University of Alabama ranking drops to No. 153 in 2020 U.S. News college rankings - what now?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Alabama
21

That 1410 number doesn’t matter one way or another.

Keep in mind you have to look at the whole class, you can’t focus on only the top or bottom 25%.

Using the latest CDS (2018-2019) (UA includes the mean in it’s CDS numbers)

SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing (new ERW/Verb)
540 to 640 with a mean of 594

SAT Math
520 to 640 with a mean of 589

Combined: 1184

ACT Composite
23 to 31 with a mean of 27

It’ doesn’t matter if “Approximately 40% have an ACT score of 30 or more for the third consecutive year”, what matters is the mean.

UA saw this, what? Two years ago? When they started to make adjustments, such as decreasing merit, but increasing need-based aid. They started to search for ways to increase faculty and grow it’s grad school programs.

The Alabama Advantage scholarship (meet full need for low SES students) can go a long way to improving that graduation rate (and becoming more competitive for higher performing in-state low SES students).

However, these type of changes take 4 to 6 years to work themselves into the outcome metrics as an improve graduation rate, etc.

UA needs to find the funding for more need based aid, and to hire more (full time) faculty. It’s what’s driving the latest fund raising efforts.

Lots of reasons for the drop, but it’s going to take time (and funding) to fix.

1 Like
22

The 1410 number was in response to a specific assertion in post #8 rather than a comment on the whole university.

The figures quoted in post #20 have probably been true for some time so they aren’t likely to account for the large drop in rankings in the last two years.

I think you are correct about the move towards a decrease in merit aid and increase in financial aid in the future which will align with what US News is rewarding.

23

Bingo.

24

Although the ranking formula now uses Pell grant student graduation rate and comparison to non-Pell grant student graduation rate (which University of Alabama does not do so well at with 57% 8-year graduation rate for Pell, versus 74% for non-Pell, according to https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?s=all&id=100751#outcome ), those make up only 5% of the ranking, versus 7.75% for test scores that University of Alabama has been chasing with scholarships.

However, it could very well be that the ranking formula gives only small raw score differences in the lower (higher numerically) ranks, so that a small change like adding the Pell grant graduation rates and comparison to non-Pell grant graduation rates can move a college many ranking steps.

The ranking methodology: https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/how-us-news-calculated-the-rankings .

25

Wouldn’t a better metric be the value for the cost? We are supposed to believe that a higher Pell Grant to a far far more expensive college is that helpful to a Low SES student?

26

The backoff from merit scholarships has been happening for a while, before USNWR added to Pell-related ranking factors. Probably because many of the colleges offering them were seeing too many students taking them, causing them to go overbudget on scholarship money (or get insufficient net tuition).

27

The apparent implication is that Pell grant graduation rates and comparison to non-Pell graduation rates have something to do with affordability for Pell grant students.

Pell grant is only up to about $6k (nowhere near sufficient to afford many colleges at their list prices), so Pell grant is used as a marker for students from families in the lower half of the income range, who may get additional financial aid from the colleges beyond their Pell grant money.

28

Re: post #25

I think the backoff from merit really started to take off in 2018 after US News was urged by a group of senators including Kamala Harris and Cory Booker to change how it weighted its rankings.

From Washington Post

The 2019 rankings reflected this change.

From Inside Higher Education

and reported that UC Riverside was now climbing the rankings.

29

I don’t like mixing social issues into rankings either. However, that’s the way it’s being done now. With USN and whether anyone likes it or not, these rankings matter

So what are some suggestions to bring up the rankings? I’m thinking a UT-Austin type of admissions of top X% in state auto admitted with free tuition award. Also special support for at risk students to keep them in school. If they can keep champion football players in there, they can do the same for other students.

Smaller classes, more full time faculty. They need to hit those high spots. Clearly not enough to recruit high stats OOSers with merit money.

