The US News rating of UW-L comes just weeks after the
emergence of President Obama’s suggested scorecard system for universities.
When compared, U.S. News ranking and the President’s
systems differ. The scorecard system was created as a response to rising
costs of tuition.
The system Obama would like to implement is a review of schools
based on average tuition cost, average student debt, grad rates, grad students who
received Pell grants, and average earnings for graduates. The main
purpose is to ensure that students get the education that they pay for by
considering the outputs.
The ratings of U.S. News is largely input based, considering
the test scores of entering students and the ability of the institution to
cater to them while they are in school. It does not address whether or not
students graduate any “smarter” than when they entered.
Matthew Yglesias of slate.com says that universities should not be
graded on their input, but rather on their output. He says that students and
parents are looking for schools that are difficult to be accepted into, have
well-known professors, and have low teacher to student ratios. He states, “That
means spending money on merit-based scholarships ... and student services. What
it does not mean is investing money in cost effective teaching strategies.”
Universities received US News scores based on many categories,
including average freshman retention rate, 6-year graduation rate, classes with
fewer than 20 students, classes with 50 or more students, student-faculty
ratio, Fall 2012 acceptance rate, peer assessment, undergraduate academic
reputation, graduation and retention rank, predicted graduation rate,
overperformance/underperformance, faculty resources, percent of faculty that is
full-time, student selectivity, SAT/ACT 25th-75th percentile, freshmen in top
10% and 25% of high school, financial resources, and average alumni giving.
Recently UW-L was ranked 3rd overall in public institutions by U.S.
News. The university was ranked 26th in the combined public and private
category.
Yglesias and Obama’s scorecard suggest that universities should
not be judged on the talents and capabilities of their entering freshman. But
schools should rather be assessed on their ability to teach and prepare
students for the workforce.
