<p><a href=“http://t.washingtonmonthly.com/washingtonmonthly/#!/entry/college-rankings-that-arent-ridiculous-washington-monthlys-2014-college-guide,53fb32cb025312186c4220e2”>http://t.washingtonmonthly.com/washingtonmonthly/#!/entry/college-rankings-that-arent-ridiculous-washington-monthlys-2014-college-guide,53fb32cb025312186c4220e2</a></p>
<p>Yeah right!</p>
<p>Well, I guess that it’s all about your priorities – and whether you can afford to pay for them.</p>
<p>Better links:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/septemberoctober_2014/features/introduction_a_different_kind_1051749.php”>http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/septemberoctober_2014/features/introduction_a_different_kind_1051749.php</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/2014.php”>http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/2014.php</a></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It is indeed a question of priorities. This guide, masquerading as a ranking of purportedly good choices, is pretending to provide an answer to their own questions:</p>
<p>“Every year we lavish billions of tax dollars and other public benefits on institutions of higher learning. This guide asks: Are we getting the most for our money?”</p>
<p>Considering the 'scientists" behind this exercise pegged the University of Texas at El Paso as their top choice for social mobility (and 8th overall) you really have to wonder how much time they spent thinking through their methodology. Obviously, they never set foot on that campus or spend much time analyzing the REAL results of what amounts to an overall mediocre academic wasteland that fails to graduate most of its students or graduates them with few marketable skills to defray a large amount of debt. </p>
<p>What do “we” really get for our money is a correct question to ask but it is should not solely be based on saddling students with debt on top of heavily marketed government grants. In the end, the Pell grants and others DO cost all of us, as it is not free money. If for-profit schools are milking this gravy train with little concern about their students, so are public institutions that pretend to be altruistic. </p>
<p>What good does it do to actively recruit students that do not stand much of a chance to ever graduate? The example of UTEP is striking. They accept almost 100% of applicants, offer generous scholarships to a number of students who are competitive, but fill the school with kids who probably should never have graduated from high school. Mastery of English is purely optional and most students spend years in and out of school until the day that the availability of free money and loans dries up. </p>
<p>If such schools are part of the solution, it must be an answer to a hell of a screwy question! </p>
<p>^ I completely agree with your analysis. The WaMo’s rankings are really for those who don’t seem to mind spending a lot of money to feel good based on someone else’s perception of what “doing good” entails.</p>
<p>For those who find this list useful, go for it.</p>
<p>@gandalf78
</p>
<p>Indeed. If you’re interested in comparing one hundred elite colleges’ average net prices in one fell swoop (before going on to do your due diligence) along with their individual student loan default rates, Washington Monthly is the place to go. At the very least it has saved @data10 a lot of homework:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/rankings-2014/affordable-elite-colleges-rank.php”>http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/rankings-2014/affordable-elite-colleges-rank.php</a></p>
<p>They even divide the columns by income bracket, which I have not seen done anywhere else.</p>
<p>@xiggi, it seems like we disagree about this every year. I think your annual use of UTEP as a whipping boy is a red herring. We all know from the Useless Spending News poll that a school only has to score perfectly on one metric to propel it towards the top. UTEP’s magic bullet appears to be its top place finish in exceeding graduation expectations for “the lowest of the low”. So, give the devil his due. They have an 11% student loan default rate which is terrible, but not so surprising considering they are admitting the scum of the earth, to listen to you. Compared to Amherst’s 3% student default rate for a student body that is a gazillion times wealthier, it actually isn’t that bad.</p>
<p>WaMo seems to be wrapping its arms around the issue of affordability and access which maybe, if you are a full-pay family doesn’t interest you. But, it interests me, maybe because most of the people I know fall into the donut hole category. Unlike the Useless Spending News poll, The WaMo college issue is actually interesting.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>JohnWesley, you are looking at a single a tree and not at the forest, or simply follow your nature to be contrarian and find a reason to disagree with the messenger. You are correct that I use UTEP as an example because not only is it ranked first in that illusory category, but it happens to be a school with which I am eminently familiar with in terms of its history and value. On the other hand, I am afraid that you know just as much about UTEP as you do about the Claremont consortium, namely not much at all. And this is reflected in your focus on default rates, when the real metric should be the return on the investment for both our government and the students. </p>