30

Here’s Alabama’s ranking from 2008 to 2020

2008: 91

2009: 83
2010: 96

2011: 79

2012: 75

2013: 77

2014: 86

2015: 88

2016: 96

2017: 103
2018: 110
2019: 129
2020:153

31

I think the whole ranking thing is a bunch of BS and we didn’t look at it at all when we were picking out colleges. None of it mattered one iota. The things they are measuring mean very little to me or to my family. The rankings make it so that a tiny minority of Pell Grant students will get to go to these increasingly difficult to get into schools at the top of the list, kids with loads of money can continue to go wherever they want, and the rest of us slobs in the middle will continue to shop for the schools like Alabama that want our kids. I wish schools would just simply stop supplying the social mobility police their stats so we can go on to our regularly scheduled college hunts in peace and stop the admissions madness.

32

As mentioned above, the new social mobility indicators account for only 5 percent of the ranking formula. Alabama has lost ranking for the past 8 years, so there’s a lot more going on there, then just educating Pell Grants students.

33

The 35% in outcomes is heavily weighted by social factors. Add that to the social mobility 5% and it’s closer to 40%. It isn’t just straight up graduation rate, specific population graduation rates count more.

34

Re: post 28

Bama does offer in state students a larger number of scholarships and awards them for lower stats. For example an instate student is awarded the Presidential Scholarship for 30-36 ACT whereas an out of state student would need 32-36 ACT.
https://scholarships.ua.edu/freshman/in-state/

Bama has the Crimson Edge program for students accepted with lower stats. One of the undergraduates in this program recently graduated summa cum laude with a degree in MIS which was a fantastic achievement.

I think that Bama will probably have to become more selective with admissions at the low end. These are the students who are likely not graduating in the usual amount of time.

Transfer students are likely to be OOS undergraduates who have either lost their scholarship, or matriculated hoping to get a scholarship after their freshman year and were disappointed.

Graduate programs are a work in progress but not as strong as in some other flagship universities. Texas A&M was once in this position and worked to recruit well known professors at the end of their careers. This helped to raise the profile of the departments they joined. Perhaps Bama could do something similar.

Re post #31

The earlier drop is likely attributable to the change in classification by US News for a number of universities. An example of this was when Villanova changed from being a regional university to a national university when it reached the threshold of 20 PhDs awarded per year. When universities are reclassified in this way other universities move in the rankings.

At the end of the day the drop in rankings has nothing to do with academic rigor. Anyone reading the Bama Brags thread will be blown away by the high achieving students and the success they find after graduating. Nevertheless Bama will probably respond to the rankings drop by continuing to cut back on merit awards and awarding more financial aid. We have already seen this happening at other universities. Financial aid is a great thing and I’m happy for the students who are able to use it to fund their education. However as we see everyday on this forum there are families who can’t afford their EFC and are looking for merit scholarships to enable their kids to attend college. These are the families and students who will now have fewer options and bigger loans.

35

So, you’re saying 100% of the 35% is social mobility? What’s “heavily weighted”? What is actual %? If it’s not known, then it’s just all speculation.

Remember the decline is over EIGHT years. The formula has changed over the years. Also, why not complain about the Forbes ranking, which is worse at #252?

36

@sushiritto The main pt is that the drop in ranking is a drop based on a formula of things important to USNWR, not negative changes in quality of ed or student outcomes at the U. (No slashing of course offerings, dropping of degrees, or forcing students into huge lecture hall classes).

If rankings matter to you, then USNWR’s formula of important assessors will influence your decisions. If investigating individual schools, depts, on-campus opportunities, and grad outcomes gives you satisfactory information that defies USNWR’s factors, you can make your own independent assessment.

FWIW, I have friends whose kids went to UG at top 10 schools while my kids have attended Us like Bama. I know the adult post-UG outcomes. I’ll take my kids outcomes any day. My kids have thrived/excelled as UGs at their institutions, confident in their goals, and have landed post-graduation exactly where they wanted.

Ranked 10, 80, or 153…Bama is a great U where strong students who want to excel and have high goals can achieve them.

If my concerns were about weaker students having supports…that is an area I have never looked into… my parental research would need to shift focus. My kids don’t need to be concerned about 6 yr grad rates, upward mobility factors, supports for borderline education qualifications, etc. Rankings only matter if what is being ranked matters to you.

