Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Colleges ranked by value added

For decades, Americans have been infatuated with the U.S. News college rankings, which is foolish because those rankings have almost nothing to do with educational results and everything to do with input measures and subjective estimates of “reputation.” (For the Pope Center’s assessment, see this paper Michael Lowrey and I wrote in 2004.) Quite a few rival college rankings have appeared on the scene, but so far not one has put much of a dent in the dominance of U.S. News. The Brookings system is vastly superior, and might do so.

One reason for liking it is that the data help to crush some mistaken notions about higher education. We often hear, for instance, that students should always prefer the most prestigious school they can possibly get into because they do so much more to enhance a student’s chances for success.

But that’s not necessarily so. Near the top of the four-year schools, we find Harvard and Drake University (Des Moines, Iowa) with almost identical numbers. Apparently, Drake is doing quite a lot for most of its students. Good students who can’t get into Harvard or other elite universities shouldn’t despair because it’s possible to get a good, useful education at colleges few people have heard of. That, incidentally, is the point of Frank Bruni’s recent book Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be, which I reviewed here. The Brookings results support his argument.