Recently reported by The Chronicle and EdScoop.com, Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona gave credence to the argument college administrators have long understood – the current college rankings system is severely flawed and not student-centric. It’s a problem that was generated by accident and out of good intentions but has created a system of recycling wealth and gatekeeping access.
Every year, colleges and universities will issue press releases that boast about their new rankings while simultaneously eschewing the rankings as having the wrong focus. Of course, the focus must have been wrong, or the college would have been ranked even higher!
Indeed, higher education professionals and institutions spend an amazing amount of energy, resources, and money chasing the metrics most valued in the rankings. Sadly, those metrics are not focused on changing the trajectory of a student’s life, increasing access for first-generation students, serving populations that have significant barriers to retention and graduation. Instead, colleges and universities are ranked higher by enticing students who are most likely to succeed with or without attending that particular college, and so financial aid dollars are shifted into merit scholarships and the cycle continues.
That doesn’t even begin to touch on the money spent increasing small dollar alumni donations to show a strong participation rate. Or print mailings to other college and university officials in the hopes of raising the peer evaluation score.
Not to take the Education Secretary out of context – he did fully advocate for ensuring families have access to the information, data, and statistic on colleges they are considering. That’s a worthwhile endeavor, and one every institution should evaluate their messaging to ensure both the information and the relevant context is being transparently provided to families.
But this rankings game? It harms prospective students, current students, diverts resources from the mission of college and university staff, and should not be the focus of the forthcoming press releases coming in the next month.
This game is one of the reasons Leading Colleges was founded and is currently building our first cohort. While we seek to identify colleges with an exceptional focus on students, we will not participate in the game of pitting institutions against each other. Instead, participating colleges will be able to demonstrate that they have been vetted on four criteria and have been validated by admissions professionals. From there, students, parents, counselors, and institutions can engage in a meaningful dialogue.
And no, there’ll be no need to say “rated in the top …” at any point.