<p>I got this from a discussion in the Parents Forum. Washington Monthly has been a consistent critic of the USNews ranking system for a few years now (they're the ones that remarked that the USNews poll was like trying to find out how good the food was at a restaurant by measuring how much they spend on silverware.)</p>
<p>In designing their own poll they laid out three broad measures, selected according to outcomes the editors felt best served the American taxpayers: 1) producing knowledge and research; 2) encouraging social mobility; and, 3) encouraging service to the community.</p>
<p>Interestingly, in a move that could possibly satisfy the Right and the Left, they included both participation in ROTC as well as the Peace Corps as measures of community service: </p>
<p><a href="http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2005/0509.collegeguide.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2005/0509.collegeguide.html</a></p>
<p>The US News Best Colleges issue is the best thing that has come along for consumers of higher education since college administrators stopped burning heretics at the stake. It is accurate and valid.</p>
<p>The Wash Monthly article is interesting. Thanks for sharing it. But, I wouldn't take the Wash Monthly ranking seriously. I wouldn't base college choice on it. I don't think it indicates academic quality or quality of life for undergrads.</p>
<p>Wash Monthly weighed community service equally with the other categories and measured it with ROTC, work-study grants, and Peace Corps involvement. Research production was measured with spending and PhD production in Science and Engineering. Social mobility was measured by Pell Grants and the percent of Pell students who graduate.</p>
<p>Community service should be completely voluntary. Students should not be required or pressured to engage in community service. What's more, how does ROTC and Peace Corps and work-study jobs reflect a social consciousness? ROTC and work-study are ways for paying for college. Social consciousness is created primarily between age 1 and 18, not between age 18 and 22. College students should focus on studying. Education is what parents pay for.</p>
<p>Here is the Wash Monthly method. Judge for yourself.
"Each of our three categories included several components. We determined the Community Service score by measuring each school's performance in three different areas: the percentage of their students enrolled in the Army or Navy Reserve Officer Training Corps; the percentage of their students who are currently serving in the Peace Corps; and the percentage of their federal work-study grants devoted to community service projects. A school's Research score is based on two measurements: the total amount of an institution's research spending, and the number of Ph.Ds awarded by the university in the sciences and engineering. For both Community Service and Research, we weighted each component equally to determine a school's final score in the category.
The Social Mobility score was a little more complicated. We had data that told us the percentage of a school's students on Pell Grants, which is a good measure of a school's commitment to educating lower-income kids. But we wanted to know how many of these students graduate, and, unfortunately, schools aren't required to track those figures. So we devised our own method of estimating that statistic"</p>
<p>Any list that has Fisk anywhere near Top 100 needs to be evaluated, if Fisk is in the Top 10 then flush the list down the toilet.</p>
<p>What's wrong with Fisk?</p>
<p>Collegehelp - I couldn't disagree with you more. Anything that measures how well a school does with those students who are the least coached, least well-off financially and least prepared in terms of family background, probably says more about how good a college is academically than merely measuring SATs and leaving it at that. And remind me again, which survey is it that measures "quality of life"? I'm not familiar with that one.</p>
<p>Also, I'm not at all sure your social consciousness stops growing at 18; studies have shown that the brain continues to grow well into your twenties; why shouldn't social consciousness?</p>
<p>And while ROTC does pay college expenses, it's certainly more than just another work-study program. And, of course, volunteering for the Peace Corps doesn't pay for anything.</p>
<p>"A school's Research score is based on two measurements: the total amount of an institution's research spending, and the number of Ph.Ds awarded by the university in the sciences and engineering."</p>
<p>And this tells me what, exactly, about the quality of undergraduate education?</p>
<p>I think that when you couple research funding with the other two parameters, social mobility and community service, you do begin to see a pattern of institutional <em>gravitas</em> that while we can't prove that it impacts u/g education, is certainly every bit as valuable a heuristic tool as the %age of alumni giving. :)</p>
<p>johnwesley, would you honestly rank Fisk as a Top 100 institution, it's rarely even consider as one of the top HBCUs, nevermind liberal arts college. Fisk is a third tier institution, and I'm sorry, but third tier should never equate to top 10, saying Mills College was best in the country would be more plausible than that.</p>
<p>This is not a ranking to help parents and their high school students decide which college best suits their individual needs. A quote from article...</p>
<p>"How much more important, then, is it for taxpayers to know that their moneyin the form of billions of dollars of research grants and student aidis being put to good use?"</p>
<p>That's a legitimate question. I pay a lot of taxes. I do care where they go, and I do care about whether and how our universities are serving societal needs in the long run. I think these things matter. But when I'm looking for the right place to send my kid for $43,000 a year, I'm less concerned with saving the world than I am with making sure she picks the right school for her needs. </p>
<p>Social mobility, community service, and research funding tells me a more about what a university will do for society than it does about what it can do for its undergraduates.</p>
<p>Cre8tive - I just wanted to make sure there wasn't some skeleton in Fisk's closet that we don't already know about. We know that it's underendowed and probably doesn't have the best facilities. Therefore, it's all the more galling to me as an American that, for their niche, HBCUs still provide more social mobility than the Ivy League (at least, that's my assumption; it may also be that they generate more Ph.Ds per capita than any other college or more NSF grants--but, that's pure speculation.)</p>
<p>1Down2togo - I agree with you with one small caveat; I've always felt that USNews' trumpeting its survey as "America's Best Colleges" was something of a misnomer. That rubric should be reserved for those colleges that are, in fact, the best for America. Putting that aside, however, doesn't the Wash Monthly poll make you want to examine those colleges and unis that made it to the top of BOTH polls in a new light?</p>
<p>Johnwesley, I can agree with you on that, I wasn't looking at the list the way 1Down2togo explained, this is interesting if your speaking from a prospective of social molibity.</p>
<p>johnwesley, you'll get no argument from me regarding several of the USNews components being of dubious help in determining which are the "best" colleges. </p>
<p>As far as the schools that made the top of both pools go, I am more impressed with the privates (about half of the top 20) than the publics, since state-supported public schools are supposed to serve the needs of the local population. And in the case of the University of California, they also take in hoards of junior transfers from the community college system -- a way for students to defray costs and/or gain some added academic strength for those who might not have been prepared right after high school. </p>
<p>I'm more impressed with MIT, Johns Hopkins, et al, who--if we can believe the Washington list--are providing a top-notch education and fostering social mobility without a mandate and without the support of state tax dollars. University of California Berkeley? Yawn. That's their job.</p>
<p>Social mobility is an interesting metric. I still wouldn't use it to choose a college, but it is one of the most important functions of higher ed in a democracy. Wash Monthly's method for assessing social mobility is invalid. Read about their method. Pell grant grad rates really indicate which colleges admit only the smartest poor kids. </p>
<p>Public universities have the privates beat in this regard. Among private colleges, I think the best measure of social mobility might be lowest average EFC- expected family contribution. </p>
<p>Among the Ivies, Cornell is least generous with institutional grant money (gift money from Cornell itself). On the other hand, Cornell has 3 NYS statutory colleges that give a financial break to NYS residents. </p>
<p>The IPEDS COOL web site gives average institutional grant and loan awards. Choose a college then find the link to "financial aid".</p>
<p><a href="http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/cool/%5B/url%5D">http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/cool/</a></p>
<p>collegehelp - Pell grants may be an inadequate marker for reasons a few people have pointed out, their failure to keep up with true costs being a big one. But, it's hard to knock the privates for only taking "the smartest of the poor"; that, as inchoate as it may seem, is <em>their</em> mission.</p>