Ohio University alum Christopher Denhart and Matthew LeBar wrote “Two College Rankings. Two Very Different Outcomes” in Forbes Education section.
Denhart is administrative director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity. He earned a B.S. in Economics from the College of Arts & Sciences at Ohio University in 2014.
This year’s listing features the same methodology as last year’s. It still carries many of the input based and reputational survey data used to try to measure the “intangibles” at each individual university. Last year U.S. News adopted a metric we have seen as important since we joined the ranking business in 2008, graduation rate. Unfortunately this year does not continue to shift toward our output based ranking, and indeed includes only a handful of output based metrics.
Graduation rates, retention rates, and alumni giving, which are output based, measure, albeit not perfectly, student satisfaction and post graduate success. Other non-input based metrics include full-time faculty percentage, class size, student to faculty ratio, and faculty resources, which measure the university’s emphasis on student success.
Many of their metrics are purely subjective, however. Peer-to-peer assessments by outside administrators, Guidance counselor’s perception of school quality, and others are based on individuals’ preferences and impressions, not numbers. These are the same qualms we have always had, and will likely continue to have with the U.S. News ranking. In fact, CCAP and Forbes joined the rankings business to offer an alternative to this prestige based ranking.
One metric, however, could be harmful. The “financial resources” metric, which measures the amount of per student spending a university has, is worth 10 percent of the total ranking encourages universities to spend more, not cut costs for leaner, more efficient alternatives. While athletics, dorms and hospital expenses do not factor in, other student services like student gyms, instructional expenses that allow the best professors to have the lightest teaching loads and sabbaticals, and administrative bloat for student related services would all signal it as a good school to U.S News. This metric intends to measure a university’s ability support student endeavors, however, these unintended consequences could exacerbate the problem of rising college costs.
In conjunction with their release, U.S. News and World Report featured Dr. Richard Vedder in two articles, “How Colleges Are Facing the Future” by Timothy Pratt and “Is The College Admissions Bubble About To Burst?” by Lindsey Cook. Vedder is Director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity and Professor Emeritus of Economics at Ohio University.
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