors that might be most relevant for their son or daughter at a particular university. Happily, though, more parents seem to be rolling their eyes when the latest ranking come out.
2
I wish the NYT would so a series of in-depth articles about the college scam.
... and then follow up with a series on the lower school, middle school, and upper school disasters. It seems that every year there is a new scheme to improve education. The children are burdened with hundreds of ways to jump through hoops. Third graders are taking classes in executive skills and carrying computers.
Education is too important to be left to the educators.
... and then follow up with a series on the lower school, middle school, and upper school disasters. It seems that every year there is a new scheme to improve education. The children are burdened with hundreds of ways to jump through hoops. Third graders are taking classes in executive skills and carrying computers.
Education is too important to be left to the educators.
6
The U.S. News rankings are horrible, and a number of great universities refuse to participate (they get ranked anyway, and punished for not participating). But they are an easy template for anxious students and parents to use in choosing a school, and for alumni looking for bragging rights. (My city boasts of two major academic-athletic powerhouses, and the private one loves the U.S. News rankings; they are the only one where it has ever equalled or exceeded the public university's ranking, and managed to beat it by one spot for the first time only this year.)
To be blunt, U.S. News is the Trump of college rankings. Like him, it makes a lot of noise, markets itself well, and all criticism slides right off as it continues business as usual. Sadly, it is so easy to use, deceptive though it is, that it will keep on thriving.
To be blunt, U.S. News is the Trump of college rankings. Like him, it makes a lot of noise, markets itself well, and all criticism slides right off as it continues business as usual. Sadly, it is so easy to use, deceptive though it is, that it will keep on thriving.
1
As a veteran who had college paid for through Chapter 31 via the VA, I could have gone anywhere, except at the time I needed to enroll, only state schools were an option. My SAT score was weak, but my ASVAB was high enough to get me looked at for West Point Prep- but unfortunately, the Army isn't any better than my high school guidance counselor.
Schools need to look at veterans differently- they are older, generally more mature, and not ready to be told they would have to move into a freshman dorm, live on campus, or give up their car.
The only college ranking that is even remotely accurate was the Playboy party school index- which told me I didn't want to go to Ohio University.
We need to do better for our veterans.
Universities receive a boat load of federal dollars, it's time to institute goals for enrollment of veterans.
Schools need to look at veterans differently- they are older, generally more mature, and not ready to be told they would have to move into a freshman dorm, live on campus, or give up their car.
The only college ranking that is even remotely accurate was the Playboy party school index- which told me I didn't want to go to Ohio University.
We need to do better for our veterans.
Universities receive a boat load of federal dollars, it's time to institute goals for enrollment of veterans.
It is no surprise and not particularly well known that the rankings have weight from how staff from other institutions rank them rather than the students themselves or employers of student graduates ranking using some type of objective method so it does not become a complaint list.
The bottom line is that a "match" means many things for different people but high on the list, "match" must be cost of tuition. Every else ranks less because it does not good to go to a highly ranked school if you are buried in debt.
The bottom line is that a "match" means many things for different people but high on the list, "match" must be cost of tuition. Every else ranks less because it does not good to go to a highly ranked school if you are buried in debt.
US News and World Report used to be a magazine that some time back devoted a whole issue to college rankings. Fast forward some years, and the magazine is defunct. It has created an entire industry about college rankings. Without its rankings, the name would rightfully recede into history. Without people trwating the rankings as if they had some meaning or relevance, the rump rankings business would soon be defunct.
3
Mr. Bruni:
So you would recommend that a relative attend the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, over any of the top 20 schools according to U.S. News if accepted to all 21 colleges?
So you would recommend that a relative attend the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, over any of the top 20 schools according to U.S. News if accepted to all 21 colleges?
2
The U.S. News & World Report RANKINGS is not the only list. For instance, there is the ALL ACADEMIC list, which is higher in ranking (and professional prestige) than the list Bruni thinks is a joke. Schools that have only academics are ranked above the "kiddie play" places. Thus, Harvard and the rest of the Ivy League, are not at the top since they are not All Academic. For Your Information.
Did you actually think, Mr. Bruni, that the rankings column was something other than a marketing gimmick to get people to buy the magazine?
Silly you, sir, silly, silly you.
Silly you, sir, silly, silly you.
This is v. interesting but not all tht surprising...however, the title implies that all rankings are bad...may I oint out that teh Washington Monthly (of which I have e no affiliation) ranks college based on three specific critera, which strike me as the correct ones: number of Pell eligble students, percentage of students who go on to PhDs, showing academic excellence, and a commitment to the wider community where they exist...seems to be that those are really good value to measure e...and although I have not seen this year's rankings last year I remember it was Bryn Mawr, Brea and Carleton...that's impressive.
Yes, but Mr Bruni, a couple of weeks ago you were criticizing these same colleagues for not enlisting enough veterans, implying that veterans also should have access to these high ratings.
Why not an embargo on stories on the Ivy League in the New York Times
for two years and why doesn't the New York Times not hire anyone
new who went to an Ivy League for three years and let us see what happens.
for two years and why doesn't the New York Times not hire anyone
new who went to an Ivy League for three years and let us see what happens.
3
About any college you could go to in America will challenge you and offer you a first-rate education if you choose to pursue one there.
I remember my first day at Cal like it was yesterday. I can still smell the eucalyptus so common to many college campuses. Tuition was called an "incidental fee" and was $38/semester. Cal was rated near the top in those days. I don't know where it is now. Shortly after I arrived the Free Speech demonstrations started which so enraged our new governor, Ronald Reagan. He declared war on the university and cuts in educational funding were not far behind. It was a turning point from which we have never recovered. Many people remember Reagan fondly, but to us his election to the governorship was as laughable as is Trump's run for the presidency. I feel so sorry for today's college students who don't even know that there was a day when a public college education was free. Life long college debt is a fact of their lives. I fear for their future in a world that doesn't get progressively better but can actually get worse. What college is best? What college is best for veterans? If you are rich, the best college is where you can meet the children of the rich. Oh, and be sure to take a "gap year." It makes you such a more interesting person and why hurry off to college when you are young and the world is at your feet. What college is best unless if you aren't rich? It's your local junior college and living at home and even that's no cake walk. If you are a veteran? You've probably got a wife and kids and college is out of the question. I don't know what world Frank Bruni is living in.
1
My daughter, a GT student, yet challenged with learning issues benefited from UMBC's stellar undergrad ed. (# 5 in Undergrad. Teaching - US News...) Some of the sub categories are useful indicators. Many study groups that benefit minority students also are helpful for students with learning differences.
With an UMBC Tech Corporate Incubator Paid Internship as a Jr. Engineer for 2 years while @ UMBC under her belt, she graduated, continued with that firm as a Software QA Engineer and completed her first year with almost 1 month work abroad experience that was instrumental in a 20% salary bump high in her field's expected range. UMBC is a fantastic University at a less than fantastical price tag: Tuition 11k per year. My daughter graduated with 0 college debt.
With an UMBC Tech Corporate Incubator Paid Internship as a Jr. Engineer for 2 years while @ UMBC under her belt, she graduated, continued with that firm as a Software QA Engineer and completed her first year with almost 1 month work abroad experience that was instrumental in a 20% salary bump high in her field's expected range. UMBC is a fantastic University at a less than fantastical price tag: Tuition 11k per year. My daughter graduated with 0 college debt.
1
Good for Bruni. Be interesting to see if the next prez picks someone for a cabinet post who doesn't come from the Harvard-Yale duopoly. Doubt it but we can hope.
2
Possibly the incestuous culture perpetuates its own aggrandizement of hubris and accolades. Nassem Taleb article on the ignorance of the IVY/Oxbridge intellectual vapidity is worth a read :
https://medium.com/@nntaleb/the-intellectual-yet-idiot-13211e2d0577#.nyt...
https://medium.com/@nntaleb/the-intellectual-yet-idiot-13211e2d0577#.nyt...
medium.com is hard to read
While the First Amendment prevents banning on the US News rankings, the marketplace of ideas has failed to to displace the flawed rankings with something better. Thank you Frank Bruni for pointing this out.
1
The drive to rank is obviously quite strong in us. I think it is way too strong to say that rankings with some methodological rigor are a JOKE. They are measuring something and that something is not completely unrelated to something relevant about universities and colleges. The important question is how people use the rankings. A lot of people use these as self/family grading systems (shocking I know). Universities use these comparatively and push on metrics they think will help them rise. Is that a bad thing?
Academic accomplishment isn't in some ways as cut and dried as, say, athletic achievement. But it is competitive and there are some genuine standards that may not be pleasant to openly acknowledge. The Harvard undergraduate math department produces way more high scoring Putnam exam winners than UM Baltimore. The departments are different and, yes, it's just a fact that Harvard is and should be ranked much higher than UM Baltimore (note: I didn't graduate from Harvard...) If you are an aspiring mathematician, you really should, if you're good enough, aspire to go to Harvard or its peers.
But rankings aren't destiny and there is OF COURSE great value in many places, UM Baltimore included. Jerry Rice, perhaps the greatest receive of all time, didn't go to a standard football powerhouse. And there are Field Medalists who didn't graduate Harvard.
Academic accomplishment isn't in some ways as cut and dried as, say, athletic achievement. But it is competitive and there are some genuine standards that may not be pleasant to openly acknowledge. The Harvard undergraduate math department produces way more high scoring Putnam exam winners than UM Baltimore. The departments are different and, yes, it's just a fact that Harvard is and should be ranked much higher than UM Baltimore (note: I didn't graduate from Harvard...) If you are an aspiring mathematician, you really should, if you're good enough, aspire to go to Harvard or its peers.
But rankings aren't destiny and there is OF COURSE great value in many places, UM Baltimore included. Jerry Rice, perhaps the greatest receive of all time, didn't go to a standard football powerhouse. And there are Field Medalists who didn't graduate Harvard.
I hate the rankings too but this column doesn't help. I have a child at a fairly decent school per the rankings. Not extremely high but fairly high and of course pricey. They probably have a few students that match your extreme examples -- gay film maker from India that overcame all odds etc. But the average student is fairly weak and the bottom 20% are flat out incompetents. The school struggles to fill its spots. And then each kid pays a different tuition amount. The system is broken and perhaps rigged...
1
One way to chose a college is to consider how much crushing debt you will be saddled with until you retire. Over a lifetime of earnings how will the cost of and elite top school compare with a free or low tuition state college, assuming that the students are equally intelligent and hard working. Will post graduate education be piling more debt upon college debt so that you are working for the bank or finance company?
Here is two questions: Why do banks charge interest on a government guaranteed loan where the have no risk of loss and should only be charging a service fee and why shouldn't government college loans be interest free?
I graduated from Queens College in 1956 and it was free. I went to law school at night while I worked full time and paid my tuition myself. As a trial lawyer no juror ever asked where I went to law school. Neither did they ask me that when I argued before the Court of Appeals.
The best way to choose a college is not how it's rated but which one will not leave you deep in debt and still provide a creditable degree and it helps if you graduate in the top 20%/.
Here is two questions: Why do banks charge interest on a government guaranteed loan where the have no risk of loss and should only be charging a service fee and why shouldn't government college loans be interest free?
I graduated from Queens College in 1956 and it was free. I went to law school at night while I worked full time and paid my tuition myself. As a trial lawyer no juror ever asked where I went to law school. Neither did they ask me that when I argued before the Court of Appeals.
The best way to choose a college is not how it's rated but which one will not leave you deep in debt and still provide a creditable degree and it helps if you graduate in the top 20%/.
Ranking are the American way! How else would we know that we are the most powerful country in the world?
74
Obviously by the quality of our candidates for leadership of the country, and the productivity of our legislative bodies.
1
From rankings, we might also notice how low we rank in educational performance, poverty, childcare, health care, etc.
I follow Bruni's writings frequently, and once again I think he offers a valid critique of a very flawed ranking system. It seems people become more interested in where a student goes rather than what a student does while they are there. This, as a current undergraduate student at a fairly reputable but not top of the list university, is very nerve racking. I keep wondering for graduate admissions or future job prospects, will the people with the power to accept me look beyond the name of my institutions to more meaningful indicators of my potential success like internships, classes or experiences? Or will the name of the school get in the way? Bruni shows that hopefully, they will look at former, at who I am and what I have done rather than where I went.
64
Tony - Colorado
Well, look at Isaac Kinde.
Need I say more ?
Well, look at Isaac Kinde.
Need I say more ?
Frank Bruni writes, "But those rankings are front and center, fostering the idea that schools are brands in competition with one another...Intentionally or not, they fuel a frenzy to get into the most selective schools. They can’t adjust for how well certain colleges serve certain ambitions."
And Bruni is dismayed? Let's be clear: the best students want to attend the best universities, and that's true around the world. Students in Britain work themselves to the bone, studying all hours, to gain admittance to Oxford; French students work incredibly hard to gain admission to a grande ecole or Sciences Po- Paris; Japanese struggle to get into Todai (Tokyo University); while Korean youth dream of attending Seoul National University.
The hardest-working, most intelligent, ambitious, young people naturally want to be accepted by the university that their societies consider the best, to learn the most, and to rise the highest professionally and academically.
Yet Frank Bruni considers that ambition and hard work to be somehow irrelevant? Most of us celebrate the effort, achievements, and drive of those young people. So should he.
And Bruni is dismayed? Let's be clear: the best students want to attend the best universities, and that's true around the world. Students in Britain work themselves to the bone, studying all hours, to gain admittance to Oxford; French students work incredibly hard to gain admission to a grande ecole or Sciences Po- Paris; Japanese struggle to get into Todai (Tokyo University); while Korean youth dream of attending Seoul National University.
The hardest-working, most intelligent, ambitious, young people naturally want to be accepted by the university that their societies consider the best, to learn the most, and to rise the highest professionally and academically.
Yet Frank Bruni considers that ambition and hard work to be somehow irrelevant? Most of us celebrate the effort, achievements, and drive of those young people. So should he.
95
Bruni is not saying that ambition and hard work are irrelevant. He is taking issue with a for-profit institution's rankings of colleges, which can be inaccurate and misleading.
3
But this comment assumes that the US & News Ranking is an accurate reflection of "the best".
It is not. It is and always has been a deeply flawed beauty contest, the intent of which is to SELL magazines. (Not in itself a bad thing, but it's goal is not to educate but to sell magazines.)
First, as Bruni discusses one of the key measures is perception of the institution from high school counselors and university administrators. These are not perceptions of students or the faculty members who teach them. Or measures of how much alumni support their school with financial contributions.
Second, US News changes the weight it gives to its deeply flawed assessments of individual measure each year. It says that it does this to refine and improve its measures, but in reality it allows the rankings to shift each year. If Stamford moves up two spots because of the weighting balance and MIT moves down four points, it allows US NEws to SELL more magazines. You need this year's US NEws ranking because last year's is out of date.
Third, it continues the fiction that the schools that rank high on this report are THE only important places in higher education. That is even though the elite colleges (those that accept less than 25% of applicants) account for 4% of college and undergraduates.
It is not. It is and always has been a deeply flawed beauty contest, the intent of which is to SELL magazines. (Not in itself a bad thing, but it's goal is not to educate but to sell magazines.)
First, as Bruni discusses one of the key measures is perception of the institution from high school counselors and university administrators. These are not perceptions of students or the faculty members who teach them. Or measures of how much alumni support their school with financial contributions.
Second, US News changes the weight it gives to its deeply flawed assessments of individual measure each year. It says that it does this to refine and improve its measures, but in reality it allows the rankings to shift each year. If Stamford moves up two spots because of the weighting balance and MIT moves down four points, it allows US NEws to SELL more magazines. You need this year's US NEws ranking because last year's is out of date.
Third, it continues the fiction that the schools that rank high on this report are THE only important places in higher education. That is even though the elite colleges (those that accept less than 25% of applicants) account for 4% of college and undergraduates.
2
You write: "The hardest-working, most intelligent, ambitious, young people naturally want to be accepted by the university that their societies consider the best, to learn the most, and to rise the highest professionally and academically."
Mr. Bruni is not suggesting otherwise. What he is saying is, to use your phrasing, that the colleges and universities "their societies consider best" are considered "best" for reasons that have nothing whatsoever to do with the quality of the education offered. And, given that the rankings listed in the US News and World Report are what people generally use to decide which schools are "best," he's correct.
