Washington Monthly came out with a new college ranking system to provide an alternative to the one put out each year by U.S. News &: World Report. Their focus is to look at the communal impact that our tax dollars bring from investing in higher education. By way of explanation, the editor writes:
The point is this: Rankings reflect priorities, and they also set them. Our periodic grousing about other college guides isn’t so much about the influence they have on prospective students (although it’s strong). It’s about the influence they have on colleges themselves. In order to improve their rank in the U.S. News guide, schools often lose sight of the greater good and focus on throwing a lot of money at the wrong things in the hopes of gaming the system. (Emory’s pursuit of high-SAT students over poor students is an example.) By enshrining one set of priorities, such as those set by U.S. News, colleges neglect the ones we think are most important.
Of most interest to me from their methodology is the measure of Social Mobility. According to several studies, most recently in the UK, social mobility as a product of education is a myth. It is very difficult to move up in class, possibly because education may be a byproduct of economics rather than a cause.
The national university rankings have MIT on top, followed by UC-Berkeley, Penn State, UCLA and Texas A&M. From the Big Ten, Wisconsin comes in at 11, Illinois is 16 and Michigan 18 in the top 20. IU finished 48.
