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New College Rankings Focus on Social Service
By Gwendolyn Bradley
In August, the Washington Monthly released college rankings that rate institutions according to how well they serve society. The magazine says that the rankings produced by U.S. News and World Report, the Princeton Review, and other entities focus on the wrong question—whether parents are getting good value for their tuition dollars—and that their claims to be able to measure academic excellence are dubious.
The Washington Monthly instead asks whether citizens are getting good value for their tax dollars and tries to measure the extent to which institutions “advance knowledge and drive economic growth,” “encourage an ethic of service,” and serve as “engines of social mobility.” For example, institutions received points for research spending, number of science and engineering doctorates awarded, percentage of students enrolled in the Army or Navy Reserve Officer Training Corps or serving in the Peace Corps, percentage of federal work-study grants devoted to community-service projects, and graduation rates of low-income students. The results of the rankings differ dramatically from those of more traditional lists, with a larger number of public institutions highly ranked. Only three universities—the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, and the University of Pennsylvania—were ranked in the top ten by both the Washington Monthly and U.S. News and World Report.
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