The Foreign Service Journal, June 2013

102 JUNE 2013 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL EDUCATION SUPPLEMENT Putting College Rankings into Perspective A nnual college rankings is a cut- throat business that has led many schools to shun student needs and the needs of society in favour of maintaining or increasing “prestige.” According to Rachel Fishman and Robert Kelchen in the September/ October 2012 Washington Monthly , many schools have moved up the U.S. News &World Report rankings by increasing their spending and raising admissions standards and tuition rates to recruit “a better sort” of student, abandoning all but the most privileged students. In response to this trend, in 2005 Washington Monthly began publish- ing its own ranking system to evalu- ate schools’ effectiveness rather than their status. WM ’s “different kind of college ranking” looks at how well a school performs with the students it has in terms of metrics that measure the widely shared national goal of increasing social mobility, producing research and inspiring public service. “What are colleges doing for the country?” WM asks. This year, with the cost of educa- tion becoming an ever more serious crisis, WM has introduced a new factor into its unique rankings that evaluates a school’s cost-effective- ness. The “cost-adjusted gradua- tion rate” gives the highest rank- ings to schools that have not only better-than-expected graduation rates (measured by comparing the school’s expected and actual gradu- ation rate) but at the same time keep the prices low. WM ’s complete 2012 college rankings, as well as insightful discus- sion of the most recent trends in education, can be found online in the College Guide section of the publica- tion’s Web site (WashingtonMonthly. com/College_Guide). —Susan Brady Maitra, Senior Editor