The Cost of Income

University rankings continue to spread, both in publication and methodology. The latest has me thinking back to Boeing's entry into the business, where it used output-based criteria to evaluate the institutions. The aerospace giant proposed using internal data to match employee evaluations with information about the institution their pilots and engineers attended.

And rankings that measure job performance are not too far off from rankings that measure salary. This new approach took the average of graduates' salaries to evaluate institutions -- but added a twist. SmartMoney compared these salaries to the cost of attending the university, and using the ratio to determine "salary payback".

SmartMoney found the results -- which indicated a greater value in community colleges -- "pretty jarring". Why this is so surprising to them, I'm not sure, especially given the general agreement surrounding a recent report by NASULGC, which explored the education-as-an-investment argument:

"No university can legitimately claim that their students learn more than do students graduating from competing universities."

Indeed, such claims not only mislead students, the report continues, but can be detrimental to society. Why? Because studies and rankings such as those above take focus away from the social good of an institution, opting instead to pitch universities and colleges as simply a means to a higher income.

The Pursuit of Prestige

The annual National Survey on Student Engagement was released today, effectively carrying on its tradition as a counterpoint to the obsession so many institutions have with national and global rankings.

This year's report title says it all, highlighting "The Imperative to Look Within." According to the study, "90 percent of the variation in undergraduate education quality occurs within institutions, not between them." Hence the call for universities and colleges to abandon the potentially misleading rankings and to instead focus on their students.

The timing of this call is perfect. It comes on the heels of another study, released just this past Saturday, which indicates that chasing rankings may actually weaken institutions. Like NSSE (or "Nessie"), the study goes on to argue that universities "should focus on carrying out their basic missions and improving their academic offerings".

Thus we see that Nessie's counterpoint is one of perspective: institutional priorities can be based on views from within or from without. And studies demonstrate that there is a wrong choice.

Who's Ranking the Rankings?

With the two major international rankings having been released in recent days, the perpetual debate surrounding university and college rankings has once again come to the forefront. The Times Higher Education rankings are based too heavily on opinion, critics say, while the Shanghai Jiao Tong University's are said to overemphasize scientific research. And yet everywhere, people acknowledge the significant influence and impact these rankings have.

This debate dates back, of course, to national rankings, like U.S. News and Maclean's. The former was boycotted last year by the Annapolis Group, while many Canadian universities opted out of the Maclean's rankings in 2006. The criticism is familiar, but so is the influence of the rankings. Many people acknowledge that rankings help shape policy, and some argue it increases educational costs for students.

It is therefore not surprising that alternatives are beginning to appear. In part a response to rankings, student sites (such as College Prowler and Students Review) have been around for some time now, but continue to grow. Meanwhile, faculty and administrators are increasingly seeking alternatives of their own. One recent movement attempts to cut the arms-race mentality by taking rank and reputation out of college selection altogether. Another movement, U-CAN, seeks to provide potential students with concise insitutional profiles for easy comparison.

Despite an expanding array of alternatives, it is clear that the major rankings aren't going anywhere soon. But there is still hope that the very presence of options could help universities get back to their purpose and mission, and away from their obsession with reputation.