College ratings system gets local voice
Augustana College President Steve Bahls has long disliked the methodology U.S. News & World Report uses to obtain information for its annual ranking of the nation’s colleges.
He is not alone among his peers.
At a meeting of the Annapolis Group in Annapolis, Md., this week, Bahls and about 80 other liberal arts college presidents and 71 academic deans decided that it is time to create a Web-based alternative to the U.S. News & World Report rankings that can be easily used by students and their families. And, something that will give better data on each of the schools, particularly each school’s mission.
As a consequence, Bahls said that most of the college presidents he has talked with will no longer complete the annual survey issued by U.S. News & World Report.
“Most of the presidents filled it out this year, and we decided this would be the last year,” he said. “There were a few presidents who boycotted this year, too.”
The report asks presidents to rank more than 300 colleges in the nation, he said.
“That’s just impossible to do,” Bahls said. “It’s impossible for a president to know the quality of more than a handful of colleges.
“The methodology thinking that presidents can rank colleges is deficient,” he said. “It gets families to rely on simplistic rankings instead of the programs offered by the colleges.”
For instance, Bahls said that more than half the students in their senior year at Augustana do research projects with faculty members. That information is not counted in the U.S. News & World Report rankings.
“I fully believe that such research projects help our students when they’re interviewing for jobs,” he said. “They’ve developed a thesis, done the research and defended the thesis.”
That is why members of the Annapolis Group, an organization of the leading national independent liberal arts colleges, have decided to collaborate with other higher education organizations to build a Web site that will give students information about schools.
According to the Annapolis Group Web site, “The Annapolis Group members will work with the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities and the Council of Independent Colleges among others to develop this common instrument.”
Bahls said that the new Web site will give prospective students information about each school’s mission, how many students study abroad, degree offerings, research opportunities, Division III sports, along with other information students need to make the right choice about the college or university they attend.
Paul Koch, the associate vice president for assessment and institutional research at St. Ambrose University, Davenport, said the school is continuing to fill out the U.S. News & World Report survey and that University President Ed Rogalski did complete a reputation survey.
Still, he said, the rankings in the U.S. News & World Report survey tend to be subjective.
Additionally, he said, the U.S. News survey looks more at inputs rather than outputs.
“It should also look at what students are producing, what they should be learning and what they are learning,” he said.
The missions of the schools needs to be spelled out as well, he said.
“You compare the mission of St. Ambrose University to the mission of Augustana College and neither is better, just different,” Koch said. That difference in mission, though, could be the difference between a student fitting in at one institution and doing well, and struggling at another.
“Institutions of higher education are attempting to become more mission-driven,” he said. “When we talk about student fit, we’re talking about a student who feels comfortable with the mission of the institution.”
For example, Koch said recalls telling students during summer orientations that if they want to sit in the back of a classroom and be anonymous, they shouldn’t attend a small liberal arts college where, “you’ll be expected to participate in class and in your education and people will know you around campus.”
Still, he said, the U.S. News & World Report is a valuable source of information for people. “If they provided that information without ranking schools, it would help people to be just as informed.”
Thomas Geyer can be contacted at (563) 383-2328 or tgeyer@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com.