Harvard, for example, is a school I would have to assume you would consider one of the best schools in the country/world. Well, approximately half my friends attended Harvard as undergraduates, and not one talks about the great education he or she received. In fact, most talk about professors who are/were clearly more interested in their grad students.
What people DO get by attending one of a handful of elite universities are invaluable connections, bragging rights, and the clout of the school's name and reputation -- a reputation that has little to do with quality of education, and everything to do with perception, as peddled by the US News and World Report.
Mr. Bruni is not suggesting otherwise. What he is saying is, to use your phrasing, that the colleges and universities "their societies consider best" are considered "best" for reasons that have nothing whatsoever to do with the quality of the education offered. And, given that the rankings listed in the US News and World Report are what people generally use to decide which schools are "best," he's correct.
Harvard, for example, is a school I would have to assume you would consider one of the best schools in the country/world. Well, approximately half my friends attended Harvard as undergraduates, and not one talks about the great education he or she received. In fact, most talk about professors who are/were clearly more interested in their grad students.
What people DO get by attending one of a handful of elite universities are invaluable connections, bragging rights, and the clout of the school's name and reputation -- a reputation that has little to do with quality of education, and everything to do with perception, as peddled by the US News and World Report.
3
I believe the author and many commenters miss a big point about these rankings and the value of education offered by the elite colleges. You can get good education at almost any college, and the academic outcome is most heavily reliant on the student's efforts rather than the quality of the university.
However, having a degree from Harvard or MIT or another elite school is almost a guarantee for success. It has little to do with education and a lot to do with brand recognition and network. What these rankings reveal, and sometimes help create, is the brand strength of the university. A strong brand will open a lot of doors, recruiters will call more often, and superiors will introduce you with praise to teams.
Advising parents to ignore these rankings is to advice them to ignore one route to success that they can help their kids exploit to their advantage.
I'm not saying that this is how it's supposed to be. But, alas, this is how it is.
However, having a degree from Harvard or MIT or another elite school is almost a guarantee for success. It has little to do with education and a lot to do with brand recognition and network. What these rankings reveal, and sometimes help create, is the brand strength of the university. A strong brand will open a lot of doors, recruiters will call more often, and superiors will introduce you with praise to teams.
Advising parents to ignore these rankings is to advice them to ignore one route to success that they can help their kids exploit to their advantage.
I'm not saying that this is how it's supposed to be. But, alas, this is how it is.
4
I know a few MIT grads. They have held jobs in staff level career positions where their colleagues were graduates from other schools. One is struggling now because she doesn't know how to sell herself. There are a handful of elite graduates who go into consulting which launches either a career or an elite b-school. Some go to medical school but you can get into med school from mid-rank schools. But as someone who has been a corporate gypsy, I meet managers and directors from all places. The mid-twentieth century idea that the high level research of professors filters down in an introductory lecture, which the professor gives to keep his hands dirty in teaching 18-year olds, needs to be dropped. I think the UMBC model is interesting because it focuses on undergraduate science with access to a large local research community. Also UMBC sounds like a place with a lot of foreign students from their own national elite.
The main thing a student gets from a more competitive school is classmates who are interested in the subject matter, not hard partying.
The main thing a student gets from a more competitive school is classmates who are interested in the subject matter, not hard partying.
1
Thank you! Higher education has ceded decision-making authority to Robert Morse at US News over their admissions and budgeting for priorities. It is absurd that "reputation" (typically measured in boxes to check by a college's name, 1 through 5) is such a large part of his formula. He also favors standardized tests and makes them meaningful factors in ranking, so those tests take on a disproportionate importance in admissions. US News is only alive because of their rankings; they are in fact no more than a marketing ploy. College officials feel they have to play the game in order to maintain enrollment -- and because if they don't give US News the information it demands, Robert Morse arbitrarily assigns punitive values to the missing information in ways that lower a recalcitrant school's ranking, as described some years ago by a college president who had refused to take part. Morse is one of the most destructive, unaccountable forces in American higher education. US News could just publish all the data it collects in a searchable compilation, but rankings sell.
7
Perhaps you would prefer a ranking on level of commitment to "social justice?"
The problem with getting vets, for example, is they are, by definition, much older when they enter college, so most will trend toward schools closer to where they live like large urban state schools. I don't thin most are interested in the college experience." As for rankings, all the top ranked schools could be ranked by the typical high school senior with or without the US news report. The primary fallacy is thinking you can distinguish between number 3 and number 9. Other than that, there is a defensible rationale for the list. Like it or not.
The problem with getting vets, for example, is they are, by definition, much older when they enter college, so most will trend toward schools closer to where they live like large urban state schools. I don't thin most are interested in the college experience." As for rankings, all the top ranked schools could be ranked by the typical high school senior with or without the US news report. The primary fallacy is thinking you can distinguish between number 3 and number 9. Other than that, there is a defensible rationale for the list. Like it or not.
5
You say that there is a defensible rationale, but you don't provide it. So what is there to like or not like?
Did you even read the article?
Social justice wasn't the point. There are many students, or vets, that need to know whether they will be accepted by faculty and piers for who they are and not just how they scored on their SATs. If they just choose a school because its highly ranked and end up being ostracized because of that school's culture they obviously won't do well. Although in a more accepting atmosphere they would thrive. US News's rankings have no clue when it comes to those important issues that, more than many other criteria, will determine a students success.
The two key criteria for an undergraduate education are not even included in the US news rankings:
1. small class size, particularly for freshmen and sophs., so beginning students can interact with the professor and each other. For example, Centre College caps intro. science classes at 32, and the full professor does the lab section capped at 16; at the University of Florida hundreds are in the intro. science classes and lab sections are done by grad students that may or may not speak English well.
2. no graduate or professional students, so the professors have to engage with undergraduates in their research and classes.
1. small class size, particularly for freshmen and sophs., so beginning students can interact with the professor and each other. For example, Centre College caps intro. science classes at 32, and the full professor does the lab section capped at 16; at the University of Florida hundreds are in the intro. science classes and lab sections are done by grad students that may or may not speak English well.
2. no graduate or professional students, so the professors have to engage with undergraduates in their research and classes.
5
Just as a point of information, US News rankings do use the percentage of undergraduate classes under 20 students in computing rank (though lab sections and things like independent study or one-on-one student-faculty work are excluded from that computation).
Go, Centre College!
I am a long-term academic who attended to a state university, but have taught at an elite school. One point I have not seen mentioned is the difference between undergrad and grad education. There are a great many excellent schools for undergrad education that are not listed as "top" schools and in many ways are better than elite research universities. My colleagues come from a wide range of undergrad colleges. Our child attended a lesser-regarded school (even though he could have attended my university) for that reason and he benefited greatly from a less hyper-competitive environment.
However, for grad school, especially in STEM fields, the top research universities usually offer greater opportunities based . They are not just the Ivies but public universities like the U California campuses, Wisconsin, Michigan, Washington, and Florida. Find the school that has excellent teaching in the area of interest for undergrad and has excellent research/scholarship faculty for grad school.
However, for grad school, especially in STEM fields, the top research universities usually offer greater opportunities based . They are not just the Ivies but public universities like the U California campuses, Wisconsin, Michigan, Washington, and Florida. Find the school that has excellent teaching in the area of interest for undergrad and has excellent research/scholarship faculty for grad school.
14
Measuring quality of education is notoriously difficult, but if you ask faculty or students from the second 50 of any of the rankings whether they would have preferred a school in the top 50, you'll get a clear answer despite the anecdotes this article sought out. Diversity is great in theory. But if you have to choose between establishing a large group of friends during an undergraduate career at Harvard or at UMBC, almost everyone goes with Harvard every time. And in practice the top schools are achieving diversity by skimming of the top students from various groups. These colleges function as a selection tool to identify and build networks among the next generation of leaders. For that purpose, a ranking system is the main point because you need to go to the schools that are recognized as recruiting and connecting the best students. I am not saying I like this system. But it is not helping students to critique the system for doing what it was designed to do.
2
Louis Menard in the New Yorker (June 6, 2011) describes this sorting function of U.S. higher education. Most of us would like to think education is just about helping students build skills, knowledge and dispositions, but our schools also serve to sort students into classes akin to socio-economic classes and socialize them to assume places in those classes. It's a self-reinforcing system: some students prefer elite institutions because they promise access to elite strata in society. Employers regard elite schools as a source of certain kinds of talent. There isn't much demand on such schools to do much for the students (though that's not to say they don't take their educational missions seriously). Taken together with the practice of admitting legacy students preferentially, and you have a system of higher education that mostly re-enforces class structure, just as our K-12 educational system does. It's not the system of our ideals. To change things, students (and their parents and counselors) and employers or graduate schools need to take fewer short cuts in their evaluation of schools, job candidates or prospective graduate/professional students.
Only one thing determines the quality of a university: the quality of its faculty. And quality includes teaching ability as well as scholarship. If the faculty members in a department are among the best in their field, and if enough departments within the university are staffed by faculty of that caliber, the university will be one of the best. All other factors are irrelevant, and so are the U.S. News rankings.
3
Many Universities have Teaching assistants stand in for their famous faculty. Regular students that have matriculated will be lucky to even see many of them. I would posit that the bigger vallue of famous faculty would be in graduate school where you might have a chance to interact with them. The question needs to be asked when presented with a fabled faculty is whether they actually teach undergrads.
2
What about students, JEB? Can't get great students without great faculty, but can't have a great University without great students. As a thought experiment, imagine if Hitler or Stalin built a University with their country's most brilliant faculty and then filled the student body with conformist drones. Probably not a great University.
I agree completely with your article. The problem is graduating from an elite university gives you a leg up in the oh so competitive job market.
It's a fact. And until that changes, if people can afford it, they will choose what is perceived as the best.
As a person who graduated from an "elite" university, I can tell you very clearly not all educations are created equal. I have worked with many college grads who are embarrassing in their lack of basic education that would have held them back from a diploma at my University. How to actually quantify that, I don't know.
It's a fact. And until that changes, if people can afford it, they will choose what is perceived as the best.
As a person who graduated from an "elite" university, I can tell you very clearly not all educations are created equal. I have worked with many college grads who are embarrassing in their lack of basic education that would have held them back from a diploma at my University. How to actually quantify that, I don't know.
27
Rankings often ignore meaningful specifics. Schools (often the big ones like University of Michigan or endowed Ivies like Princeton) with extensive libraries allow for competitive research and enable undergraduates a better chance at grad schools. The labs and museum collections do much the same. Field research that includes undergrads and builds career skills is bankable even without grad school.
Unusual programs with few competitors but invisible in rankings hold special merit. Mass Maritime has simulation software that allows students to learn how to steer a ship into every harbor in the world as well as supply chain management. It also is the least expensive Massachusetts state school with an average first year salary of $70K. It is not a party school and demands good computer skills. Still it is not the place for a marketing degree unless knowledge of IoT in supply chain is more important and marketing for grad school.
Unusual programs with few competitors but invisible in rankings hold special merit. Mass Maritime has simulation software that allows students to learn how to steer a ship into every harbor in the world as well as supply chain management. It also is the least expensive Massachusetts state school with an average first year salary of $70K. It is not a party school and demands good computer skills. Still it is not the place for a marketing degree unless knowledge of IoT in supply chain is more important and marketing for grad school.
2
I recently have finished the college application process and enrolled as a freshman in University. Although I was accepted into a few highly ranked institutions, I did not find them to be any superior to the ones that were ranked lower really. I realized that most top ranked schools flaunted high SAT/ACT scores rather than the caliber of student that it accepted. In a recent article that I read, I saw that many of these top ranked institutions were actually in legal problems for things such as advertising false admission statistics or claiming that they are need blind when in reality they do not accept students who need aid in order to attend. Most schools on these lists also were mostly private universities that cost upwards of $50,000 a year. Public institutions outside of U Michigan were mostly unlisted. There are plenty of respected, cheap, and more diverse options than the 15 colleges US News ranks as worthy of our time.
7
I am a veteran and was educated on the old GI Bill. I attended a wide range of colleges, including community colleges, UC Berkeley, Columbia University, and the University of Geneva, Switzerland. I have also taught at universities in Switzerland and Australia.
I do not believe the education at elite universities is necessarily superior to lesser known institutions. I had some excellent classes at community colleges and some terrible classes at the more “elite” universities. My professors at elite universities were far less available to students than the professors at smaller, less elite schools. In the end, I found that you get out of an education what you put into it, and access to the professors is a very important part of that. Overall, I would prefer to study at an institution where the teachers are more focused on the students than on research.
Nevertheless, attending a “better” university does open many doors that may be closed to those who attend universities with less lofty reputations. Graduates of highly ranked universities are more likely to be offered better jobs and places in more prestigious graduate schools. Attending an elite school also means you will surrounded by peers who are intelligent, motivated, and high achievers. For these reasons, I would always recommend going to the best school an individual can get into. The rankings are not perfect, but they do provide a useful guide to students in choosing the most appropriate university.
I do not believe the education at elite universities is necessarily superior to lesser known institutions. I had some excellent classes at community colleges and some terrible classes at the more “elite” universities. My professors at elite universities were far less available to students than the professors at smaller, less elite schools. In the end, I found that you get out of an education what you put into it, and access to the professors is a very important part of that. Overall, I would prefer to study at an institution where the teachers are more focused on the students than on research.
Nevertheless, attending a “better” university does open many doors that may be closed to those who attend universities with less lofty reputations. Graduates of highly ranked universities are more likely to be offered better jobs and places in more prestigious graduate schools. Attending an elite school also means you will surrounded by peers who are intelligent, motivated, and high achievers. For these reasons, I would always recommend going to the best school an individual can get into. The rankings are not perfect, but they do provide a useful guide to students in choosing the most appropriate university.
37
I saw a job listing recently that specified that the applicant should be a recent MBA from a "top 5 program". Along similar lines, there are statistics showing that 80% of all tenured engineering professors graduated from the top 10 schools. I attended UMBC years ago myself, but I noticed that the big oil company where I landed after receiving my chemical engineering degree gave more weight in hiring to a C student from Princeton than the valedictorian from the University of Maryland. There is a reason that parents and students obsess about these rankings. Although minorities are aggressively recruited for graduate schools and corporations striving to improve their diversity, for everyone else, the school they attend is destiny.
22
While I agree that there are advantages to having funding for superior labs and facilities, the "elite" schools continue to attract the best because the public has bought into the branding. The previous article by Mr. Bruni perpetuates this, by suggesting that our veterans deserve the best which is, of course, the most selective/expensive. As long as the public judges someone by the college which they attend and not the quality of their work, employers will do the same. A Timex tells time as well as a Rolex.
14
In my 33 years as university professor and administrator, it became increasingly the case that the ranking tail was wagging the academic dog. That is, my own employer began tailoring its values, programs, facilities, and public relations in order to be ranked higher in the categories that US News and World Report judged to be most important.. And, as we all know, those categories did not include research achievement, but focused on dorm life, acceptance rate and other categories that did not necessarily reflect academic excellence. The argument for doing so was that the university would attract better applicants whom we could reject at a higher rate in order to rise in rankings that were based in part on rejection rate. The truth is, a student can get a terrific education at a thousand institutions in this country.
20
I had the good fortune of being able to attend both a "name" university and law school.
There is no doubt in my mind that graduating from an elite institution can be useful on occasion, but not nearly enough to be worth taking on a mountain of student debt, or to fret about how one's alma mater is ranked by Business Week.
Smart, competent people have a way of floating to the top of the heap -- that's one reason so many of them end up at Harvard and Yale. But where you go to college isn't the end of the story.
Every "prestigious" law firm has some very successful attorneys from "no-name" schools. (One Wall Street firm had a longtime partner who hadn't even graduated from law school -- she had qualified to take the NY bar exam based upon work in a law office.) And the ranks of unemployed lawyers include a lot of Ivy Leaguers.
There is no doubt in my mind that graduating from an elite institution can be useful on occasion, but not nearly enough to be worth taking on a mountain of student debt, or to fret about how one's alma mater is ranked by Business Week.
Smart, competent people have a way of floating to the top of the heap -- that's one reason so many of them end up at Harvard and Yale. But where you go to college isn't the end of the story.
