College Rankings

Bravo!

The U.S. News and World Report rankings are rather superficial and it's about time it be replaced with something more substantive.

Robert Reich

For many years, American colleges and universities have felt pressured by the college rankings of "U.S. News and World Report" to spend vast sums attracting star students and faculty -- which boost their rankings -- at the expense of scholarships to deserving lower-income students, because U.S. News' rankings don't take account of how many lower-income students attend. (Several years ago I tried to get U.S. News to include this criterion but getting U.S. News to alter the way it measures colleges proved harder than getting the Bureau of Labor Statistics to alter the way it measures unemployment.) Now President Barack Obama has come up with a plan for rating colleges based in part on how many lower-income students attend them. I haven't examined the ratings in detail yet, but I'm encouraged. He's also proposing legislation to give colleges a bonus based on the number of students they graduate who received Pell Grants. (The number and percent of Pell grant recipients is a good proxy how many lower-income students are enrolled because such grants are available only to students from low-income families. About 30 percent of students at the University of California at Berkeley, where I teach, are on Pell grants. By contrast, about 15 percent of students at Harvard are on Pell grants. Having taught at both institutions, I can tell you that my Berkeley students are every bit as bright as my Harvard ones.)