<p>This recent article describes a study using the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) as another measure of outcomes. My apologies if this has been hashed to death elsewhere. </p>
<p>The concept is simple: take the test on arrival, and again at graduation, and measure the change. I haven’t read the studies or books, but the article claims the test covers “critical thinking, analytical reasoning, and communication skills”. </p>
<p><a href=“The Economic Price of Colleges’ Failures - The New York Times”>The Economic Price of Colleges’ Failures - The New York Times;
<p>Some interesting take-aways from the article (which may be coming at it with a particular point of view, I realize) are that students didn’t improve very much, that the students actually think they learned significantly (chalk one up for marketing), and that those who left college with low scores were twice as likely to lose their jobs. </p>
<p>My expectation is that this type of study wouldn’t change the rankings very much; top schools admit top students, who come in and leave with high CLA scores. Johnny Harvard probably doesn’t have much headroom for improvement so I wouldn’t expect much change. Where one would expect improvement would be at schools that admit lower-performing students; unfortunately the article suggests they tend to stay there.</p>
<p>What this could reveal is whether there are some gems that do a better job of raising the CLA scores of their students (if in fact CLA is a relevant measurement). For the non-superstar student that could help identify some good choices. It would be interesting to see the school-specific data on this.</p>