Every "prestigious" law firm has some very successful attorneys from "no-name" schools. (One Wall Street firm had a longtime partner who hadn't even graduated from law school -- she had qualified to take the NY bar exam based upon work in a law office.) And the ranks of unemployed lawyers include a lot of Ivy Leaguers.
14
Regarding your last paragraph:
There are in fact precious few attorneys at top-tier law firms who did not attend top-tier law schools. This is not a matter of opinion – – just take a look at the online bio sections of the top law firm websites. The very few attorneys at these firms who attended non-top-tier schools graduated number one or two in their classes -- anything below that would not even get a look.
The last sentence of your last paragraph, however, is true.
There are in fact precious few attorneys at top-tier law firms who did not attend top-tier law schools. This is not a matter of opinion – – just take a look at the online bio sections of the top law firm websites. The very few attorneys at these firms who attended non-top-tier schools graduated number one or two in their classes -- anything below that would not even get a look.
The last sentence of your last paragraph, however, is true.
Can't speak for liberal arts colleges but for those specializing in the sciences and engineering Frank is sadly wrong. Many factors enter into obtaining a superior science education; and one very important ingredient is money. Specifically money to equip the best labs, hire the best faculty, and support the most and deepest research. Schools like Stanford, MIT, Hopkins, Carnegie and a few others have money in spades for these purposes; and the students benefit. These schools also have the affiliations with the most advanced and financially endowed tech companies; again to the students benefit in cross learning experiences.
The leaders of these companies, as a matter of operations and policy, draw and share expertise with these schools; easily, because they are usually among the graduates of same. If a student has the IQ, work attitude, inquisitiveness, and luck to get into one of these very few schools then they absolutely should.
The leaders of these companies, as a matter of operations and policy, draw and share expertise with these schools; easily, because they are usually among the graduates of same. If a student has the IQ, work attitude, inquisitiveness, and luck to get into one of these very few schools then they absolutely should.
9
The Military Times has a list of best colleges for veterans. The Princeton Review also ranks colleges. One thing students and their parents should consider is job recruitment at the colleges of interest for careers related to the major. For example, if someone wants to be a Big 4 accountant, he or she should investigate how Big 4 accounting firms view the school and if and to what extent they recruit at the schools of interest. If someone wants to work at Goldman or Bain, they might look at the ivies because it is known that Goldman and Bain recruit many students from the ivies.
1
I have to wonder how many students end up in the career or even the major they planned as high school seniors.
Stark reality: elite colleges are the hardest to get in to and attract the most motivated students. They provide the most financial aid and have become pretty close to meritocracies. They are not perfect, but the prestige of their degrees holds weight with employers, graduate schools, etc. They are our nation's filtering system for the best and the brightest. Look at Obama's cabinet, the Supreme Court, etc. To wish it were otherwise is fantasy.
19
Look at Obama's cabinet, the Supreme Court, etc. and their failure to understand how the rest of us live.
The best and the brightest have been running the country for years. How's that working out?
While full of praise for the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, all of which is probably deserved, Frank Bruni leaves out less praise-worthy details:
The 6-year graduation rate for UMBC is hovers between 60% and 63%. In other words, 1/3 of UMBC students will not have earned a degree six years after enrolling as freshman but they will likely have incurred at least some debt. The schools at the top of the US News rankings graduate a significantly higher percentage of students after just 4 years.
UMBC has a student-faculty ratio of 19:1 and enroll at least 30 students if not 50 or 100 or more students in 1/3 of its classes. The student faculty ratio at schools like Williams and Middlebury and Bowdoin, 3 colleges ranked in the top 10 by US News, have just 9 or fewer students for every member of the faculty and virtually no class enrolls 50 students; most fewer than 20. At these schools, the professors teach every class, know all of their students by name and their students know that there is no place to hide.
Nearly 3000 of UMBCs 14,000 students are graduate students which means that undergraduates are competing for the opportunity to get to know and work with UMBC's faculty (and competing with 11,000 undergraduates for a few minutes of a faculty member's office hours). Undergraduates do not compete with graduate students at small, liberal arts colleges.
There is a lot more to determining a great school than how well it recruits veterans.
The 6-year graduation rate for UMBC is hovers between 60% and 63%. In other words, 1/3 of UMBC students will not have earned a degree six years after enrolling as freshman but they will likely have incurred at least some debt. The schools at the top of the US News rankings graduate a significantly higher percentage of students after just 4 years.
UMBC has a student-faculty ratio of 19:1 and enroll at least 30 students if not 50 or 100 or more students in 1/3 of its classes. The student faculty ratio at schools like Williams and Middlebury and Bowdoin, 3 colleges ranked in the top 10 by US News, have just 9 or fewer students for every member of the faculty and virtually no class enrolls 50 students; most fewer than 20. At these schools, the professors teach every class, know all of their students by name and their students know that there is no place to hide.
Nearly 3000 of UMBCs 14,000 students are graduate students which means that undergraduates are competing for the opportunity to get to know and work with UMBC's faculty (and competing with 11,000 undergraduates for a few minutes of a faculty member's office hours). Undergraduates do not compete with graduate students at small, liberal arts colleges.
There is a lot more to determining a great school than how well it recruits veterans.
54
While DW's central contention, that recruiting military veterans is an insufficient measure, strikes me as valid, and his post raises other valid points as well, by my (dim) lights, this one seems off the mark:
"The 6-year graduation rate for UMBC hovers between 60% and 63%."
Speculatively, this number seems more a function of less selective admissions, thus offering broader opportunity. Hence, UMBC will almost certainly admit more students who are academically incapable. Moreover, since on average its student population comes from less wealthy families than, say, Stanford or Princeton, could it be that economic pressure, not lack of ability, causes more students to drop out or take more than six years to finish? Having deep-pocketed parents helps, not just being able to stay in school, but also in planning. One never has to ask, as I did 30-odd years ago, "Do I have to drop out and work for a semester or year?" (Never had to because of aid, reasonable tuition, and the income from work-study jobs was actually meaningful, but having to consider it repeatedly caused no little anxiety.)
Second, more speculatively, maybe UMBC hasn't adopted the "gentlemen's C" (inflated now to a "B-" or "B") with which some of the elite schools pamper overworked, stressed-out former high school seniors with status-conscious--and full tuition paying--parents. Maybe UMBC enforces standards better.
"The 6-year graduation rate for UMBC hovers between 60% and 63%."
Speculatively, this number seems more a function of less selective admissions, thus offering broader opportunity. Hence, UMBC will almost certainly admit more students who are academically incapable. Moreover, since on average its student population comes from less wealthy families than, say, Stanford or Princeton, could it be that economic pressure, not lack of ability, causes more students to drop out or take more than six years to finish? Having deep-pocketed parents helps, not just being able to stay in school, but also in planning. One never has to ask, as I did 30-odd years ago, "Do I have to drop out and work for a semester or year?" (Never had to because of aid, reasonable tuition, and the income from work-study jobs was actually meaningful, but having to consider it repeatedly caused no little anxiety.)
Second, more speculatively, maybe UMBC hasn't adopted the "gentlemen's C" (inflated now to a "B-" or "B") with which some of the elite schools pamper overworked, stressed-out former high school seniors with status-conscious--and full tuition paying--parents. Maybe UMBC enforces standards better.
You note that UMBC's 6 year graduation rate is 60% compared to rates as high as 98% at the most elite universities. However, these rates don't compare like students. UMBC admits much weaker students. In order for graduation rates comparison to be meaningful, it must compare similar students, perhaps matched by GPA and test scores. As we don't have that data, I can't say for sure, but my guess is that students with GPA's and test scores that match the elite university student body probably also have very high graduation rates.
Let's be honest. The rankings of a school does provide a utilitarian tool for college selection. To argue that there is one formula, or ranking of schools that is appropriate for everyone is foolish. And this argument is nothing new, nor are the arguments for and against novel. Rehash.
But, UMBC is the perfect model to follow. Once derided locally as U.C.L.A. (University of Catonsville Left of Arbutus), it is now a school everyone in the area knowingly respects. And though only mentioned briefly, Dr, Hrabowski's formula is not a secret; I'm sure he'd love to share it with anyone listening. It's simple: education does not have to be competitive. My daughter has benefited immensely from having had three Meyerhoff scholars roommates for the last two years. Robyn has been the perfect tutor for my daughter. They were fiends in high school.
Just as significant, because its rise is recent, UMBC does not have the entrenched culture of old. No student feels like they do not belong because there are slave portraits on the walls or competing against a 5th generation entitled legacy admitted on name alone. The connections here are in the STEM fields.
UMBC might not be prestigious, but it sure is the rational choice. And between the two, rational ranks over prestige.
But, UMBC is the perfect model to follow. Once derided locally as U.C.L.A. (University of Catonsville Left of Arbutus), it is now a school everyone in the area knowingly respects. And though only mentioned briefly, Dr, Hrabowski's formula is not a secret; I'm sure he'd love to share it with anyone listening. It's simple: education does not have to be competitive. My daughter has benefited immensely from having had three Meyerhoff scholars roommates for the last two years. Robyn has been the perfect tutor for my daughter. They were fiends in high school.
Just as significant, because its rise is recent, UMBC does not have the entrenched culture of old. No student feels like they do not belong because there are slave portraits on the walls or competing against a 5th generation entitled legacy admitted on name alone. The connections here are in the STEM fields.
UMBC might not be prestigious, but it sure is the rational choice. And between the two, rational ranks over prestige.
16
As a veteran who graduated from a non-"elite" school, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, I thank you Mr. Bruni. This could be one of the most valuable articles any person, especially veteran, ever on selecting a school.
John Jay has about 700 veterans, the most of any school in New York (City and State) and more than almost any school in the U.S. They have instituted some of the most progressive student-veteran programs anywhere. They also concentrate on getting a job after graduation, maybe the most important factor, by teaming with many institutions (JP Morgan, for example) who provide mentors and guidance.
The USNaWR rankings are useless in my opinion and I never used them when I selected my school. I picked one in my hometown (where admittedly I had spent may years away from while in the Navy) where I thought I would receive the best education in the field I selected. I never regret my decision, in fact, I often reflect on what a great choice I made. Thank you.
John Jay has about 700 veterans, the most of any school in New York (City and State) and more than almost any school in the U.S. They have instituted some of the most progressive student-veteran programs anywhere. They also concentrate on getting a job after graduation, maybe the most important factor, by teaming with many institutions (JP Morgan, for example) who provide mentors and guidance.
The USNaWR rankings are useless in my opinion and I never used them when I selected my school. I picked one in my hometown (where admittedly I had spent may years away from while in the Navy) where I thought I would receive the best education in the field I selected. I never regret my decision, in fact, I often reflect on what a great choice I made. Thank you.
19
Those of us who have been educated/taught in both elite and mass institutions are well-aware of the importance of (A) faculty committed to educational excellence and (B) a critical mass of students with the same orientation. As it has become increasingly common to assign worth to faculty based on research grants, prestigious publications, or other accomplishments that can be commoditized, i.e., turned into something that can be sold to prospective students or research funders it is hardly surprising to find faculty responding to such priorities out of rational self-interest. And when in many non-elite institutions students face economic pressures to hold employment, social pressures to attend to family needs, and value systems denigrating intellectual rigor and accomplishment it is hardly surprising their engagement with academic pursuits center on surviving the current term, not lofty long-term goals. In such settings faculty may attempt to have a modest impact upon the many or seek out those most responsive and productive. And as in many cases it is difficult to tell who has truly gained from exposure to the substance and presentation of a given course until long after students leave the classroom we are left with imperfect indicators of educational impact. One consequence is those from non-elite institutions face huge obstacles to do further work in elite schools even when capable because their pedigree stigmatizes them as probably unprepared for intellectual rigor.
8
In the late 60's I was a foreign student at the university of New Mexico in Alburquerque, school of engineering. In a course of applied mathematics the professor was a scientist at the Los Alamos labs, he had a penchant that he shared with us for applying his knowledge to break some of the Las Vegas games. It resulted in fascinating few extra lectures combining sciences with leasure (he had not succeeded in that endeavor, but it was clear to us that the pleasure was in trying).
At the very opposite end I took an American literature course (in high school in Italy I did the same but the texts were in Italian), the professor, mr Frumkin, was a 'minor' poet of the San Francisco 'school' (Ginsberg et al). Besides the classic books I discovered Gregory Corso and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, for me fellow 'italians'! And one gem he introduced me to was "Pictures from Brueghel and Other Poems" by William Carlos Williams........
The point of it all being that one can be lucky enough to have enrichment and enjoyment in colleges that are probably not even ranked.
I ended up an engineer designing 'chips' in the hi-tech pioneering days of the early 70's:)!
At the very opposite end I took an American literature course (in high school in Italy I did the same but the texts were in Italian), the professor, mr Frumkin, was a 'minor' poet of the San Francisco 'school' (Ginsberg et al). Besides the classic books I discovered Gregory Corso and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, for me fellow 'italians'! And one gem he introduced me to was "Pictures from Brueghel and Other Poems" by William Carlos Williams........
The point of it all being that one can be lucky enough to have enrichment and enjoyment in colleges that are probably not even ranked.
I ended up an engineer designing 'chips' in the hi-tech pioneering days of the early 70's:)!
18
As if Williams, Corso, and Ferlinghetti are esoteric?
These posts are replete with intellectual snobs.
Remember, for example, Robert McNamara, once one of the "whiz kids", a quintessential elite college graduate, like many of his colleagues. He engineered the Vietnam War. He did to the US, using the tools of that era, what a lot of elite graduates do today to companies they infest: management by spreadsheet.
McNamara was reviled, until he said that the Vietnam War was a mistake. After that he was despised.
In fairness, he did say he personally made mistakes. After 55,000 dead for no good reason, I doubt anyone accepted his contrition.
Remember, for example, Robert McNamara, once one of the "whiz kids", a quintessential elite college graduate, like many of his colleagues. He engineered the Vietnam War. He did to the US, using the tools of that era, what a lot of elite graduates do today to companies they infest: management by spreadsheet.
McNamara was reviled, until he said that the Vietnam War was a mistake. After that he was despised.
In fairness, he did say he personally made mistakes. After 55,000 dead for no good reason, I doubt anyone accepted his contrition.
26
You're basing your entire argument on Robert McNamara?
1
And Harvard gave us Kissinger. So? Your post is way off topic.
Just a quick note on his spreadsheets though: there are seat belts in cars today because he looked at the numbers.
Over the last decade or so, I've had the pleasure of teaching several veterans at a suburban state college and an urban community college. With the single exception of a student with PTSD, they were among the most mature, hardest-working, reliable and engaged students I've ever had.
I also taught for several years at a private university--one which always ranks high on these ridiculous lists--but I never met a veteran there.
If US News wanted to perform a service--which of course it doesn't--it would rank shampoos. There are far too many shampoos, and it's impossible to tell them apart.
I also taught for several years at a private university--one which always ranks high on these ridiculous lists--but I never met a veteran there.
If US News wanted to perform a service--which of course it doesn't--it would rank shampoos. There are far too many shampoos, and it's impossible to tell them apart.
50
Better yet, they should rank mattresses.
1
America has an aristocracy. Eligibility for it depends importantly on one's educational pedigree. Graduates of two schools -- Harvard and Yale -- dominate the national scene in a country of over 300 million with many strong institutions of higher education. Check the current Supreme Court, for example.
24
The rankings not only ridiculous but they data they use to make them is flawed.
Many colleges, especially private ones, now use superscoring, where they take the highest sub-score for separate testing sessions for admission's purposes. This inflates their reported SAT score.
In addition, it's a curious thing that in California, more than 10% of high school graduates are in the top 10% of their class. Such is why so many University of California campuses rank so highly.
Many colleges, especially private ones, now use superscoring, where they take the highest sub-score for separate testing sessions for admission's purposes. This inflates their reported SAT score.
In addition, it's a curious thing that in California, more than 10% of high school graduates are in the top 10% of their class. Such is why so many University of California campuses rank so highly.
