<p>
[quote]
All she wants, Spellings says, is better information made available to families, taxpayers and policymakers so they can make better decisions about how they spend their money. And given how little is really known about how well students are served by higher education, she says, she doesn't see why anyone would find that unreasonable.</p>
<p>"If you want to buy a new car, you go online and compare a full range of models, makes and pricing options," she says. "The same transparency and ease should be the case when students and families shop for colleges, especially when one year of college can cost more than a car."
<p>just what we need more bureaucracy and paper pushing. this is precisely the kind of thing that may look and sound great on paper but could never be properly executed / implemented to a general level of satisfaction from all of the relevant stakeholders (schools, faculty, students, parents, city/state/federal officials, taxpayers, alumni, media, etc. etc.)</p>
<p>not to mention that this poses the danger of tipping the power of influence away from academic institutions themselves (e.g. schools spending unnecessary time appeasing / living up to certain metrics rather than addressing real problems specific to their own institution) in favor of government criteria / officials deemed in charge of this ratings process.</p>
<p>finally, it's not as if we are in dire need of yet another ranking (and one by the government no less).</p>
<p>I just read the article, and at first glance this looks like a wonderful idea that will definetly help first time college-bound families choose the right college for them, but after reading prestige's post i can't help but agree that the idea is a nothing more than that - an idea. </p>
<p>the cons that the_prestige mentioned definetly outweigh the pros in this matter.</p>
<p>LOL
How do you rank a whole institution?? There's no way because there are infinite criteria...Sorry but people do have to do their research.</p>
<p>And in the end, so what if there was a perfect fit for you that you didn't know about...in the end you got your degree and you moved on. People get so caught up in this "college search" that they forget nothing is or has to be exactly right or perfect.</p>
<p>And I wonder, could this ranking POSSIBLY be skewed through connections? Corruption...never!</p>
<p>b4nnd20, the article specifically says that this will NOT be in the form of a ranking.</p>
<p>
[quote]
[Davidson's president] disagrees with Spellings' premise that universities aren't accountable or effective. For example, 96% of freshmen who entered Davidson in 2004 came back for their sophomore year, and 87% of those who entered in 1999 graduated within six years. That information can be found on Davidson's website, not to mention in U.S. News.</p>
<p>Davidson's annual financial reports also are posted online. This year's 29-page report, to be mailed for the first time to parents, explains some reasons behind tuition increases, including a 6.3% increase in health care premiums for employees. (Davidson's tuition and fees increased 5.3% this year, just under the 5.9% average rate of increase for private universities reported by the College Board.) </p>
<p>Also, Vagt says, the college is wrapping up its re-accreditation, a process that involves a rigorous assessment of the university's quality by outside investigators. </p>
<p>Some data are "difficult to get through," he says, but "there is all kinds of information out there. ... If we didn't present ourselves right to families and students, they would quit coming." And they haven't: Davidson received 3,895 applications for 465 places in this year's freshman class.
[/quote]
I agree...the information is out there if people look for it. Collleges post everything from what states their students come from to how many people major in each subject to how many students graduate. About the only thing that isn't always clear is admissions data. I don't see the point in collecting data that's already out there.</p>
<p>What would be interesting, but what certainly won't happen, is comparing outcomes: test graduates in several areas like English, math, and their field of study. That would show which colleges were awarding rubber-stamp diplomas, and which had a highly rigorous curriculum and strict grading. When you hear stories like the one from Massachusetts a few years ago in which the majority of teachers college grads flunked a high school-level test, it's clear that one can't rely on every college to set appropriate standards.</p>
<p>Nice to think about, but I don't think we'll ever see it.</p>
<p>That's a good point. In North Carolina there was a big stir a couple years back when Barber-Scotia lost its accreditation, which meant no more federal funding. I felt bad for the students who'd spent time and effort on an education there. Some transferred, but many were just out of luck.</p>
<p>Absolutely no government oversight, with one exception. I think that taxpayers deserve to know the degree to which they are funding research vs. the teaching of undergraduates. For example, taxpayers may benefit from knowing that, for example, 40% of the classes that their S or D took were taught by doctoral students, who typically are not only inexperienced, but are busy taking classes, etc. The intention of such an analysis would not be to monitor research, but to merely ask whether the proportion of faculty time allocated to research, in contrast to teaching is appropriate. Of course we do not want to stifle independent thought and the publication of such thinking, but too often research productivity is deployed as a crude measure of faculty productivity. Further, universities often define success in terms of pages published relative to their competitors. There is a lot of junk produced, and in this sense significant opportunity costs (education of undergrads).</p>
<p>No one ever seems to mention the Common Dataset. While a lot of colleges publish their sets, several major ones keep the data under wraps. Saying what areas of the country students come from, how many graduate, how many find jobs is not different from one institution to another. While more government involvement is probably a bad idea, the reluctance of colleges to stand up and increase accountability is wrong.</p>
<p>Aren't the National Research Council rankings sort of a government ranking of colleges? The NRC is the operating arm of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and the IOM, which are private sector advisors to the government.</p>
<p>I think the US Dept of Ed is promoting an idea called the "unit record system" which would require colleges to send their data about individual students to the Dept of Ed for analysis. Currently, colleges fill out surveys and the govt just gets the summary data. The govt could then track students individually over time and track them if they switch colleges.</p>
<p>There is a lot about higher education that needs fixing. If the govt can kick some butt and get colleges to spend their time and money on actually educating and supporting their students, then more power to them.</p>
<p>Professors sometimes spend very little time with students. They are available very little after class. They treat students like dirt. They don't follow good educational practices. They don't take the initiative to interact with students more than the required 3 hours per week. The college does little to help students learn. College students teach themselves.</p>
<p>College administrators often have very low expectations for faculty and make few demands. It is almost impossible to get rid of a bad professor. College administrators are paid too much and they do very little of any significance. They are in constant motion but get nowhere. They waste a huge amount of the college budget on things that are unrelated to learning. They pay for ridiculous programs and projects that are outside the core mission so they will have something to talk about at meetings, so they can make presentations, but achieve nothing. Of course, our parents pay for their vanity projects in the long run.</p>
<p>Colleges are businesses that will say almost anything to market their product. If it were not for government intervention, colleges would get away with murder.</p>
<p>So, I am in favor of the government evaluating colleges. They will make mistakes and perhaps commit some injustices but the process will be worth the struggle. Perhaps they can expose some of the waste and get some of the real data out of the shadows and into the light.</p>
<p>I do have some misgivings. Higher ed is a very complex system and I am not confident that govt analysts, after they have the data, will be able to interpret it correctly for the public. For example, some colleges have higher graduation rates than others. But, they also attract more capable students. So, how do you measure how well a college does with the students who enroll there? Comparisons have to be carefully qualified.</p>
<p>But, lets get the information into the light and begin the debate.</p>
<p>Not really. The NRC doesn't claim to be naming colleges that educate students effectively; they only rate research. That is useful to prospective graduate students and some prospective undergrads, sure, but is it a ranking that would be useful to the 70-ish% of American adults who don't have a bachelor's degree? It's just not the same thing.</p>
<p>Unfortunately Rick, that's a concept very few people on this forum seem to understand and want to admit. University students study very complex concepts and read thousands of pages of theory on a monthly basis. Education at that level truly is a personal mission.</p>