U.S. News college rankings were announced on Tuesday: Harvard is yet again the top. Princeton is in second place … once more. Yale is 3rd with their Ivy League bias. But those are the national college rankings: Since money is a major part of the list, those in academia tend to criticize it. When deciding which school is best for you or your child, you can look at the U.S. News Best Colleges 2011 which has a pretty useful matrix to some, although many don’t agree. Resource for this article – U.S. News college rankings contain no surprises by Personal Money Store.
How U.S. News and World Report ranks colleges
To rank colleges, the U.S. News report uses a bunch of categories schools have been put into. The highest level of degrees conferred by discipline is how the Best Colleges 2011 groups all of the colleges and universities in America. The 1,400-plus accredited schools were divided into four main groupings: National Universities, National Liberal Arts Colleges, Regional Universities and Regional Colleges. North, South, Midwest and West are the regions the Regional Universities and Regional Colleges were put into. Each school had data on 16 indicators of academic quality gathered. Colleges are ranked in their categories by their total weighted score.
Back in black
The U.S. News and World Report college rankings are just one of numerous such compendiums of higher education. Princeton Review offers a comprehensive evaluation of U.S. schools, but the only thing about the Princeton Review list that gets any attention are the Princeton top party schools. Higher education critics take a list like the U.S. News Best Colleges 2011 more seriously. CNN’s MoneyWatch had Lynn O’Shaughnessy say the whole thing is a joke. She writes that U.S. News doesn’t make an effort to measure the type of learning taking place at schools across the country. Instead U.S. News and World Report is simply conducting a high-stakes beauty contest, where 25 percent of each school’s score is depending solely on its reputation.
Value as an essential factor
It has been ten years and still, Harvard or Princeton get the number one spot for the U.S. News college rankings. David Gura at NPR explains that getting on top with college rankings doesn’t matter to most. Colleges have less money, making for budget cuts and enrollment caps. More students are applying to more schools. Getting accepted into college is difficult for many. Academic reputation, graduation, freshmen retention, faculty resources, alumni giving and financial resources are all things considered with the U.S. News college rankings. But within the increasingly expensive world of higher education, finding value is nevertheless one of probably the most significant — if not the most important — factors in choosing a school
Additional reading
U.S. News and World Report
colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges
CBS Money Watch
moneywatch.bnet.com/saving-money/blog/college-solution/why-us-news-college-rankings-are-a-joke/703/
NPR
npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/08/17/129248940/what-do-best-college-rankings-tell-us?ft=1 and amp;f=103943429 and amp;sc=tw and amp;utm_source=twitterfeed and amp;utm_medium=twitter
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