<p>I totally agree! I think these ideas are just thrown out to appease the public but it really doesn’t mean much. (Obama should know better). I would prefer ALL rankings disappear altogether. We all know that universities flood people’s mailboxes with temptations to apply so that their ranking can go up (only 10% admitted). The whole thing is a joke.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1544324-president-presses-financial-aid-reform.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1544324-president-presses-financial-aid-reform.html</a></p>
<p>I wonder about the outcomes data. Sounds like a lot of work on the way for university administrators (not that I disagree with the idea).</p>
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<p>Mind letting us know which elite private college comes close to representing the USA population? Or did you happen to NOT consider race and SES distribution? </p>
<p>To keep it simple, please tell which elite private college (and you can add elite public a la Berkeley) comes close to match the percentage of Asians to the US population? For the SES distribution, we can look up the Carnevale study. Fwiw, at elite private colleges, the government’s share of the funding represents a small fraction of the needed financial aid.</p>
<p>The NY Times has a more detail review.</p>
<p><a href=“Obama’s Plan Aims to Lower Cost of College - The New York Times”>Obama’s Plan Aims to Lower Cost of College - The New York Times;
<p>“Ohio, Tennessee and Indiana have made moves toward linking aid to educational outcomes.”</p>
<p>Yes, but these states are dealing with the state allocations to public universities, and not grants or student loans. </p>
<p>Lets look at Tennessee’s plan:</p>
<p>[Tennessee</a> Higher Education Commission](<a href=“http://tn.gov/thec/complete_college_tn/ccta_summary.html]Tennessee”>http://tn.gov/thec/complete_college_tn/ccta_summary.html)</p>
<p>"Outcomes-Based Funding Formula</p>
<p>•Funding Formula Summary: The outcomes-based funding formula bases the entire institutional allocation of state appropriations on the basis of outcomes including but not limited to degree production, research funding and graduation rates at universities, and student remediation, job placements, student transfer and associates degrees at community colleges. Each of these outcomes is uniquely weighted at each institution to reinforce mission and Carnegie classification and reflect the priority given to each outcome. (last updated January 2011)</p>
<p>•Performance Funding: Quality Assurance:
The measures of program and institutional quality provide a balance and counterpoint to the outcomes-based productivity formula. Institutions can gain additional funds (up to 5.45 percent of appropriations) on performance incentives for student success on national examinations in major fields and general education, and for institutional success in program accreditation and qualitative program review, among many other quality measures. (last updated January 2011)"</p>
<p>Tennessee is looking for a way to allocate state funding, in an effort to drive performance (degree production, research funding, graduation rates, job placement and other metrics). They also uniquely weighted the formula for each institution. </p>
<p>To control college cost, Tennessee can dictate how much each PUBLIC university can increase tuition. This is done outside of the Outcomes-Based Funding Formula.</p>
<p>I think comparing the President’s plan (what we know of it so far) to the State’s plan is comparing oranges to apples. It’s not a valid comparison, other than they both use outcome based formula’s.</p>
<p>I think we need to look to the states to control public university cost. </p>
<p>Controlling private university cost, that’s the real challenge…for smaller LAC’s, normal market forces may have some effect…but the other privates have proven immune to market forces.</p>
<p>"Perhaps taxing private colleges would be a better idea… " - the typical liberal response to any problem, more taxes. Good grief.</p>
<p>[College</a> Scorecard](<a href=“College Scorecard | College Scorecard”>College Scorecard | College Scorecard)</p>
<p>The current government scorecard. Enjoy! :)</p>
<p>According to Politico:
“Once those ratings are in place, the Obama administration will push — as part of the process of reauthorizing the Higher Education Act, which expires at the end of 2013 — for Congress to tie student aid eligibility to colleges’ scores on the new metrics. Students would be eligible for bigger grants and cheaper loans at colleges that do well, and colleges that enroll more low-income students would also get a federal bonus.”