2
Mr. Bruni, I seldom agree with you, but this is a remarkable column, one of the best I have read. It is intelligent, insightful, and hopeful. I recently re-read Malcom Gladwell's David and Goliath, wherein he makes a great case for the benefits of pursuing a STEM education at a so-called second-tier school, instead of attending one of the most elite schools. I have two seventeen-year-old children who will be applying to college soon, and they have both done well academically, but I have tried to prepare them for them for the fact that even most of the best students will be rejected by the most selective schools. I have tried to focus them on the merits of colleges and universities that might not be considered "elite," but offer a great education and a great experience. Thank you for capturing this so eloquently.
24
Some college policies are influenced by a desire to improve the school's U.S. News rankings. This shows how the existence and necessity of competition warps any institution whose official purpose is not winning the competition. So businesses are not warped, since their purpose is winning. But such entities as schools and charities, and scientific research or cultural organizations that must compete for funding, will find constant pressure to fulfill their goals in such ways as to get a competitive advantage.
Everybody has to compete because competition is our religion and because our society is structured so we have to compete. Our heights are very high but with room for only a relative few, our depths are squalid and depressing, and the spaces between, although numerous, are not stable or secure. So our situation is always competitive.
The competitive admission to school prepares for the competitive school, which prepares for the competitive job market and career. Finding something you enjoy doing and learning to do it well is secondary to the competition. Competition keeps us on our toes when we would be better off in other positions. Those who enjoy competition and are uncomfortable in its absence have succeeded in the competition to shape a society that reflects their values above all others. These are not the values of a college education.
Everybody has to compete because competition is our religion and because our society is structured so we have to compete. Our heights are very high but with room for only a relative few, our depths are squalid and depressing, and the spaces between, although numerous, are not stable or secure. So our situation is always competitive.
The competitive admission to school prepares for the competitive school, which prepares for the competitive job market and career. Finding something you enjoy doing and learning to do it well is secondary to the competition. Competition keeps us on our toes when we would be better off in other positions. Those who enjoy competition and are uncomfortable in its absence have succeeded in the competition to shape a society that reflects their values above all others. These are not the values of a college education.
6
I have frequently had the experience since graduating from college of encountering people, particularly at work, who take special pains to try to convince themselves and everyone around me that my having gone to Harvard is really no big deal, and who do their best to diminish and dismiss that accomplishment. I don't ever disparage the schools they went to. I always assume the people I encounter in life are my intellectual equals unless they prove otherwise, but schools are simply not all the same. Harvard was undeniably a very special place to go to school, and it provides a superior education. I attended a class, for example, in which I was the only student, and there were two professors. The question of whether that made sense economically or otherwise never entered into the matter. I was interested in the topic, and no other undergraduate was, and two professors were required to teach it. I took an Asian art class in which we were brought into the University's archives to view and evaluate for ourselves one-of-a-kind pieces not available anywhere else, or in just one or two other places in the world. I took a class with a professor who knew and worked with most of the modern U.S. presidents. My roommate was European royalty. Look -- there are many fantastic colleges, but Nobel laureates teach at Harvard. If you are privileged to go to college, bravo for you and I wish you a most wonderful experience. If you are fortunate enough to get into Harvard, you should go.
55
Uh not sure what your comment is about. The articles talks about the gamesmanship that goes on with US New and World Reports college rankings and how many schools offer outstanding value and education regardless of where they rank in this scheme. Undoubtedly it is unintended but your comment comes off a bit smug and defensive. Your roommate was “European Royalty”, well bravo, there’s a real life experience for you. What sage advice in your last sentence - as if someone who thought that Harvard was the school for them and took the time to apply and got accepted needs your endorsement to matriculate. Really?
And if US News and World report used that as criteria, then their rankings would mean something. So this column is not at odds with your more subjective assessment.
Okay, I'll bite--how did you get into Harvard? Legacy, luck, high test scores, a great invention/great essay/? What is your advice for someone from, say, a small rural Midwestern high school who aspires to an Ivy college experience?
I've been a professor for more than 25 years. During that time I did three stints in university public relations. The rankings are a nightmare because students and their parents have begun to rely on them and to believe them. I don't know of a president or provost anywhere that doesn't think the rankings are complete bull. Professors put little faith in the U.S. News polls. I think the rankings are pure marketing genius and completely bogus. One thing's for sure, if a school ranks high, it's brags about and stuffs them into recruiting materials. If a school's ranking has dropped, you're more apt to see a school publicly question the validity of the rankings. It's ironic how a failed news magazine has managed to remain relevant and alive by assigning single numbers of value to organizations that have literally thousands of variables.
122
In a way, the rankings do serve a purpose. They sort the superficial, obnoxious type-As from those wanting a real education.
I have taught in all types of colleges. The Ivies are filled with well prepared students, no doubt, who absolutely cannot get a C. Even the fellow from a 12-student seminar who showed up so infrequently that I didn't recognize him when he had the audacity to complain about his grade. He couldn't believe that he was looking at a C. I couldn't believe that I even gave him a C. He deserved an F, but I was advised not to flunk anyone because they were mostly seniors and the class fulfilled a requirement for graduation. I was weak. I should have flunked him, but I was a temporary hire and didn't want to deal with the ramifications of flunking a super-wealthy, silver-spooned scion (which he clearly was).
Apparently he had never gotten a C before.
My bad. I was indirectly bought off. At least the C annoyed him.
I have taught in all types of colleges. The Ivies are filled with well prepared students, no doubt, who absolutely cannot get a C. Even the fellow from a 12-student seminar who showed up so infrequently that I didn't recognize him when he had the audacity to complain about his grade. He couldn't believe that he was looking at a C. I couldn't believe that I even gave him a C. He deserved an F, but I was advised not to flunk anyone because they were mostly seniors and the class fulfilled a requirement for graduation. I was weak. I should have flunked him, but I was a temporary hire and didn't want to deal with the ramifications of flunking a super-wealthy, silver-spooned scion (which he clearly was).
Apparently he had never gotten a C before.
My bad. I was indirectly bought off. At least the C annoyed him.
1
Unfortunately, I know people who were denied tenure in university departments that were desperate to move up in U.S. News & World report rankings. The professors were told they did not do enough to bring up the ranking and were shown the door. Ironically, the professors who did receive tenure in that environment often left for saner places.
1
Thanks for writing this. There is so much more to life than rankings. I say that as someone with a few Ivy League degrees and a few other degrees from "public Ivies" who is employed at a place that is excited to have cracked the top 10 public universities list for two years in a row.
Support for students--including veteran students, 1st generation students, and undocumented students should come before rankings. Paying student workers a living wage should be a goal. Making sure that food and housing insecurity issues our students face should come before fretting about rankings.
Support for students--including veteran students, 1st generation students, and undocumented students should come before rankings. Paying student workers a living wage should be a goal. Making sure that food and housing insecurity issues our students face should come before fretting about rankings.
13
Any ranking system will be imperfect. But some ranking system is needed to make sense of the tremendous variety of similar competing goods. We even rank things like cars and vacuum cleaners, so why not colleges? Colleges cost a lot more, and have a lot more implication for one's future.
If that doesn't convince you, think of why colleges rank students applying to them. Oops, we got more applicants than we have seats. Since we know rankings are not a perfect way to assess a student, let's admit them by a lottery instead.
Instead of spouting deep but empty thoughts about why rankings are evil/wrong, work on making the rankings more actionable and supportive of individual decisions - by colleges and by applicants.
Unfortunately, that is a subject longer than this comment is allowed.
If that doesn't convince you, think of why colleges rank students applying to them. Oops, we got more applicants than we have seats. Since we know rankings are not a perfect way to assess a student, let's admit them by a lottery instead.
Instead of spouting deep but empty thoughts about why rankings are evil/wrong, work on making the rankings more actionable and supportive of individual decisions - by colleges and by applicants.
Unfortunately, that is a subject longer than this comment is allowed.
13
And that's the point. Ranking typically dumb down what is a multi-faceted and complex assessment. That's why vacuums should be and colleges probably shouldn't.
Name brands sell but in college they don't mean superiority. Back in 1970 I was a freshman at State University of New York at Cortland, majoring in history. From the very first intro course I took, I had full professors with PhDs from prestigious universities such as Harvard, the University of Chicago, and Duke. One weekend, I visited the Cornell campus, less than an hour away from Cortland. I went into the campus book store and noticed that the same books were used at Cornell as Cortland. I also noticed that almost every freshmen and sophomore history course at Cornell was taught by graduate assistants. My class sizes ranged from 20-25 per class. At Cornell, graduate assistants were teaching the same courses I was taking in cavernous lecture halls holding over 200 students. If you look at rankings, Cortland doesn't come near Cornell but the only real measure of quality, being taught in small classes by full professors from the start, is clearly in favor of state schools. The problem is a Cornell graduate with a degree in history has a huge advantage over a Cortland grad because of name recognition, not quality of instruction.
69
Mr. Bruni is missing the forest for the trees. The difference between the elite schools and the non-selective students is not the facilities or the professors. It is the students and they are very very different. At the top schools 85-97% of the students graduate while at the typical state school it's less than half. The rankings are only silly if you think 4th is meaningfully different from 6th. But the 6th and 60th school are indeed very very different and is well aware of this. The rankings are really just a reflection of the educated population and have far far less importance than Frank B thinks. The top10-15 schools have been the same schools for many decades after all and long before any rankings mattered.
30
I don't think the rankings are totally irrelevant or useless, just that they are geared toward a simple hierarchical ideal, as if every student should aspire to the top because they are, well, at the top. However, when focusing that way, prospective students tend to neglect fit, i.e. what is best for them as individuals and how a given school might offer that. Some are ready to do independent research, some need close contact with a mentor and nurture, some want the network that comes with a top name, some want to party.
That is why, if you can afford it, visiting schools and talking to students and faculty can be crucially important - not just going to official talks, but actually walking into someone's office or meeting them in the corridors. It lets you get an intuitive feel for a place that goes beyond any kind of ranking.
That being said, I must defend the concept of ranking: it can be one tool in the search. If a student knows him or herself well, a ranking can introduce possibilities for looking into places, i.e. doing deeper research and then hopefully visiting selected ones.
When our daughter was looking, we took her to see her to visit the one she had idealized since she was 12. She was shocked to learn that she didn't like it, even though it was one of the top ranked schools in the world. So, we went to the next one of the list and she loved it, though we wouldn't even have considered it had we not looked at the ranking.
That is why, if you can afford it, visiting schools and talking to students and faculty can be crucially important - not just going to official talks, but actually walking into someone's office or meeting them in the corridors. It lets you get an intuitive feel for a place that goes beyond any kind of ranking.
That being said, I must defend the concept of ranking: it can be one tool in the search. If a student knows him or herself well, a ranking can introduce possibilities for looking into places, i.e. doing deeper research and then hopefully visiting selected ones.
When our daughter was looking, we took her to see her to visit the one she had idealized since she was 12. She was shocked to learn that she didn't like it, even though it was one of the top ranked schools in the world. So, we went to the next one of the list and she loved it, though we wouldn't even have considered it had we not looked at the ranking.
10
Don't blame the colleges for taking advantage of people who don't know what they don't know. That is one of the pillars of social and economic activity in the United States: influencing people to make enthusiastic and emotional decisions that are not in their best interest.
Mistakes about college choice pale in comparison to other, more costly mistakes. President Trump, anyone?
Mistakes about college choice pale in comparison to other, more costly mistakes. President Trump, anyone?
44
Choosing a college is a lot like that Experience conundrum. You know what experience is, right? It is something you get just after you need it.
Thanks for bringing up the issue of these useless and in fact "dangerous" rankings. These ranking provide false information to families looking for a college for their children. They also pervert the decision making process in universities, I work at a large public university and our president and provost have become obsessed with the rankings and are making a number of decisions whose goal is solely to increase the US News Ranking. These decisions are at odds with what is best for our current students and for the long term health of the university. It reminds me of CEOs who do what ever is necessary to drive up stock prices, even when those decisions are not in the long term best interest of the company and its employees.
Rankings do not reflect the experiences of students and the quality of education. Most of the highly ranked universities do not value undergraduate education and teaching, yet parents wrongly assume that the rankings reflect the quality of education their children will receive.
Parents do deserve information about educational quality. BUT the current ranking system does not provide that and worse it has greatly perverted how universities are run.
Rankings do not reflect the experiences of students and the quality of education. Most of the highly ranked universities do not value undergraduate education and teaching, yet parents wrongly assume that the rankings reflect the quality of education their children will receive.
Parents do deserve information about educational quality. BUT the current ranking system does not provide that and worse it has greatly perverted how universities are run.
12
The most important resource in college is one fellow students. An 18-21 yr old mind is capable of acquiring only so much knowledge. What one develops in college are
1) intellectual interest
2) good study habits
3) good habits of reasoning and argumentation
These are almost impossible to acquire in a vacuum. Furthermore, they can't be instilled by a teacher. One must participate in a culture of learning. This requires a focused, intelligent community.
What distinguishes schools like Swarthmore and Penn and wesleyan for schools like UMBC is that at the former about 90% of the students are highly intelligent and focused and at the latter only about 12% are that way. Those 12% maybe be just as smart as the students at the more elite schools, but they are far fewer in number, which makes an intellectual community an impossibility. Certainly schools like UMBC will have a bunch of motivated students who can basically do it all on their own. Kids like that can go anywhere. Schools like Cornell and Tufts and Haverford and Brown and great for very intelligent kids who are not fully committed to education. By being around other highly intelligent kids, those kids become more interested in intellectual development.
1) intellectual interest
2) good study habits
3) good habits of reasoning and argumentation
These are almost impossible to acquire in a vacuum. Furthermore, they can't be instilled by a teacher. One must participate in a culture of learning. This requires a focused, intelligent community.
What distinguishes schools like Swarthmore and Penn and wesleyan for schools like UMBC is that at the former about 90% of the students are highly intelligent and focused and at the latter only about 12% are that way. Those 12% maybe be just as smart as the students at the more elite schools, but they are far fewer in number, which makes an intellectual community an impossibility. Certainly schools like UMBC will have a bunch of motivated students who can basically do it all on their own. Kids like that can go anywhere. Schools like Cornell and Tufts and Haverford and Brown and great for very intelligent kids who are not fully committed to education. By being around other highly intelligent kids, those kids become more interested in intellectual development.
38
I was an undergraduate and then a grad student at two elite US universities, so I know exactly what a "culture of learning" is like. I then ended up teaching at a 4 year school in the SUNY system.
Avery's comment is right on the mark. Over 30+ years I had students who could have done very well anywhere. Some went on to earn PhDs, others had unusual or interesting careers.
But we didn't have many students like that -- maybe one or two a year. Our department cherished those we did have, and did everything we could for them. The college, speaking generally, had very little for them and the rest of the student body seemed uninterested in excellence.
There never was a critical mass of smart kids coming together to form an intellectual community -- there just weren't enough of them.
UMBC seems to be doing right by those students, and I'm glad to hear it.
Avery's comment is right on the mark. Over 30+ years I had students who could have done very well anywhere. Some went on to earn PhDs, others had unusual or interesting careers.
But we didn't have many students like that -- maybe one or two a year. Our department cherished those we did have, and did everything we could for them. The college, speaking generally, had very little for them and the rest of the student body seemed uninterested in excellence.
There never was a critical mass of smart kids coming together to form an intellectual community -- there just weren't enough of them.
UMBC seems to be doing right by those students, and I'm glad to hear it.
28
Perhaps a little cherishing and doing everything you could for those students considered not so smart might have a far greater impact than feeding broccoli to only broccoli lovers. There are a few intellectually gifted students. Most of the rest of us are a product of our wildly varying upbringings and our k-12 education. What we bring to our first freshman class is not, depending on the skill and dedication of the faculty, what we leave with.
2
I have a B.S. in Physics from a small college (the University is larger) in New Haven, CT, class of 1966. Now I ask huh?
As a professor, I am always amazed how much influence is wielded among public college administrators by the rankings of this magazine. Most academics don't read it and writing for it would do nothing for your academic reputation and promotion, but I have heard presidents demand that 'their' college should have an improvement in the rankings as a top goal for the year. What a sad case of the tail wagging the dog.
After a long academic career involving a small Christian college, a large state university, an elite liberal arts college, two Ivies, the City University of New York, and universities in Europe, I have found that the good students are equally good wherever you go. It is fair to say that elite institutions generally have a higher proportion of good students than less elite ones. What is more important is the self-assuredness of elite institutions whose faculty feel much freer to do what they consider to work well, while administrators at the lesser institutions don't want to give their faculty that freedom.
