Colleges asked to rethink ranking systems

NEW YORK – A nonprofit organization is asking universities to help eliminate or at least alter the ways magazines rank colleges.\nA letter citing problems with the ranking systems was sent to 16 liberal arts college presidents by the Education Conservancy, an Oregon-based nonprofit organization. Eleven of the college presidents have already signed the letter, and once 12 have signed it, it will be sent to numerous universities.\nThe executive director of the Education Conservancy, Lloyd Thacker, said current college ranking systems influence students, parents and especially colleges in a negative way. He calls it “rank steering – driving under the influence.”\n“The ranking systems degrade the service to education by overestimating the importance of a college’s rank and underestimating the role that the student plays in making education happen,” Thacker said.\nNew York University spokesman John Beckman said NYU knows high school students look at the rankings, “but we hope students interested in NYU won’t buy into” them.\nThacker and a small group of college presidents wrote the letter, which asks university presidents and their institutions to adopt a new approach to college ranking systems – different from the way reviews are conducted by companies like the U.S. News & World Report and the Princeton Review.\nThe letter said rankings lead to false ideas about colleges and that they say nothing, or very little, about whether students are learning at the school.\n“We believe these rankings are misleading and do not serve well the interests of prospective students in finding a college or university that is well-suited to their education beyond high school,” the letter says.\nThacker said colleges have begun giving more merit aid and less need-based aid, partially because of rank steering. \nAnn Marcus, director of the Steinhardt Institute for Higher Education Policy, has held a number of forums and discussions about competitive admissions and access to higher education.\n“One of the negative things that colleges do is try to keep increasing the applications to a college, sometimes among students who don’t have a good chance of getting accepted,” Marcus said.\nShe said they do this by sending letters to prospective students, trying to get them to apply and making them think they can get in.\n“Everybody is trying to approach education like it’s a product,” he said. “Education is way too complex and diverse for it to be ranked in any kind of ordinal system.”\nThacker said he is going to hold several meetings with college presidents to find alternatives to the current ranking system.