AND
"Under the plan he’d like to see Congress approve, ‘colleges that keep their tuition down and are providing high-quality education are the ones that are going to see their taxpayer funding go up. It is time to stop subsidizing schools that are not producing good results and reward schools that deliver for American students and our future.’ ”</p>
<p>So now the president wants to regulate student populations and graduation rates? Sounds like a recipe for disaster.</p>
<p>I really like the competition this encourages, however I’m not sure we need another ranking system.</p>
<p>xiggi…
it is not about race. It is about family income.<br>
in 2007, Harvard’s endowment was worth $36 BILLION and that money earned was TAX FREE. Yale, Princeton, etc… But many of these elite private universities and colleges were giving their alumni’s children an advantage in the college admissions. That really upset Congress because why should a tax free institution cater to the wealthy? right? So Congress put pressure on universities to make sure that their admissions were fair - across all income brackets - or they would be taxed as businesses.</p>
<p>Poorly thought-out and certain to go nowhere. It will make many minority dominated schools look worse and that will end it.</p>
<p>The way the political process now plays out in the US, ANYTHING proposed by one party will get bashed by the other. Totally disfunctional, regardless of whether or not it is a ‘good’ idea.</p>
<p>@required-details (post #20)</p>
<p>The collegevalue formula looks at Net Price, Grad rates and Loan default rates (similar to the federal government’s scorecard). The first two items are very useful in comparing colleges. The 3rd item (loan default rates) is an indirect measure, and is heavy weighted by the % of LOL SES students supported by the school. </p>
<p>While these are very useful in picking a college, they are part of a larger whole. You may choose a college with a higher Net price and or lower grad rate, because you feel it’s worth the additional cost. A high default rate should raise alarms.</p>
<p>The President’s proposal would use these type of metrics to determine the amount of Pell Grants or student loans given to a student going to that school. Unlike the state’s plans that impact money that’s directly allocated to schools, the Presidents impacts students.</p>
<p>you guys are taking it the wrong way. There is always going to be multiple ranking sites, criteria, methodologies, etc. USNWR is always going to have their rankings, so go look at that one. For me, a relatively high achieving student who comes from government housing, I couldn’t be happier. For others, you’re just getting EVEN MORE data. You’re not losing anything, just gaining</p>
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<p>Not true. Individual students WILL be affected when they apply for federal grants.</p>
<p>I’m not sure about this. Seems all of us on CC could have come up with a better plan.</p>
<p>I do agree with afroninja that it is also possible to just ignore the rankings.</p>
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<p>Did Congress hold hearings? Can someone point me to news stories about this?</p>
<p>I wondered about the effect of these new metrics on religiously based schools – many of which send students out into low-paying fields like mission work, pastoring, children’s ministry – to name a few. If you just looked at the numbers, it would be easy to conclude that these institutions are failing, since nobody’s getting rich – but most people probably didn’t choose to major in mission work in order to get rich. (Thinking that seminaries also probably don’t represent ‘good value for money’ – in earthly terms, at least.)</p>
<p>Worst idea ever to do this. </p>
<ol>
<li>It won’t apply to private institutions or…</li>
<li>It won’t differ from the USNWR ranking and most other rankings that always put the same 25-50 schools in the top (Most of our presidents and long time politicians are alums on HYPSM and other top 50 schools.</li>
<li>It will hurt students on the low end of the performance scale the most.</li>
</ol>
<p>The only way this would be a good idea is if it was a ranking of outcomes that included technical schools like beauty schools, automotive training, carpentry, plumbing, electrical trade schools, art schools, etc. At least then kids could see that college degrees aren’t necessarily the fast track to the middle class and panacea of education they are made out to be.</p>
<p>It’s public policy and outrageous industry demands that have driven the growth of fly by night colleges and useless degrees and extensive training required for minimum wage, entry level starter jobs. If these folks just stopped all the hype and excessiveness regarding college, maybe reality and discernment would come back.</p>
<p>Another reason this is the worst idea ever is that the government will be practicing discrimination. Equality in the eyes of the law is a fundamental protection unique to America and only a few other civilized nations. If the govt doesn’t want to fund this kind of stuff then they should scale back funding for everyone.</p>
<p>Poor performing schools primarily exist to serve poor performing students.</p>
<p>These borderline students are seeking a chance to change their fortunes but their self-discipline, preparation and training often aren’t enough to carry them through to graduation and even when one does graduate, the reputation of the school for accepting borderline, second chance students hurts the graduate’s chances of getting a top job and top pay.</p>
<p>A govt ranking doesn’t change any of this.</p>
<p>This policy is simply messaging to target the youth vote. It’s mere words and will never come to fruition. It’s not intended to ever see the light of day.</p>
<p>Here’s a really radical idea: keep Pell grants in place for low-income students; for other loans, money will be lent directly to the university. The university will then issue loans to its students. If the students can’t repay, the university is on the hook for it. At that point, the universities’ incentives will align with students’ best interests (i.e. getting an inexpensive degree that will be worth the money). It will also reduce the arms race between schools: when money is no longer “free”, schools can really start to compete on cost.</p>