After a long academic career involving a small Christian college, a large state university, an elite liberal arts college, two Ivies, the City University of New York, and universities in Europe, I have found that the good students are equally good wherever you go. It is fair to say that elite institutions generally have a higher proportion of good students than less elite ones. What is more important is the self-assuredness of elite institutions whose faculty feel much freer to do what they consider to work well, while administrators at the lesser institutions don't want to give their faculty that freedom.
41
I learned long after I left the university that the differences between different schools was not reflected in ratings, or even in college guides. I also learned that different schools will suit different students. One may very well need a college education to even begin to choose the proper college.
I also learned that some students will learn, no matter what they do, and that some will not learn, no matter what they do. The school makes only a little difference for either of those groups, although more for the former. The difference matters most for the majority in the middle, so more effort should be spent on those students. But it is very difficult to match the student to the college.
There are other things that I have learned about colleges, like you may not learn what you learned in college until many years afterwards, that what you get from a class may not be what the class is about, and that the path you choose may not be the path you are ultimately led to.
If all this seems confusing, I will end with one experience I had. The best discussion about how to choose a college came when I took my niece to discuss how she should choose with a professor I know. I would recommend that any college-bound student try to do that.
I also learned that some students will learn, no matter what they do, and that some will not learn, no matter what they do. The school makes only a little difference for either of those groups, although more for the former. The difference matters most for the majority in the middle, so more effort should be spent on those students. But it is very difficult to match the student to the college.
There are other things that I have learned about colleges, like you may not learn what you learned in college until many years afterwards, that what you get from a class may not be what the class is about, and that the path you choose may not be the path you are ultimately led to.
If all this seems confusing, I will end with one experience I had. The best discussion about how to choose a college came when I took my niece to discuss how she should choose with a professor I know. I would recommend that any college-bound student try to do that.
5
Some colleges offer highly specialized programs that are self-selecting; that is, applicants are highly motivated to go to that school, while everyone else isn't interested. Such a school thus has a very high acceptance rate. But since number of applicants vs. acceptances is the primary metric in rating schools, these schools get low rankings.
Another major metric, particularly for graduate professional schools, is the number of graduates working in that field. But the well-publicized case against Thomas Jefferson School of Law revealed how corrupt such numbers are. (Those working as legal secretaries, or who who have worked briefly, or even had jobs flipping burgers, were included.)
Another major metric, particularly for graduate professional schools, is the number of graduates working in that field. But the well-publicized case against Thomas Jefferson School of Law revealed how corrupt such numbers are. (Those working as legal secretaries, or who who have worked briefly, or even had jobs flipping burgers, were included.)
1
High schools assign all their students grades, and then rank them. Colleges examine all those grades, and then require students to take an hours-long exam that assigns the student a single number--and of course a percentile ranking. When students apply, they are chosen primarily based upon these numbers, with occasional weight given to some intangibles.
Colleges use numbers on their students. But for some reason it's stupid for students to use some numbers when they're picking colleges?
Of course, the colleges will say "we take so much more into consideration than numbers." Okay, I will grant them that. But somehow they (and Bruni) think that students are too stupid to take more than US News into consideration when they are picking colleges? They think students will not look at what field of study they want, distance from home, price, what they felt on their tour, etc.?
These pieces decrying rankings are always a rich mix of hypocrisy and sanctimony. Somehow the students who are opening their wallets are not entitled to some of the same objectivity that colleges claim they seek when they rank their applicants.
Colleges use numbers on their students. But for some reason it's stupid for students to use some numbers when they're picking colleges?
Of course, the colleges will say "we take so much more into consideration than numbers." Okay, I will grant them that. But somehow they (and Bruni) think that students are too stupid to take more than US News into consideration when they are picking colleges? They think students will not look at what field of study they want, distance from home, price, what they felt on their tour, etc.?
These pieces decrying rankings are always a rich mix of hypocrisy and sanctimony. Somehow the students who are opening their wallets are not entitled to some of the same objectivity that colleges claim they seek when they rank their applicants.
7
The rankings fetish is more acute for foreign students. Asian and Middle Eastern families are fixated on Harvard and maybe Stanford. On Quora, an advice site, a frequent question is "How do I get into Harvard?" One student said that he did not get into Harvard, but he did get into Cornell. His father called him "a disgrace to the family." Many US families have the same Sick mindset. With this kind of ignorance about higher education measured solely as status symbol, is it any wonder that U.S. News rankings make everyone crazy?
There are a thousand or more excellent colleges in North America. Students and their families have to stop seeking prestige and insane (and frequently inflated) selectivity as the sole measure of educational quality and start doing their homework, selecting the school (size, location, special features, social composition) where the particular student will be happiest. Then they will be able to do their best work, and get on the path to success.
UMBC is a great example, but there are hundreds more of equal excellent quality.
There are a thousand or more excellent colleges in North America. Students and their families have to stop seeking prestige and insane (and frequently inflated) selectivity as the sole measure of educational quality and start doing their homework, selecting the school (size, location, special features, social composition) where the particular student will be happiest. Then they will be able to do their best work, and get on the path to success.
UMBC is a great example, but there are hundreds more of equal excellent quality.
10
In my experience, the difference between the elite universities and large state universities amounts to these things:
* Elites get to skim the best applicants while many state universities are constrained to admit more students.
* Hence, elites get to use a firehose approach to teaching undergraduates that would draw the ire of state governing boards and legislatures.
* Elites have large endowments to draw upon to provide significant financial aid. State universities have been bloodied by legislative budget cuts and tuition has, perforce, had to rise.
* The networking among survivors at elites is a significant advantage, at least early in a career.
A motivated undergraduate can obtain a fine education at a state university, and go on to a successful career or graduate school. The teaching is just as good as at elites, there are opportunities for undergraduate research (or just approach a professor who is doing work of interest), some departments have honors programs, and some have admission standards higher than their institutions (esp. in computer science, engineering, and some other STEM disciplines).
A persistent misconception among unmotivated students is that their professors will unscrew the caps on their heads, pour in the knowledge, and hand them A grades. It degrades the learning atmosphere throughout. The unmotivated are rare at elite universities.
* Elites get to skim the best applicants while many state universities are constrained to admit more students.
* Hence, elites get to use a firehose approach to teaching undergraduates that would draw the ire of state governing boards and legislatures.
* Elites have large endowments to draw upon to provide significant financial aid. State universities have been bloodied by legislative budget cuts and tuition has, perforce, had to rise.
* The networking among survivors at elites is a significant advantage, at least early in a career.
A motivated undergraduate can obtain a fine education at a state university, and go on to a successful career or graduate school. The teaching is just as good as at elites, there are opportunities for undergraduate research (or just approach a professor who is doing work of interest), some departments have honors programs, and some have admission standards higher than their institutions (esp. in computer science, engineering, and some other STEM disciplines).
A persistent misconception among unmotivated students is that their professors will unscrew the caps on their heads, pour in the knowledge, and hand them A grades. It degrades the learning atmosphere throughout. The unmotivated are rare at elite universities.
14
It seems that one of the most important virtues of an educational institution is the "delta" or change value in the student's abilities from first enrollment to graduation. That is, the education! The actual learning that takes place during matriculation is obviously one of the most important virtues of a school, if not the most important. Is this included in rankings?
There are various standardized tests that measure incoming students' aptitude, and a few that also measure aptitude of graduating students. Certainly standardized tests are not a perfect metric at any stage. But imperfections aside, take the difference in exams at the time of enrollment and those at the time of graduation, compared nationally, and you have a delta value that can be held up as at least a rough metric of the actual learning that takes place from first enrollment to graduation.
Many institutions tout (and even falsely inflate) their selectivity, and indeed this is a key factor in these "rankings." This seems reasonable as a potential reflection of the bookishness and juvenile obedience of incoming students. As an institutional obsession, selectivity rankings can also be the foundation of a deeply conservative educational mission.
But a school that ranks highest in the learning "delta" provides real value in an education beyond a brand name (not to mention faculty who aren't allergic to a little chalk dust, and actually care about their students' learning).
There are various standardized tests that measure incoming students' aptitude, and a few that also measure aptitude of graduating students. Certainly standardized tests are not a perfect metric at any stage. But imperfections aside, take the difference in exams at the time of enrollment and those at the time of graduation, compared nationally, and you have a delta value that can be held up as at least a rough metric of the actual learning that takes place from first enrollment to graduation.
Many institutions tout (and even falsely inflate) their selectivity, and indeed this is a key factor in these "rankings." This seems reasonable as a potential reflection of the bookishness and juvenile obedience of incoming students. As an institutional obsession, selectivity rankings can also be the foundation of a deeply conservative educational mission.
But a school that ranks highest in the learning "delta" provides real value in an education beyond a brand name (not to mention faculty who aren't allergic to a little chalk dust, and actually care about their students' learning).
4
Mr. Bruni is correct and all the systems of university rankings use criteria which are often stacked against smaller universities or any institution of higher learning that may be different in some form.
However, life is a series is usually a series of rankings and evaluations. Often unfair, but constant (I still remember my place in some of them even though decades have gone by).
Much of one's status as faculty in higher education today is determined by ones place in various citation indexes, a form of ranking. One has to be cited and cited in the right journals (books usually don't count). There are countries which base funding on this foolishness.
Be all that as it may, it would well behoove students and everybody else to realize that ranking has always been around and will continue to accompany us in and out of universities. Ranking usually does not care about safe places and trigger warnings, but who knows, maybe that is also factored in today.
However, life is a series is usually a series of rankings and evaluations. Often unfair, but constant (I still remember my place in some of them even though decades have gone by).
Much of one's status as faculty in higher education today is determined by ones place in various citation indexes, a form of ranking. One has to be cited and cited in the right journals (books usually don't count). There are countries which base funding on this foolishness.
Be all that as it may, it would well behoove students and everybody else to realize that ranking has always been around and will continue to accompany us in and out of universities. Ranking usually does not care about safe places and trigger warnings, but who knows, maybe that is also factored in today.
1
I'll echo what others have said about class size and opportunity for faculty mentoring and interaction. For a time I was on staff at a small liberal arts college and teaching a course at a large, well-funded, prestigious research university. The students at the small liberal arts college had far and away richer and more productive interactions with faculty than the students at the more prestigious school, especially the pre-meds at the latter, who complained to me that 400-level courses in their science majors were large lecture courses of over 100 students with their interactions limited to foreign-born grad student TA's whose command of spoken English was not great. They spoke of faculty who felt that their "real" work was their research and mentoring doctoral students. At the small, lesser-known, college, research and publishing was expected of faculty, and a few were nationally known in their fields, but the priority was on being teaching-oriented and mentoring undergrads. I watched a number of students evolve and flourish in that environment. When my own kids were applying to college, I insisted we visit the schools they were seriously considering attending before committing, so they could talk to students -- they'll be honest with you -- and see for themselves what the schools were like, beyond the hype of general reputation, marketing materials, and yes, rankings. I hope this info is helpful to parents grappling with the admissions process now.
16
A student who chooses a college based on the U. S. News rankings has already self-forfeited an important aspect of intellectual development. He or she has conceded to some ethereal authority the right to (1) set the criteria on which his or her decision will be made, (2) accepted the validity of those criteria, and (3) based his or her decision on U. S. News’ application of its criteria to information U. S. News has amassed.
I hope high-school guidance counselors would guide their students make this seemingly elementary observation. It is an important element of critical thinking.
I hope high-school guidance counselors would guide their students make this seemingly elementary observation. It is an important element of critical thinking.
8
I would love for college to be next to free. 50% of drop outs do so for financial reasons.
Certainly the businesses of the very rich would benefit if their employees were confident, smart and debt free entering the work force
Certainly the businesses of the very rich would benefit if their employees were confident, smart and debt free entering the work force
4
In fact, at some of the elite colleges and universities college is "next to free" for those with low family incomes, because the college's alumni gave money to support financial aid for every qualified student. The alumni want their schools to stay excellent, so they donate to allow the most creative and curious students from every economic background to attend their alma mater.
2
Another reason to vote democrat -- the only party to talk about fully subsidized higher ed.
I would like to see one day a listing of where the CEOs of nation's largest 5,000 listed companies earned their undergraduate degrees. My guess is the listings would be "all over the map." My guess is that it doesn't matter a hoot in the long run. I am fairly confident that just about every credentialed college and university in the USA is capable of offering a reasonably decent undergraduate education. My advice is usually to attend a smaller school -- whether public or private -- where the student will feel a greater sense of community. On the other hand, graduate education is another matter altogether. At the highest level the reputation of the university does make a significant difference in a person's professional aspirations.
6
Mostly they went to large state universities. The exceptions are in fields in which connections matter more than education (for example, law, in which going to a top-10 school is the path to a top-10 law school and then to a top firm).
To become president of a large corporation requires working one's way up through the ranks. This is chiefly a matter of interpersonal skills and adaptability, rather than something that a world-leading professor at Harvard can teach.
To become president of a large corporation requires working one's way up through the ranks. This is chiefly a matter of interpersonal skills and adaptability, rather than something that a world-leading professor at Harvard can teach.
7
Yes, connections are actually something you are buying when you go to an elite private school. In the past this was more clearly understood. The ivy school, where onbe earns the "gentleman's C" and you are set.
Stop giving donors any tax breaks if the receiving University has a endowment exceeding certain dollar number. Maybe that will encourage folks to spread the wealth around. Having said that I have seen first hand the cachet of having your name on a building in an elite University. It's just like stadium naming rights, rather fascinating that schools haven't realized that they can auction those naming rights every few years instead of the current system of perpetually naming a building after a donor
5
Very true what Bruni says about the rankings. The craze for "assessing" schools based on "metrics" almost always ignores the value added by the school itself to student success. What is measured is usually mostly a reflection of how prepared the students are to start with, not how much the school develops those students from wherever they are when they enter.
If you admit the top 1%, the ones who have already mastered the art of being a student, who are not only bright but come from wealth and arrive with every advantage already, and then shower them with resources like small class sizes, don't be surprised if a large percentage graduate in 4 years and go on to earn high salaries in prestigious jobs. A school that admits 60% of applicants, students who have not had every advantage, and then gets those students to excel and thrive, should be rated above the elite schools that just have to sit there and churn the privileged through.
If you admit the top 1%, the ones who have already mastered the art of being a student, who are not only bright but come from wealth and arrive with every advantage already, and then shower them with resources like small class sizes, don't be surprised if a large percentage graduate in 4 years and go on to earn high salaries in prestigious jobs. A school that admits 60% of applicants, students who have not had every advantage, and then gets those students to excel and thrive, should be rated above the elite schools that just have to sit there and churn the privileged through.
12
The rankings are a joke, but they are here to stay.
The greater joke is universities trying to improve their rankings by hook or crook. Some try to merge departments believing that bigger is better for PR, even if these mergers hurt students and quality of education. Some provide inaccurate information and contrived data to rating agencies, surveys and guide books.
There is no accountability for gaming of the system.
The greater joke is universities trying to improve their rankings by hook or crook. Some try to merge departments believing that bigger is better for PR, even if these mergers hurt students and quality of education. Some provide inaccurate information and contrived data to rating agencies, surveys and guide books.
There is no accountability for gaming of the system.
7
I taught at a public state university and was unfailingly impressed with the ethnic and social diversity of graduates in all fields, ready to contribute to the state and national community, its economy and its social fabric. Higher education ranking would do well to take such measures into account in assessing "quality."
www.endthemadnessnow.org
www.endthemadnessnow.org
8
Some of them just lie.
My parents fought to integrate the local schools so that I could have black classmates and teachers, which was one of my core childhood experiences. Diversity matters for the entire society. But the college rankings also fail to note whether women are likely to be harassed, whether blacks are likely to be stopped by the police, and whose voices will be listened to in class. The tyranny of rankings is partly because those looking at schools know, and in some cases care, very little about what really matters either in or outside the classroom. In Europe, where I have also taught, no one is admitted because their parents are rich, although of course if they are they are likely to do better on the tests that establish where and what they can study, and good universities cost a fraction what their Americans counterparts do, while still often educating to a very high standard.
