The Foreign Service Journal, December 2012

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | DECEMBER 2012 93 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 Washington Monthly , many schools have moved up the U.S. News &World Report rankings by increas- ing their spending and raising admis- sions standards and tuition rates to recruit “a better sort” of student, abandoning all but the most privi- leged students. In response to this trend, in 2005 the Washington Monthly began publishing its own ranking system to evaluate schools’ effectiveness rather than their status. WM ’s “differ- ent 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