37

Other than “Outcomes”, UA is also dropping in other categories, much of it can be linked to increasing enrollment…

Faculty Resources (20% of the rankings)
Class sizes have increased (8%) as enrollment increased at a greater rate than Faculty.
Faculty Salaries have decreased (7%) as UA hired more Associate/Assistant Professors than Full professors (who are paid more) to help compensate for increase enrollment.
Proportion of full-time faculty with the highest degree in their fields (3%), student-faculty ratio (1%) and the proportion of faculty who are full time (1%). All have been impacted by increase enrollment.

Financial Resources (10%)
This is per student spending, and at best it’s been flat. Compare to other schools like AU, it’s been decreasing. More on this below

Student Excellence (10%)
Standardized tests make up 7.75%, with class rankings the other 2.25% (over 60% of freshman do provide class rankings). Keep in mind they are looking at class averages and not the top 25% to 30%. Based on the CDS info (UA provides the mean test scores, along with the middle 50% range), the SAT score was 1184 and the ACT composite was 27. Decent scores, but not as high as many of you may think.

I’m going to assume Expert Opinion (20%, survey data) has not changed much (this tend not to change) and the same with Alumni Giving (5%).

Funding per (undergraduate) student is driven by tuition, state appropriations, and other sources of income (such as donations, endowment earnings, etc). As you increase enrollment, you increase tuition, but the other factors don’t increase at the same rate. The end result is that while UA has grown tuition revenue, it has less funding per student.

UA is taking steps to address these issues, but it takes time (and money). They have already shared the game plan.
Slow down/Stop/Limit undergraduate enrollment growth (decrease merit aid, increase selectivity)
Improve Grad Rates (increase need-based aid, increase student support, etc).
Hire full time Faculty (improve faculty to student ratio, increase research, grow grad program)
Increase Alumni Giving

38

Time for ‘Bama to hire someone to deal with this systematically. Other schools are.

The USNWR ratings, regardless of how valid they are , get used by the masses to the point that drops translate to huge impact. Has nothing to do what you, I or anyone here thinks. That’s the reality. Not so much Forbes , the Times, the world ratings.

IMO, it’s very important for this school to start managing this issue.

39

I’m sure UA is already looking into it. I would assume the UA OIRA (Office of Institutional Research and Assessment) puts together a detail breakdown of UA’s score, by category and shares it with the President/Provost/Deans. That raises a list of strengths and weaknesses (such as Pell Grant student’s low graduation rates), that the school will look to address.

But UA also has to consider financial resources, the priorities of the Board of Trustees, university leadership (including the Deans) and the state legislature. They also consider feedback from faculty and students (surveys).

For example, increasing need-based aid wasn’t done only to increase the schools rankings. It’s also a priority for the state legislature and Board of Trustees (increase graduation rates, better server in-state students, etc.).

Right now, the challenge is determining where to invest the schools limited amount of funding (and how to find more way to increase funding).

40

Me again - full disclosure…I hastily typed my post while waiting for a flight by the gate so perhaps not as concise with my wording as I could have been.

As I was referring specifically to the fact that UA incentivizes OOS applicants to enroll at the university with their various merit thresholds, the aforementioned 3.5/1410 target that I suggested is below many ranked higher on the list refers to OOS applicants. Using just a few of the examples you provided previously, min (25th percentile) SAT scores for enrolled OOS students at public flagships on your list include:

UCLA - 1430
UC Berkeley - 1449
UVA - 1430

I couldn’t locate published OOS min SAT scores for Michigan or UNC on their sites but given the competitiveness of those schools and - admittedly unscientific & anecdotal - the volume of rejection posts in those schools Admissions threads last year on this site, OOS min SAT is likely north of 1450. As others have posted, composite SAT scores aren’t the most effective metric and individual scores are more relevant depending on the school/major.

I also agree with @Gator88NE - calculation methodologies evolve over time, but the trend for UA is undeniable. Not that it necessarily means the university isn’t a good option for students (my daughter still has it as one of her top choices), but perhaps it’s not continuously improving the level of its offerings relative to its peers in certain areas as cited previously in this thread.