11
Ratings are an attempt to evaluate something using metrics that may be helpful (and which they may be willing to adjust to do better if objective criticisms are submitted).They are not discredited by a few anecdotes about an outstanding student at a mediocre school. So one person from UMBC went to a good medical school and did well. 100 people from more selective schools went to the med school and also did well They probably also had a better undergraduate education surrounded by more talented students for whatever that is all worth.
13
BOTTOM LINE: college ratings are an attempt by billionaire to make lots of money using "interpretation", metrics/data and HYPE. Don't believe everything out there. And do your own research.
They also paid exponentially more for tuition, room and board.
This comment seems to completely miss the point. UMBC is not a mediocre school; it appears LHan skipped over most of Mr. Bruni's argument. The comment then ventures into conjecture and ends with "for whatever that is all worth". I think Mr. Bruni raises a lot of important issues in this piece.
1
While rankings are highly problematic, standards are not. And I can simply report from my experience of working, teaching and researching at different law schools, that there is a huge difference between the quality of law schools. Fundamentally, it is driven by the quality of students. That determines the quality of faculty, of deans, and administrators. What should we do? I would argue that we should first question how we fund law schools (as an example of the wider university system). The whole question of rankings is inseparable from the way we handle (and make assumptions about) the levels of student debt. America is exceptional in that way, and not necessarily in a good way.
8
How did the whole complicated, ferociously competitive process of college admissions begin? Malcolm Gladwell, writing in the October 10, 2005, issue of “The New Yorker,” says that when he applied to college in Canada, “The whole process probably took ten minutes” (“Getting In”). The situation changed in the United States when “A. Lawrence Lowell, Harvard’s president in the nineteen-twenties, stated flatly that too many Jews would destroy the school. … Finally Lowell—and his counterparts at Yale and Princeton—realized that if a definition of merit based on academic prowess was leading to the wrong kind of student the solution was to change the definition of merit.”
College admissions should be simplified for two reasons: to save time and money, and to separate the academic world from this unfortunate part of its history.
College admissions should be simplified for two reasons: to save time and money, and to separate the academic world from this unfortunate part of its history.
7
Which is why academic talent won't get you into Harvard, Yale or Princeton. Even if you're not Jewish. Especially if you are Asian, the current focus of bigotry.
As others here have said, the real deciding factor in what makes a superior college is whether the students are superior (already motivated, high achieving) and provide a challenging cohort. So the irony is that all these institutions of higher learning are engaged in a con game in which, if you get the reputation, you get the better students and the better education--which depends very little on the actual education provided by the school itself. I have friends whose children went to Harvard, and who agree the undergrad education there is poor--mostly done by grad students, since the professors are too busy doing research to bother with undergrads. What you do get is connections, competition, and initially opened doors due to the reputation. Whether you get an education worth having is more up to you.
8
Harvard is notorious for that. On the other hand, Princeton is famous for giving good educations to the not-too-bright sons of America's upper class. They really do a good job with mediocre material.
Much of Mr. Bruni's concerns about the effect of college rankings are wildly overstated. Certainly any college, which is, after all, a "hybrid"mission driven and business institution will absolutely want to score on the ranklings. But the facts are that HS juniors and seniors who are considering college are focused on making "the right match," and young people are much more apt consider long term pre professional goals, location, affordability and "shop" Yes... web sites, blogs, and sophisticated marketing, and rankings play a fractional part in getting folks to look. HOwever, from all I've observed as an independent school headmaster, rankings, marketing and promotion ultimately have little relevancy for the kids. Today, high school college guidance professionals help students and their parents make the right match, and with so many undergraduate choices, as well as two year community college tracks, AP courses, and the ubiquity of dual enrollment opportunities for high school juniors and seniors, America's high school seniors are engaged in serious shopping. College rankings have much more relevancy for internal marketing purposes and fund raising... so Frank,I respectfully suggest that you cool your jets.
7
Sorry but you're wrong. The reputations of colleges are reinforced by these ratings, whether accurate or not, and the kids (and their parents) do use them - just take a look at who is buying the latest issue. The other problem, though associated with the ratings, are the students pre-inclined to focus on their state flagship university, ignoring the outstanding schools available to them across the country - many, after scholarships - of similar cost.
And if you want further evidence, simply contact any private/independent college counselor. That's why they are so successful - they are the ones that can actually assist a kid in finding the "right fit" and do so regularly for many kids, and for their parents who aren't really aware of what the right fit is for their child.
And if you want further evidence, simply contact any private/independent college counselor. That's why they are so successful - they are the ones that can actually assist a kid in finding the "right fit" and do so regularly for many kids, and for their parents who aren't really aware of what the right fit is for their child.
There are advantages to attending top rated schools. They simply have more money to spend per student. They can, for example, give their students $3000 towards an internship no matter how trivial the work.
What I wish Bruni would comment on is where the money flows. Why does the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, for example, give Vassar and Amherst a one million dollar prize for raising the number of Pell eligible students they admit? These colleges have huge endowments. They should be doing this anyway. That one million would be better spent going to Holyoke Community College or Hudson Valley Community College (two public institutions in the vicinity of these two elite schools).
Community Colleges are doing the lion’s share of educating students (including vets) who are first generation to go to college. And guess what, they offer a good solid education, and many of their faculty are providing the academic and emotional support students need without fancy writing and tutoring centers. Why aren’t we pushing philanthropists and donors to give to these schools rather than to Harvard, Amherst, etc. which are already wealthy? There’s something wrong when the top tier schools have so much money they can guarantee support for internships even to students who have no need, who might be better off spending their summers scooping ice cream, or doing landscaping, learning about the kind of work that most Americans perform.
What I wish Bruni would comment on is where the money flows. Why does the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, for example, give Vassar and Amherst a one million dollar prize for raising the number of Pell eligible students they admit? These colleges have huge endowments. They should be doing this anyway. That one million would be better spent going to Holyoke Community College or Hudson Valley Community College (two public institutions in the vicinity of these two elite schools).
Community Colleges are doing the lion’s share of educating students (including vets) who are first generation to go to college. And guess what, they offer a good solid education, and many of their faculty are providing the academic and emotional support students need without fancy writing and tutoring centers. Why aren’t we pushing philanthropists and donors to give to these schools rather than to Harvard, Amherst, etc. which are already wealthy? There’s something wrong when the top tier schools have so much money they can guarantee support for internships even to students who have no need, who might be better off spending their summers scooping ice cream, or doing landscaping, learning about the kind of work that most Americans perform.
149
Correction: Vassar does not have a "huge endowment." It has a good-sized endowment that it funnels into financial aid for students, more so than any other private college in the U.S. Vassar skimps on fancy meals and gold-plated nonsense that other schools invest in to entice wealthy students. Under President Catherine Hill, Vassar believes that, as a tax-exempt institution of higher learning, it has a responsibility to give back and help to enable bright students everywhere to get a first-class education.
And no, I am not writing as a Vassar alum. Just an admirer.
And no, I am not writing as a Vassar alum. Just an admirer.
12
Hear, hear!!!!
Well said, Frank! When oh when will America wake up and avoid these ridiculous rankings? As a college counselor, I continually remind my students, and their parents, that the most important thing in the college process is to find the college that fits each student. By fit I mean finding the institution that captures their academic program of interest in a geographic region that appeals. In addition the college needs to offer extra curricular programming, an engaging faculty, research and internship offerings, and career services that will lead to rewarding employment. Remember, it is not always the "best name" but it is the best fit for the student. Then the real magic happens!
173
The only good "fit" for my kids is state college, because this is the only college I can afford! New Jersey will have to the be the "appealing " region... the perfect fit is a myth! When you graduate, you have to find a job and support yourself.... many jobs are not a perfect fit, nonetheless we have to pay the bill ...
83
Be careful - it is a pernicious myth that poor students of outstanding giftedness have to settle for state or local schools because of financial concerns. The best schools (Harvard, Yale, Amherst, etc) are fantastically rich and now provide full, 100% tuition support for almost everyone not in the top 5% (if I remember correctly, for example, Harvard's free tuition family income cutoff was $180,000).
3
I agree. My father was a college counselor for 25 years and towards the end of his tenure in the 90's had to argue with the parents of students to open up to considering colleges that were not in the top 20. There are so many wonderful colleges that are a better fit for a student beyond a top ranking.
Unfortunately all this is becoming irrelevant due to cost considerations. Many high school seniors have to simply choose a college that is affordable with little consideration for any other factor.
Unfortunately all this is becoming irrelevant due to cost considerations. Many high school seniors have to simply choose a college that is affordable with little consideration for any other factor.
6
Excellent piece, Mr. Bruni. I am impressed and moved by the success of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and its Meyerhoff Fellows program.
Please continue to report on other undersung colleges and universities that provide outstanding educational experiences.
Please continue to report on other undersung colleges and universities that provide outstanding educational experiences.
17
When I was a very young student, I was accepted at, and attended, a very highly regarded private university near Boston. Many of my classes were in large lecture halls - typically over one hundred students - with weekly smaller sessions conducted by a graduate student. I made it through a couple of years before dropping out to enjoy all that the sixties had to offer.
Much later I returned to college to finish my degree and pursue an MA as well (trying to beat my daughters to graduation). At a state university I spent time with, and learned a great deal from, several top notch professors who taught small classes in history, literature, etc, and who actually engaged us in discussions! I loved it, and received what I believe was a better education than I might have at the old doctor/dentist factory. If you want prestige and connections go to Harvard; if you want an education look at the state schools.
Much later I returned to college to finish my degree and pursue an MA as well (trying to beat my daughters to graduation). At a state university I spent time with, and learned a great deal from, several top notch professors who taught small classes in history, literature, etc, and who actually engaged us in discussions! I loved it, and received what I believe was a better education than I might have at the old doctor/dentist factory. If you want prestige and connections go to Harvard; if you want an education look at the state schools.
63
I got my first degree at an elite women's college. It was a wonderful experience and it is fascinating to see what my classmates have accomplished 55 years later. I got degrees number 2, 3 and 4 at a state university because it was close to home. There are many institutions where one can get a superb education. It depends on the student him or herself when it comes right down to it.
8
As an alumnus of one of the more trafficked colleges on the US News & World Report rankings, I have had my share of run ins with prospective applicants and parents who have seem to lose what little sanity they might have had by time application season hits in the fall of senior year of high school.
While I completely agree that the rankings are complete and utter bunk -- they would not exist were it not for the parents and students who greedily sop up the meaningless data and trade on it as though it had some kind of predictive value for future success. With four children of my own, I am honestly questioning the value of a university education as it compares against what the world currently needs.
What Bruni's piece so beautifully reminds us is that there was once a time when students went to a University with the goal of learning, and not merely ticket punching. Now, the mindset is one of entitlement; if I obtain a degree from X-name school, my child will deserve Y-quality life. It doesn't work that way -- and we have lost that basic realism in how we treat education at all levels. No matter where you go, you still have to earn your laurels, not merely rest on the ivy creeping up the walls.
The ranking debate will hopefully come to a head at some point soon and reveal the misguided beliefs of all the stakeholders involved - parents, students, university administrators, and the profiteers like US News that make money on misery and fear.
While I completely agree that the rankings are complete and utter bunk -- they would not exist were it not for the parents and students who greedily sop up the meaningless data and trade on it as though it had some kind of predictive value for future success. With four children of my own, I am honestly questioning the value of a university education as it compares against what the world currently needs.
What Bruni's piece so beautifully reminds us is that there was once a time when students went to a University with the goal of learning, and not merely ticket punching. Now, the mindset is one of entitlement; if I obtain a degree from X-name school, my child will deserve Y-quality life. It doesn't work that way -- and we have lost that basic realism in how we treat education at all levels. No matter where you go, you still have to earn your laurels, not merely rest on the ivy creeping up the walls.
The ranking debate will hopefully come to a head at some point soon and reveal the misguided beliefs of all the stakeholders involved - parents, students, university administrators, and the profiteers like US News that make money on misery and fear.
105
But, like it or not, that ivy on the walls gives you a handhold up at earning your laurels.
Frankly college rankings seem to be more influenced by brand name than any of the other parameters that go into making up their rank. So if you are an Ivy League school, the brand sort of ensures that it will be in the top 10? One important metric that could be used in college rankings is a critical past performance indicator – let’s call it “real world relevance.”
So for example, in its 2017 college rankings, U.S. News & World Report could survey a sample of graduates of each school from 5 years ago (Class of 2012) and 10 years ago (Class of 2007) to see how relevant their college education has been to their post-graduation expectations and how positively it has impacted their career goals?
Real world relevance could catapult schools like UMBC in the rankings, not just in sub-ranking of top schools for veterans, but in overall rankings as well?
So for example, in its 2017 college rankings, U.S. News & World Report could survey a sample of graduates of each school from 5 years ago (Class of 2012) and 10 years ago (Class of 2007) to see how relevant their college education has been to their post-graduation expectations and how positively it has impacted their career goals?
Real world relevance could catapult schools like UMBC in the rankings, not just in sub-ranking of top schools for veterans, but in overall rankings as well?
5
The main problem is that US has just too many Colleges and Universities. Most of these institutions serve as remedial education providers to students who have A+'s in schools but no knowledge. Students spend way too much time on things not related to education. As for rankings they are out there to provide some info - number of students per faculty is one of them Some students msy find it difficult to learn in a class of 300 people at UC Berkeley, but would do better in a class of 25 at Stanford.
5
Forgive me, but I feel a bit more than ordinarily entitled to comment on this, having attended a community college, a very large state university (University of Michigan), a commuter school, and an elite Ivy League school (Harvard Law). There were excellent professors and excellent students at every place I attended. As a visiting professor at Harvard once told us, the only difference he noticed is that the students at Harvard tended to be more uniformly bright, but that there were students at his "regular" school that were just as bright as the Harvard students.
My experience too. A college student can make of it whatever he or she will. One can choose whom to hang around with, and there will be ample bright and eager students wherever you go. Some will not be, but you can choose not to hang around with them.
My experience too. A college student can make of it whatever he or she will. One can choose whom to hang around with, and there will be ample bright and eager students wherever you go. Some will not be, but you can choose not to hang around with them.
250
100% agree with you. I have been to Wellesley, Harvard, Gainesville Community College, the University of Georgia and the University of Southern Maine. I had great teachers at all those places. Frankly, the people I took an English class with a GCC were just as amazing as the women I went to Wellesley with. I sat in front of the Georgia cheerleaders in Organic Chem at UGA and heard the stories they don't talk about to anyone else but each other. We can gain education from so much of what surrounds us at school should we choose to pay attening
1
Good comment!
Bruni is far too polite. He needs to take it the next step ... these ranking are idiotic. They do the same thing with ranking private schools, i.e. boarding and day schools.
Prestige and notable faculty (as well as famous alums and endowments) have very little to do with educating a student. Ivy covered walls do not an education make. The puffery is an unsatisfactory measure of a school's ability to provide an education.
Prestige and notable faculty (as well as famous alums and endowments) have very little to do with educating a student. Ivy covered walls do not an education make. The puffery is an unsatisfactory measure of a school's ability to provide an education.
21
Is Mr. Bruni criticizing the underlying assumption that colleges can be ranked meaningfully? Or is he only suggesting that the ranking system should change its evaluations to give higher grades to schools doing things he likes?
24
The fact that one cannot discern this from his piece shows that he did not make a good case - only just a rant.
2
Educators have always regarded college rankings as a joke. Unfortunately, the administrators who set the overall direction and budget for colleges and universities are not of the same opinion.
Our culture is incredibly obsessed with "stats" as if every activity is a competitive sport in need of a score. This obsession motivates notions such as running education as if its a (manufacturing) business which can be precisely measured and quantified. Utter rubbish.
Our culture is incredibly obsessed with "stats" as if every activity is a competitive sport in need of a score. This obsession motivates notions such as running education as if its a (manufacturing) business which can be precisely measured and quantified. Utter rubbish.
55
True, administrators treat these rankings as if they were thermometer readings.
As one other reader so aptly put it: "Ours is the Delusion of Information Age.
