Money Magazine's New Ranking Best Colleges etc.

[BrownParent]

<p>I'm not much a fan of copy/pate various random articles but haven't seen this one yet. I didn't read much about the methodology but seems dubious as they use payscale and rate my professors. Still some of the sub lists highlight interesting options and best values etc.
<a href="http://www.nola.com/education/index.ssf/2014/07/money_magazine_ranks_the_top_u.html"&gt;http://www.nola.com/education/index.ssf/2014/07/money_magazine_ranks_the_top_u.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

[Pikidikitiki]

<p>Definitely interesting, hadn’t seen it either. Thanks.</p>

[Gator88NE]

<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/29/upshot/building-a-better-college-ranking-system-babson-beats-harvard.html?_r=0”>http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/29/upshot/building-a-better-college-ranking-system-babson-beats-harvard.html?_r=0&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>

On Monday, Money magazine took its shot, releasing a new best colleges list focused on, unsurprisingly, money. While some elements of the rankings are familiar, the list is distinguished by the depth of its attention to a pair of questions on the minds of many students and parents. First, how much money will I actually have to pay — and, probably, borrow — to earn a diploma? Second, how much money will my diploma be worth in the job market when the time comes to pay my loans back?

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<p>

Over all, the Money list of top-earning colleges is a mix of elite universities with a pipeline to high-paying finance and management consulting jobs, and colleges like Cooper Union and the Colorado School of Mines, which are tightly focused on specific, well-paying professions.</p>

<p>Defining outcomes this way does ignore important aspects of the collegiate mission. At its best, higher education does more than train people for jobs. College should clarify the mind and enlighten the soul. But colleges also expect to be paid in dollars, and you can’t provide evidence of enlightenment in lieu of installments on your student loans.

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[MiamiDAP]

<p>"College should clarify the mind and enlighten the soul. " - That might be translated as colleges that receive the most funds for one specific purpose - brainwash. They do it in spite of all parents’ efforts to prevent such acitivites. Very sad…</p>

[Hunt]

<p>College also trains people for jobs that don’t pay that well, and some highly able students pursue such careers. Some of these careers are even highly prestigious–they just don’t pay a lot. This kind of list always ignores that fact.</p>

[theluckystar]

<p>When you found that Johns Hopkins is not even ranked, Northwestern is ranked at 129th and UChicago is ranked at 101st, it just lost me. I am simply dumbfounded.</p>

[Hunt]

<p>This is really one of the more stupider lists I’ve seen.</p>

[amarylandmom]

<p>One thing they did do that I thought was a good idea was to normalize the data to account for various majors. Other lists I have seen that focus on ROI don’t do that so all the schools that graduate lots of engineers come out on top.</p>

<p>Of course as a parent paying ridiculous full pay prices, I probably just want to believe in the worst way that I am at least getting a good value, lol. Yeah, my son’s school is in the top fifty.</p>

<p>I just wrote the tuition check so I am going to allow myself a week or two of deluding myself that this list is meaningful. ;)</p>

[mitchklong]

<p>Give them some credit for trying to break the mold a bit. They are trying to define what “value” is. Most rankings dont really rank the college they rank the students who attend them. </p>

<p>The big problem with “value” ratings is they depend entirely on the individual. For example, if you don’t have the grades to get into that school the value for you is 0. Your home state flagship may be ranked #122 but still be a better deal for you than the school ranked #9 because you are in state. A affluent smartie might pay retail at #20 but get a full ride scholarship at #180. So what exactly is this list supposed to be used for ? </p>

<p>If you are buying a TV a value rating may be relevant to look at. For college, there are just too many variables. </p>

[happy1]

<p>Most of the schools on the list are : 1)the very top schools in the country; 2) schools that have big/strong business programs and/or 3)schools with big/strong engineering programs.</p>

[xiggi]

<p>I probably could write the same post before or after reading the article and the covered ranking. Would I be wrong to say</p>

<p>The methodology is all wrong
This is pseudoscience
The ranking is biased
It is just as good as ARWU, THES, or
Just below the Mother Teresa ranking that comes out every year</p>

<p>Now I am clicking on the link ;)</p>

[xiggi]

<p>Actually, they got something right</p>

<br>

<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Reasonable people may disagree with the idea of ranking colleges or the specific methodology we’ve used. Certainly, it’s tough to boil down something as complicated as a college education into a series of data points, and the differences among schools ranked even within 20 places of one another can be slight, Schneider points out. Some of the data, while the best available, are imprecise.</p>

<p>Our measure of the net price of a degree, for instance, is based on averages; your costs will be higher if your child gets little or no aid and could be substantially lower if your offspring graduates sooner than the school’s typical student or gets a more generous financial package, either from the school or from federal, state, or private scholarships. Meanwhile, the earnings data from Payscale are self-reported by alums who chose to fill out a survey, not the average salary of a school’s entire student body. And some people may object to placing so much emphasis on grads’ financial success.</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>

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<p>=============</p>

<p>In other words, we know reasonable and rational people will recognize what we know, namely that we use imprecise and often wrong or older data, borrowed extensively from dubious sources, and just added sufficient usual suspects to our silly choices to give us a whiff of respectability. </p>

<p>But it will sell a few magazines around Babson, Webb, or Principia. </p>

[bluebayou]

<p>

Actually, they got something right…

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<p>Two things, actually. My school beat xiggi’s school. :D</p>

[sevmom]

<p>“Actually, they got something right.” </p>

<p>Yeah, and both my kids’s schools are in the top 50 so no complaints here either! :)</p>

[xiggi]

<p>;). And Babson beats Bluebayou and all my schools. </p>

[bluebayou]

<p>Touche!</p>

[PurpleTitan]

<p>The more rankings the better, I say! I could care less about the main ranking, but the component rankings could be useful when I make my own.</p>

<p>BTW, @Hunt, some of us could care less about prestige. I personally take a dim view of prestige-whores myself. Mind you, I may give a bump up to stuff like educators and public service, but that’s because of what they can do to help others, not because of prestige.</p>

[xiggi]

<p>Yet, nothing has ever come close to Hunt’s seminal Prestigiosity Index. Rumor has it that there is bidding war ranging between the HuffPo, Fox News, and the Daily Mirror to acquire the methodology. </p>

<p>Prestige remains our favorite red meat at CC. </p>

[Niquii77]

<p>That explains a lot. I don’t care for red meat!</p>

[sevmom]

<p>My favorite is the one about what schools are prestigious (and the different rankings of the schools) in terms of making the New York Times wedding section. I can’t find the link but I remember it being funny. Alas,one of my kid’s schools made the list but the other one’s didn’t. But I’m not going to lose sleep over it!</p>