In 2018, US News changed how it calculated its rankings, removing admission rate data (focusing on the most selective schools) and focusing on low-income students. However, the top results did not change much. Princeton University has held her #1 position in the National University Rankings for nearly 12 years.

US News has changed the way it ranks universities. It’s still ridiculous.

Other organizations have found different ways to rank universities. This post explains how the Third Way, a Washington-based think tank, does just that. It is to define the value of a university based on the percentage of low-income students and their economic situation. The benefits it provides them.

This article was written by Third Way Senior Fellow Michael Itzkowitz. He also served as director of the Department of Education’s College Scorecard during the Obama administration.

These are statements you don’t hear often. Harvard is a Tier 4 institution. In fact, he ranks 847th among 1,320 bachelor’s degree-granting institutions in the United States.

But if you measure universities in terms of the economic liquidity they actually offer, rather than exclusivity or test scores, they hit the mark.

I have studied the value of colleges over the years, and along with the popularity of college rankings, some of my research has provided some basic insight into how we value colleges. It led me to ask questions.

Do university rankings actually reflect the purpose of the higher education system, or are they simply tools for producing the same list of well-resourced and selective schools year after year?

You can imagine the conclusions I have reached. But if the purpose of higher education is to lift the next generation and leave them better off, rather than simply replicating class inequalities that already exist, how can we effectively measure it?

In 2020, Third Way and I introduced a concept known as the price-to-earnings premium. It looks at what students actually pay compared to the revenue “boost” they get by attending a particular institution. This allows prospective students to estimate how long it will take to recoup the costs of completing a degree. Then we looked at this premium, especially for low-income students.

While I was calculating the numbers, I was excitedly waiting for the results. But the data surprised me. Which school came out on top? Duke University, Stanford University, William & Mary University, Harvard University, Yale University. The institutions with the highest return on investment for low-income students essentially mimicked the annual US News & World Report rankings.

But there was one thing that stood out among all these schools at the top of the list. That is, she has less than 1 in 5 low- and middle-income students enrolled in every school. If you’re one of the lucky few to be admitted, you’re likely to get a great return on your investment. However, the chances of most people being admitted are very limited. If you are accepted, you are more likely to succeed wherever you enroll.

This wasn’t what I was looking for, but it led me to create a new way of evaluating institutions known as the Economic Mobility Index. Rather than prioritizing selectivity and test scores as in traditional university rankings, EMI defines the value a university offers based on the percentage of low-income students enrolled and the economic benefits they receive. increase.

Incorporating both of these results provides a better indication of the universities that are actually delivering on the promise of the entire higher education system: schools that are opening doors to degrees and lifting students up the socio-economic ladder. increase.

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result? Schools at the top of US news lists (for example, Princeton University, Harvard University, and Yale University) drop to 426th, 847th, and 495th respectively in terms of the financial liquidity they offer.

Instead, schools such as the California State University System, Texas A&M University, and the City University of New York have risen to the top. In fact, the top 10 schools are all Hispanic institutions. And while historically black colleges are chronically underfunded and often do not appear in hot news rankings, he secures a seventh place in the top 100.

These schools have delivered on their promise of higher education over the years. But most news outlets and university ranking publications don’t acknowledge them at all.

It’s time to change that. Rather than rewarding schools based on the size of their donations, their historical prestige, or the test scores of the students they enroll, the press wants institutions to provide opportunities and keep most students in better shape than they started out. should take precedence.

Schools like Harvard may not like this. But if the goal of higher education is really to move students up the socio-economic ladder, then Harvard University is just a tier 4 institution.

You can see other rankings here.