1
The rating system may not be perfect, or even necessary. Yet, it's not the most terrible thing that ails our public university system. Perhaps, Bruni should study how the public universities have a ballooning administrative body filled with multitudes of highly paid presidents, chancellors, vice presidents, vice chancellors, provosts, vice provosts etc. For instance, the university of Tennessee went from just 5 to 18 vice presidents within a few years, each with high 5-figure salaries! All unnecessary. Accompanying this was a decrease in $ investment in teaching and scholarly work. This appears to be common to several of our public university system.
327
Yes! It is staggering how many "middle persons" the administrations at Tennessee and private universities have put between the President/Chancellor/Professors and the students. One small liberal arts university in Tennessee which has always prided itself on student/professors contact -and in fact made its reputation on such- has ballooned out of control.
I am not giving $$$ to pay more assistant deans. Unfortunately I have to pay my taxes which go to public universities.
I am not giving $$$ to pay more assistant deans. Unfortunately I have to pay my taxes which go to public universities.
27
Sorry, cynical, but the plural of anecdote is not data. The Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank has done surveys about employment at US colleges and universities, and this is their latest report:
https://clevelandfed.org/newsroom-and-events/publications/economic-comme...
Interesting points covering 1987-2013—all measured as percentages of total employees--
* The widespread belief that administrative and management staff have increased is not true—not changed at all.
* Clerical/secretarial staff numbers have declined.
* Other professionals (IT, lawyers, librarians, etc.) have increased.
* Full-time faculty have decreased, as part-time faculty have increased.
One can conclude that, as public universities experienced a decrease in state support funding, more part-time adjunct faculty members have replaced full-time people to save money. Likewise, clerical staff numbers have decreased as more people do more of their own clerical tasks on their PCs, and secretaries are being shared by more people. The increase in other professionals is complex, perhaps because governments have increased reporting requirements, universities compete for students (= tuition $) by providing more amenities, student recruiting people have been hired, fundraising staffs have beefed up to draw more donations, etc.
https://clevelandfed.org/newsroom-and-events/publications/economic-comme...
Interesting points covering 1987-2013—all measured as percentages of total employees--
* The widespread belief that administrative and management staff have increased is not true—not changed at all.
* Clerical/secretarial staff numbers have declined.
* Other professionals (IT, lawyers, librarians, etc.) have increased.
* Full-time faculty have decreased, as part-time faculty have increased.
One can conclude that, as public universities experienced a decrease in state support funding, more part-time adjunct faculty members have replaced full-time people to save money. Likewise, clerical staff numbers have decreased as more people do more of their own clerical tasks on their PCs, and secretaries are being shared by more people. The increase in other professionals is complex, perhaps because governments have increased reporting requirements, universities compete for students (= tuition $) by providing more amenities, student recruiting people have been hired, fundraising staffs have beefed up to draw more donations, etc.
7
Yes yes yes. Administration eats an ever-larger slice of operating budget. Note, though, that much of this expansion is due to federal and state mandates, not to the institution's own choices.
1
Your observation could well be applied to our culture as a whole.
Just as we take almost any well drawn advertisement as our guide to what foods we should eat, clothes we should wear and areas where we should live, we read the shorthand of others who are in a position of influence at face value and follow their lead rather than engaging our own course of action.
There is little demand and less respect for thought as we morph into one big accepting community of followers, which in many ways is the direction we have to follow as population crowds out what chance of progress along individual lines remains.
Population growth continues to limit physical and mental exploration and we are left with stars created by our popular culture, whether in government, politics, art, theateror any other number of endeavors as the saints and sinners we follow and on occasion emulate.
Colleges and Universities are simply following the lead far greater numbers of people being born are forcing on all aspects of not just our, but all the world's cultures.
Every institution is facing an overload and will be forced to take the easiest way to avoid the clearly apparent, but selfishly overlooked burden which is overtaking our planet.
The sheer number of people being born must be addressed if any can expect to survive let alone lead a decent life.
And that is not a joke.
Just as we take almost any well drawn advertisement as our guide to what foods we should eat, clothes we should wear and areas where we should live, we read the shorthand of others who are in a position of influence at face value and follow their lead rather than engaging our own course of action.
There is little demand and less respect for thought as we morph into one big accepting community of followers, which in many ways is the direction we have to follow as population crowds out what chance of progress along individual lines remains.
Population growth continues to limit physical and mental exploration and we are left with stars created by our popular culture, whether in government, politics, art, theateror any other number of endeavors as the saints and sinners we follow and on occasion emulate.
Colleges and Universities are simply following the lead far greater numbers of people being born are forcing on all aspects of not just our, but all the world's cultures.
Every institution is facing an overload and will be forced to take the easiest way to avoid the clearly apparent, but selfishly overlooked burden which is overtaking our planet.
The sheer number of people being born must be addressed if any can expect to survive let alone lead a decent life.
And that is not a joke.
18
excellent article. there must be some sort of pr effort behind many of those rankings: smu, a precious little liberal arts private and VERY expensive school in dallas ( with some engineering) and a ' if you've got the money' attitude , is ranked equally with the nationally prominent university of texas at austin. somewhere around 50. and, the university of north texas in denton is a perfectly respectable school with wide variety of studies including distinguished music school and a diverse student body is not even listed.
19
Ouch! SMU has produced a Nobel Laureate in physics (see obit in this newspaper). Dr. Jesky turned out so many doctors that put Texas in the loop for HOW many med schools with enormous research facilities? Ok, yes, SMU has its share of "precious coeds" but a huge number of scholarship students. There is a law school, a business school, a school of theology, engineering, one of the first doctorate of fine arts established by Dr. Tufts, a business/MFA combined program. And, unlike the public universities that I have attended a very serious reading and writing requirement. That said NTSU, is a super university!
I once worked at a college that found itself on the lower end of a certain magazine's rankings. I shall not name that magazine that focused on U. S. News as well as World Reports. Strangely enough, after it awarded an honorary degree to an editor, the college found itself near the top of the next tier. The overall effect on undergraduate education was nil, but man, did that change the approach of the marketing people.
To be sure, the college offered a good undergraduate education before the elevation. But it became clear to me almost immediately that these rankings are bogus.
I currently work at a college that, by the rubrics used by those who rank colleges, winds up among the lowest rated in this region. But when you look at the incomes of our graduates compared to the income of their parents, it is near the best in the region. So I'm fine with the task of helping students like these make a better life for themselves, their families, and our community.
To be sure, the college offered a good undergraduate education before the elevation. But it became clear to me almost immediately that these rankings are bogus.
I currently work at a college that, by the rubrics used by those who rank colleges, winds up among the lowest rated in this region. But when you look at the incomes of our graduates compared to the income of their parents, it is near the best in the region. So I'm fine with the task of helping students like these make a better life for themselves, their families, and our community.
257
Rankings are a joke, we're officially stupid about brands in all things, let's please get a U.S. President who graduated from one of our great public universities and can one chancellor or university president somewhere please rise above the empire building and sports drives all mentality and become a thought leader and champion for what our universities and colleges should be about. Thanks Frank Bruni for keeping on this subject.
59
I've been a professor at both state and "elite" private universities. There are excellent educations available at schools that are not top-rated, but I think it's also true that top-25 schools (though the lists vary a lot) pretty much earn their place. A lot of the evaluation is solidly founded: number of students per professor, percentage of students graduating within four years, endowment per student. (Most schools do spend more per student than they collect in tuition.) It's equally true that a lot of schools, public and private, are wasting big dollars on bells and whistles that are essentially marketing ploys: fancy dorms, student unions, meal-plan options, lots of lots of dubious counselling. I wish people shopping for schools looked past such things, but in my experience they don't. Finally, selectivity really can matter. College students get much of their education from one another; so they smarter their cohort, the further they're likely to push themselves.
195
Would that they were merely a joke. In fact they are far worse than useless, as school administrators increasingly focus on all the wrong things, seeking to serve the Rankings, rather than students and their parents, as their primary constituency. While actual teaching is increasingly farmed out to low-paid adjuncts, tenured six-figure "administrative faculty" proliferate, whose job is basically to juice the school's rankings. At Commencement, the ranking is recited as if it were part of the school's official name. Whatever benefit the rankings might be to parents and students in choosing a college, it is far out weighed by their corrosive effect on higher education overall.
47
Best comment so far!
Mr. Bruni merely substitutes his anecdotes for the data used by the ranking organizations. The former is much, much more random than the latter. While rankings are useful to some extent, their real value comes from how individual would-be students and their parents and guardians use or do not use them. In any event, to borrow the definition of "materiality" from securities law, rankings do involve a substantial likelihood that a reasonable user of them would consider them important in making a college-bound decision. One's anecdotes, despite the perspicacity of the reporter, are not material to anyone but the reporter.
13
I would recommend to you Malcolm Gladwell's piece in The New Yorker some years back. The main point was that universities differ on many dimensions: research vs. undergraduate education orientation, public vs. private, broad vs. specialized, football-dominated vs. not (yes, they exist). He pointed out that a small, private, specialized institution (Yeshiva U.) tied with a large, public university (Penn State U.) in the U.S. News rankings in the year in question, yet they have fact is clearly irrelevant given that these two presumably would rarely be rivaling in any student's decision process.
www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/02/14/the-order-of-things
www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/02/14/the-order-of-things
4
Oops. Read before hitting send!
Last sentence should be:
He pointed out that a small, private, specialized institution (Yeshive U.) tied with a large, public university (Penn State U.) in the U.S. News rankings in the year in question, a fact which is clearly irrelevant given that these two presumably would rarely be rivals in any student's decision process.
Last sentence should be:
He pointed out that a small, private, specialized institution (Yeshive U.) tied with a large, public university (Penn State U.) in the U.S. News rankings in the year in question, a fact which is clearly irrelevant given that these two presumably would rarely be rivals in any student's decision process.
4
Bravo. (Full disclosure--I went to public Ivies and never looked at any of the rankings when I chose my schools. My only requirements for all of them were that the schools were STEM hubs and that I could pay in-state tuition)
I don't know if any of the rankings give the percentage of recent (say, having left the service within the last five years) veterans who attend the school. Schools with a larger percentage of veterans mean that there's a natural network and that there's likely to be support for them.
Another thing for veterans to look for is ROTC on campus. Yes, it doesn't apply to them, but campuses with it tend to be friendlier place for ex-military students.
When looking at superior undergraduate education, student-professor ratios in the lower level classes matter. If only upper-level classes are taught by faculty (handing the rest to graduate students in schools with PhD programs), it's often as sign that the school is more interested in things other than undergraduate education. As a side note, Rockefeller University dispensed with the notion that they existed to educate undergraduates by not having an undergraduate component.
Some of the best undergraduate education opportunities exist at honors colleges in what U.S. News evaluations would consider "middle of the road" schools. For example, Western Washington University (go Vikings!) has an honors college that provides an amazing education--arguably the best in the state.
I don't know if any of the rankings give the percentage of recent (say, having left the service within the last five years) veterans who attend the school. Schools with a larger percentage of veterans mean that there's a natural network and that there's likely to be support for them.
Another thing for veterans to look for is ROTC on campus. Yes, it doesn't apply to them, but campuses with it tend to be friendlier place for ex-military students.
When looking at superior undergraduate education, student-professor ratios in the lower level classes matter. If only upper-level classes are taught by faculty (handing the rest to graduate students in schools with PhD programs), it's often as sign that the school is more interested in things other than undergraduate education. As a side note, Rockefeller University dispensed with the notion that they existed to educate undergraduates by not having an undergraduate component.
Some of the best undergraduate education opportunities exist at honors colleges in what U.S. News evaluations would consider "middle of the road" schools. For example, Western Washington University (go Vikings!) has an honors college that provides an amazing education--arguably the best in the state.
15
I wish US News Rankings also publishes statistics like what % of students completed the program in 4 years (for undergrad), what percentage of students who wanted a job got a job before graduation, the median salary of the fresh graduates (adjusted for cost-of-living index), the median debt of graduating class, etc. Otherwise, how does one choose a school amongst those that are closely ranked?
5
"U.M.B.C., with its acceptance rate of nearly 60 percent, places 159th among national universities."
Thank you for bringing up the bogus "acceptance rate" statistic. It is a well-known fact that top colleges and universities deliberately lure and coax gullible high school students whom admissions officers at those colleges have no intention of accepting into applying for the very purpose of driving down the acceptance rate.
And really, the disastrous events of the first 15 years of this century have utterly discredited the credentialed ruling class of the United States. Exhibit A, of course, being George W. Bush with his degrees from Yale and Harvard Business School. Donald Trump, Dinesh D'Souza, Bobby Jindal, Bill Frist, Grover Norquist, Hugh Hewitt, Paul Wolfowitz, Timothy Geithner, Henry Paulson, Douglas Feith, Ann Coulter, Donald Rumsfeld, and the list could go on forever--all Ivy League graduates.
Thank you for bringing up the bogus "acceptance rate" statistic. It is a well-known fact that top colleges and universities deliberately lure and coax gullible high school students whom admissions officers at those colleges have no intention of accepting into applying for the very purpose of driving down the acceptance rate.
And really, the disastrous events of the first 15 years of this century have utterly discredited the credentialed ruling class of the United States. Exhibit A, of course, being George W. Bush with his degrees from Yale and Harvard Business School. Donald Trump, Dinesh D'Souza, Bobby Jindal, Bill Frist, Grover Norquist, Hugh Hewitt, Paul Wolfowitz, Timothy Geithner, Henry Paulson, Douglas Feith, Ann Coulter, Donald Rumsfeld, and the list could go on forever--all Ivy League graduates.
469
While I agree with you on the "acceptance rate", I don't think your exhibit A proves anything; you cherry pick a number of individuals, and your procedure hardly makes the point. If you picked different individuals you could make the opposite point. So, rather than making a point you express a subjective impression and dress it as a proof of your point.
2
The graduates referenced in your last paragraph have indeed been successful.
Veterans. Oh you mean the slugs that couldn't get into college. Paul Wolfowitz couldn't run five feet with a rifle, he sure would send your "student" over there.
Revolt. In an educated sort of way.
Veterans. Oh you mean the slugs that couldn't get into college. Paul Wolfowitz couldn't run five feet with a rifle, he sure would send your "student" over there.
Revolt. In an educated sort of way.
Right on.
I still do not believe Trump graduated with a Wharton diploma. His intellect is barely that of a fifth grade bully - and a terrible student at that. Show me his diploma and school transcript - along with his taxes!
I still do not believe Trump graduated with a Wharton diploma. His intellect is barely that of a fifth grade bully - and a terrible student at that. Show me his diploma and school transcript - along with his taxes!
5
As an academic, I'll add one more thing (and I teach at an Ivy League school) - the academic job market is so difficult that most of the people teaching at U.S. universities (for better and for worse) come from the same handful of programs in any academic field. Sure, someone who winds up teaching at Harvard vs. Boise State might be a different caliber scholar (maybe) but it definitely doesn't mean they're a better teacher or any less smart. I don't want to generalize, as I'm sure overall you'll get a better education at higher ranked schools. But not necessarily. There are quite brilliant people teaching everywhere, and I think what matters is whether the student fits in and wants to be at the school (and whether the class size and attention and encouragement the student gets from teachers and peers is sufficient). What matters is location, atmosphere, and programs/possibilities that match the student's interest. Maryland is an excellent school, as is Boise State or Yale. I know someone who's just moving from teaching at Yale to Utrecht University in the Netherlands - her partner teaches there and they were sick of commuting. So yes, the ratings system is highly overrated when it comes to an undergraduate education (as for grad school, that's another matter). All this being said, don't go to one of those for-profit schools (they're a scam) and certainly not Trump University (ditto)!
345
No, for graduate schools, they are way, way overrated. No validity checks on respondent's "knowledge", extraordinarily low response rates in many fields, and large selection biases. One of sophomore undergraduates are smart enough after me class in research methods to know this.
Thank you for these insights. As a parent of a gifted 14-year old, and of parents who themselves are bright but educated at a lousy public university, we strive to find the best possible education for our son. We have found a superb private school, in which he was scholarly enough to obtain a four year scholarship from the school itself.
We made the most of our education at a very mediocre school, and with mediocre teachers, who were more interested in landing grant dollars than forging accuated adults. The experience left us wanting.
So our problem, given our interest in fostering the best possible education for our son, is how to find the right combination of intellectual stimulation, with practical skills that he can apply in the real world. And we want the diversity experience for him.
As much as I appreciate your insights, and as much as I agree with Frank that Ivy League is not the only destination that results in life fulfillment, I am still left with the problem of how to find, among many players, the one that will enrich our son the most broadly.
This problem is the same as finding a contractor on Angie's List or Home Advisor. Despite great reviews, we have had awful experiences with top rated providers. As good as a review is, they can't account for character, truthfulness, integrity, pride and consistency. Great reviews often come from people with low standards.
Both the college rankings and the college trustees should seek these intangibles. But none do.
We made the most of our education at a very mediocre school, and with mediocre teachers, who were more interested in landing grant dollars than forging accuated adults. The experience left us wanting.
So our problem, given our interest in fostering the best possible education for our son, is how to find the right combination of intellectual stimulation, with practical skills that he can apply in the real world. And we want the diversity experience for him.
As much as I appreciate your insights, and as much as I agree with Frank that Ivy League is not the only destination that results in life fulfillment, I am still left with the problem of how to find, among many players, the one that will enrich our son the most broadly.
This problem is the same as finding a contractor on Angie's List or Home Advisor. Despite great reviews, we have had awful experiences with top rated providers. As good as a review is, they can't account for character, truthfulness, integrity, pride and consistency. Great reviews often come from people with low standards.
Both the college rankings and the college trustees should seek these intangibles. But none do.
In a 1983/84 Christmas/New Year university tour of USSR, one place on program was "Museum of National Achievements". Politely declined, protesting that achievements are seen in streets, not museums.
If our universities are ranked at the top, how come Asians are eating our lunch?
Instruction does not equal learning. Learning pyramid shows retention rates of:
Lecture 5%
Reading 10%
Audio-Visual 20%
Demonstration 30%
Discussion Group 50%
Practice by doing 75%
Teach others 80%
True learning needs right attitude. More than size of labs and depth of faculty, it is environment. Yes, MIT and Stanford produce top notch graduates, but can they innovate? No longer.
Prime factor in learning is peace of mind. With our educational institutions becoming killing fields, how can one learn with survival on mind? Fearful do not innovate. Santayana:
“Happiness is impossible and even inconceivable to a mind without scope and without pause, a mind driven by craving, pleasure, and fear”.
Primal Question of Existence is Survival, Growth, Evolution. Success is developing life skills to win this game. American universities do it no more.
Taught on 3 continents - north America, Asia, and Africa, both in Engineering, and Business. Best and cheapest education today is in Asia and Russia, not America or Europe. Ex wanted to send son to Columbia U, I suggested Singapore. We compromised on Russia.
If our universities are ranked at the top, how come Asians are eating our lunch?
Instruction does not equal learning. Learning pyramid shows retention rates of:
Lecture 5%
Reading 10%
Audio-Visual 20%
Demonstration 30%
Discussion Group 50%
Practice by doing 75%
Teach others 80%
True learning needs right attitude. More than size of labs and depth of faculty, it is environment. Yes, MIT and Stanford produce top notch graduates, but can they innovate? No longer.
Prime factor in learning is peace of mind. With our educational institutions becoming killing fields, how can one learn with survival on mind? Fearful do not innovate. Santayana:
“Happiness is impossible and even inconceivable to a mind without scope and without pause, a mind driven by craving, pleasure, and fear”.
Primal Question of Existence is Survival, Growth, Evolution. Success is developing life skills to win this game. American universities do it no more.
Taught on 3 continents - north America, Asia, and Africa, both in Engineering, and Business. Best and cheapest education today is in Asia and Russia, not America or Europe. Ex wanted to send son to Columbia U, I suggested Singapore. We compromised on Russia.
8
I'm curious as to how you conclude that MIT and Stanford's graduates can no longer innovate (and, what, exactly do you mean by that)? Do you have some data to back this claim up? When you make this type of claim, you state it as fact, but is it? I don't think that it is. And your pyramid comes from where exactly?
It's easy enough to take pot shots at universities, but if you're going to do so, either make an argument (not just assertion) or provide data (and maybe a statistic or two).
It's easy enough to take pot shots at universities, but if you're going to do so, either make an argument (not just assertion) or provide data (and maybe a statistic or two).
3
Careful, I know a guy here in Logistics at the airport in Zurich. His son is attending ETH Zurich, top 10 world wide, and only pays 900 dollars a semester. Is that expensive? In my old USA, that would be dirt cheap.
1
Learning Pyramid:
5%: Lecture
10%: Reading
20%: Audio-Visual
30%: Demonstration
50%: Discussion
75%: Practice Doing
90%: Teaching Others
http://thepeakperformancecenter.com/educational-learning/learning/princi...
Our model is mostly lecture - pay top dollars to best lecturers. Students rate them on appeal, not retention. The only MIT professor to make the Princeton Best 300 list was Walter Lewin, there no more. Btw he used Demonstration method.
http://cdn.princetonreview.com/uploadedFiles/sitemap/home_page/rankings/...
Asian learning model is collective, and always was social. Old times village would take a collection to send the brightest to city for education, hoping for return on investment. Today, peep into any university library. You will find Asians huddled together, doing discussions, or teaching each other.
We encourage individualism, and lose. No, I do not need to offer data or stats. Just look out in the street. Go to any store and find items made here. The achievements of universities should be seen in the streets, not on campuses.
5%: Lecture
10%: Reading
20%: Audio-Visual
30%: Demonstration
50%: Discussion
75%: Practice Doing
90%: Teaching Others
http://thepeakperformancecenter.com/educational-learning/learning/princi...
Our model is mostly lecture - pay top dollars to best lecturers. Students rate them on appeal, not retention. The only MIT professor to make the Princeton Best 300 list was Walter Lewin, there no more. Btw he used Demonstration method.
http://cdn.princetonreview.com/uploadedFiles/sitemap/home_page/rankings/...
Asian learning model is collective, and always was social. Old times village would take a collection to send the brightest to city for education, hoping for return on investment. Today, peep into any university library. You will find Asians huddled together, doing discussions, or teaching each other.
We encourage individualism, and lose. No, I do not need to offer data or stats. Just look out in the street. Go to any store and find items made here. The achievements of universities should be seen in the streets, not on campuses.
While I share Mr. Bruni's disdain for the ratings, there is a reason why they exist.
At one point 75 or more years ago, a college degree meant about the same thing whether it came from an Ivy League or a State University. Over time as college attendance expanded and educational standards dropped at many universities the difference in the quality of students between various universities became more apparent.
Thus despite skyrocketing tuition at elite schools, the difference in the value of the degree between elite and non-elite schools has widened. It's not because elite schools do a better job of teaching. It's all about the quality of the students admitted.
Interestingly, some non-elite schools are aware of this issue. Here in Columbus, Ohio State University (which at one point admitted anyone who was an Ohio high school graduate) has gradually tightened admissions criteria and now admits less than half of all applicants.
At one point 75 or more years ago, a college degree meant about the same thing whether it came from an Ivy League or a State University. Over time as college attendance expanded and educational standards dropped at many universities the difference in the quality of students between various universities became more apparent.
Thus despite skyrocketing tuition at elite schools, the difference in the value of the degree between elite and non-elite schools has widened. It's not because elite schools do a better job of teaching. It's all about the quality of the students admitted.
Interestingly, some non-elite schools are aware of this issue. Here in Columbus, Ohio State University (which at one point admitted anyone who was an Ohio high school graduate) has gradually tightened admissions criteria and now admits less than half of all applicants.
16
I seriously doubt if an Ivy League degree was ever held at the same level as a degree from a state university, unless it was UC Berkley.
1
And it should be noted that it is in the humanities where the prestige factor of high-rankings are most pronounced. For all the blathering and Deep Thinking(TM) about diversity and inclusion, questioning the true merit of high-ranked programs is as welcome as a fart in the room, because it is deemed to be a self-evident truth (which is only "true" because people are fiercely protecting their investment in it).
Thought experiment: propose that half of admissions at elite universities and colleges be by lottery. What the look of horror on the gatekeepers' faces. That's the truth about their real thinking about diversity.
Thought experiment: propose that half of admissions at elite universities and colleges be by lottery. What the look of horror on the gatekeepers' faces. That's the truth about their real thinking about diversity.
6
I applaud Bruni for drawing attention to the college same, but this is the tip of the iceberg.
Basically he says the rankings are nothing more than rankings of envy. College - at least college at the top - has become a status symbol. And as long as employers and other people put value on those degrees from elite schools, that craziness will trickle down to colleges, high schools, middle schools, etc.
And when student pay for status, they are not getting education. For $50 K per year they get to sit with 500 students and listen to a professor read from a book.
This is how we invest in our future.
Basically he says the rankings are nothing more than rankings of envy. College - at least college at the top - has become a status symbol. And as long as employers and other people put value on those degrees from elite schools, that craziness will trickle down to colleges, high schools, middle schools, etc.
And when student pay for status, they are not getting education. For $50 K per year they get to sit with 500 students and listen to a professor read from a book.
This is how we invest in our future.
28
It's time to stop ranking U.S. colleges. When students are applying to them, they ought to know three basic things: 1.) the cost of tuition and financial aid availability; 2.) the departments or majors it offers, along with typical class sizes; and 3.) graduation rates and job placement/career counseling options. Everything else, including "Greek life," sports and extracurricular activities should not be the determinative factors for selecting a school. Those who have such priorities can consult a list (and there is one) of the top U.S. party colleges.
96
This is completely wrong. What matters is a how well graduates do in later life,
the graduation rate (in four years), student overall happiness rankings, accessibility of professors for research opportunities (or equivalent in the arts and humanities) and whether the prospective student is a good match for the overall (non artificially "diversified") "natural" student demographics.
the graduation rate (in four years), student overall happiness rankings, accessibility of professors for research opportunities (or equivalent in the arts and humanities) and whether the prospective student is a good match for the overall (non artificially "diversified") "natural" student demographics.
8
As a parent of a HS junior... I would kill for a college ranking system that included the quality and content of internships, career placement, and connection with the world outside academia. And it's very hard to find that information. Sometimes one department in a school has a stellar internship program while the department next door has none. And it takes a lot of legwork, asking, digging, and bothering to find this out. It shouldn't be this hard to find out if a college is doing a great job of connecting students to the world.
36
In my opinion, based on having been a university student and a university faculty member, the "top" schools are determined more by the students who apply and are admitted than on the faculty members who teach them. If via convincing hype a particular school can attract applications from the highest achieving seniors in secondary schools, then they will end up with a student body prone to being high achievers during college years and an alumni body prone to being high achievers in later vocations. The high achievers, of course, would have done well anyway. The schools cleverly claim this phenomenon to be the result of their own magic touch.
11
Young people pursue college degrees for different reasons. Some look for the broadening of a liberal arts education, others seek to become career academics and others yet want to enhance their career opportunities. Most are probably a blend of two or all three.
A single ranking seems unlikely to satisfy all of these. I am skeptical of rankings by academic administrators and high school counselors. Selectivity is another poor measure. Many large public universities who admit a broader range of students as part of their state subsidized mission also have highly selective top programs within them.
The time and money invested in college is a huge opportunity cost. Add to the tuition, fees, room and board the loss of five years of full time employment. This opportunity cost weighs more heavily on lower income students whose family and friends may even challenge the wisdom of college, compared to making a down payment on a house or helping to grow a small business.
For students from wealthy families, prestige and connections might equate to value. But for low and moderate income students, a university with breadth of study and research, strong tuition and student support systems and a history of graduating Pell Grant students within 6 years is the better risk/reward choice.
The Dept of Education College Scorecard is a great place to start a search.
A single ranking seems unlikely to satisfy all of these. I am skeptical of rankings by academic administrators and high school counselors. Selectivity is another poor measure. Many large public universities who admit a broader range of students as part of their state subsidized mission also have highly selective top programs within them.
The time and money invested in college is a huge opportunity cost. Add to the tuition, fees, room and board the loss of five years of full time employment. This opportunity cost weighs more heavily on lower income students whose family and friends may even challenge the wisdom of college, compared to making a down payment on a house or helping to grow a small business.
For students from wealthy families, prestige and connections might equate to value. But for low and moderate income students, a university with breadth of study and research, strong tuition and student support systems and a history of graduating Pell Grant students within 6 years is the better risk/reward choice.
The Dept of Education College Scorecard is a great place to start a search.
29
Ah, FINALLY a column on something OTHER than Trump’s statement about birtherism. Thank you, Frank, for preparing your piece BEFORE he made his statement.
College rankings aren’t a joke, they’re simply tuned to one purpose only: letting kids and parents know which schools are most likely to provide the networking capacity that is so crucial to nailing a U.S. Supreme Court nomination thirty years after graduation. Or the chairmanship of a Fortune-100 company. Or a chance to make extra bucks on MSNBC as an “expert” consultant in some field. With Fox, it helps if you’re female and blonde – not too much else required.
This is a valuable piece, if readers look beyond the hype for one school, UMBC, to the message that there are lots of schools out there that are excellent but that don’t score near the top of the U.S. News college rankings; that is, if the message is accurate. One school that didn’t make the top cut but that is excellent regardless of that failure doesn’t necessarily make U.S. News & World Report’s failure a broad-scale one.
It’s asking a lot of one columnist, but a set of competing criteria for judging America’s “best” colleges and how ALL our approx. 3,000 four-year institutions satisfy them would be helpful. Maybe the Times could help.
College rankings aren’t a joke, they’re simply tuned to one purpose only: letting kids and parents know which schools are most likely to provide the networking capacity that is so crucial to nailing a U.S. Supreme Court nomination thirty years after graduation. Or the chairmanship of a Fortune-100 company. Or a chance to make extra bucks on MSNBC as an “expert” consultant in some field. With Fox, it helps if you’re female and blonde – not too much else required.
This is a valuable piece, if readers look beyond the hype for one school, UMBC, to the message that there are lots of schools out there that are excellent but that don’t score near the top of the U.S. News college rankings; that is, if the message is accurate. One school that didn’t make the top cut but that is excellent regardless of that failure doesn’t necessarily make U.S. News & World Report’s failure a broad-scale one.
It’s asking a lot of one columnist, but a set of competing criteria for judging America’s “best” colleges and how ALL our approx. 3,000 four-year institutions satisfy them would be helpful. Maybe the Times could help.
70
The elite schools are producing graduates that are ruining the country; Hillary Clinton, Yale Law; Donald Trump, University of Pennsylvania; the two most disliked presidential candidates in modern American history that are leading the nation's race to the bottom with their lying, etc. Who ever wins will find it hard to govern. President O'Bama, Columbia-Harvard Law, has a terrible foreign policy in the middle east and doubled the national debt. George Bush, Yale, Harvard Business, got us into Iraq and almost caused a 1930s like depression. Bill Clinton, Yale Law, supported regulations that allowed the banks to run wild and had constant scandals that included his personal affairs...And the Supreme Court, filled with the elites that gave us Citizens United that has ruined the democratic process with too much campaign money with strings attached. I wish we could dump the elites with their high tests scores and stellar grades and get more people into high places with down to earth experience, good old common sense and honesty.
7
Picking up on the last comment from NJ-how would The Times come up with a system that does a better job of providing insights that are truly meaningful (graduation within 5 years, employment, graduate school acceptance, etc...) or whatever is deemed meaningful versus the current beauty pageant US News & World report runs? And NYT when you're done with a meaningful college ranking system, please take a chain saw to USNW's hospital rankings-MEANINGLESS! Signed by someone who went to what's considered a top university (and I value my education, but for reasons that have nothing to do with how it ranked).
You don't need U.S. News & World Report to tell you which schools to go to if you want to be a U.S. Supreme Court justice, a Fortune 100 CEO, a TV talking-head pundit, or an NFL quarterback. You just have to breathe American air.
2
Having, in my long career of obsessive degree pursuit, trained at every type of school, from the #1 and #3 ranked universities all the way down to a community college, I've found that what makes an educational experience great is far more complicated than the metrics that US News has compiled. Many famous scholars don't teach; in some elite schools students are taught in part by grad students; many professors are more concerned with their own research than with students and skip their office hours; many well-known academics are horribly disorganized in ways that harm their students; and many instructors that aren't tenured or tenure-tracked are absolutely wonderful teachers.
Having worked in college administration, I feel that parents who rely on US News or similar rankings are naïve and need articles on more sophisticated techniques for college searching.