<p>The WaMo, just as the Vedder/Forbes exercise, could become a worthy counterpart of the USN as none of them are perfect. Your posts always seem to intimate that I am big supporter of the USN. It is not because they are barely acceptable and float well above a barrel of garbage composed by the ARWU et al, that I am a supporter. </p>
<p>All of them deserve much criticism, and the only redeeming quality of the WaMo appears to be a -self deprecating sense of humor as they predicted the reaction of “ridiculous.” And give it to them, any ranking that rewards UTEP in ANY category is being utterly ridiculous. </p>
<p>But you would have to know a thing or two about the school to understand that! To help you out, this might put you on the right path </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Achieving access, on a formula relying massively on the largesse of the government and the ability to borrow, is an easy step at an institution that admits everyone with a pulse. Achieving excellence for more than an incredibly small fraction of its freshmen is quite an ordeal. And one that ultimately amounts to a real bad idea for the overwhelming majority of the students who drank the snakeoil. </p>
<p>Lastly, I never used the term "scum of the earth: to describe UTEP population. That is downright insulting and a poor description of a group of good people who happen to be massively misled by profiteers and funneled to levels of worthless education. Those people deserve a LOT better. And, on that note, my dear Wesleyan fan, is there any reason why YOU would care as to what happens in El Paso, or ever done anything about it? I have and this is why I know that a high ranking of a school such as UTEP only contributes to a further compounding of the problems. Not a betterment! </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>SOCIAL MOBILITY
% of students receiving pell grants is not a marker of school quality.
Witness: #1 ranking Univ of Texas-El Paso. 59% receiving Pell. Graduation rate 37%</p>
<p>RESEARCH</p>
<h1>of students receiving PhDs from the school is a pretty useless statistic for an undergrad student</h1>
<p>SERVICE</p>
<h1>of students in ROTC? This has a big component of financial need. Wonder how many of these students would elect to do ROTC if parents were wealthy.</h1>
<p>@xiggi
</p>
<p>I sense a slight change of tone between posts:</p>
<p>@xiggi
</p>
<p>In any event, I suppose none of this has anythng to do with the fact that your beloved Claremont McKenna College finished dead last among all the Claremonts in its overall score and about fourteen places behind Wesleyan in the UTEP-free world of elite colleges despite having 2x Wesleyan’s endowmwnt per student:
<a href=“http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/rankings-2014/affordable-elite-colleges-rank.php”>http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/rankings-2014/affordable-elite-colleges-rank.php</a>
@xiggi
</p>
<p>Yet another bad ranking. Junk. So many California schools rated highly- only useful to those living there. Finances are not what make a place. If I were a potential student with top stats I would never use this to choose schools. I would rather figure out which truly top ACADEMIC schools I had a chance of affording via scholarships and/or instate tuition. I don’t see how these rankings would help students find academic peers.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>No, Circuitrider, I did not change a iota of my tone. You probably glanced at my post and jumped to conclusions based on what you thought I wrote. Go word by word, and I challenge you to find a single word that was demeaning or lacked concern for the … students. Criticizing an institution is not the same as demeaning the misled students. Fwiw, that is the same for the students who are ribbed of a decent K-12 and then send to a mediocre local university that despite abysmal standards fails to graduate them. </p>
<p>Again, I do NOT blame you for not knowing much about West Texas and UTEP, but I think you were wrong in labeling my post as an annual red herring. </p>
<p>^^
I think you misunderstand what kind of ranking it is.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Oh, please, that is just hogwash! Perhaps you are guilty of judging the results of rankings based on where your “beloved” school ends, but I never do or did this. I have been highly critical of rankings in which “my” schools were ranked extremely high. In this case, I did NOT even glanced at the score of CMC as it is TOTALLY irrelevant to me. </p>
<p>I trust you did look Wes to compare the results to its fate in the USN you complain about. I am glad you made it clear that this part is … important to you. </p>
<p>But keep on digging for more allegations. </p>
<p>@xiggi
</p>
<p>That’s a laugh. The only time you have EVER criticised the Useless Spending News poll is when it didn’t rank CMC highly enough. And, unlike the 2014 Forbes poll at least you could find CMC in this one:<a href=“http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/rankings-2014/affordable-elite-colleges-rank.php”>http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/rankings-2014/affordable-elite-colleges-rank.php</a> </p>
<p>Haha, JohnWesley, you are a hoot. Obviously, you know what I have written in a decade better than I do! </p>
<p>What is laughable is how far off you are on this! And especially on my opinion on how CMC is ranked by USNews. You really do not get it! </p>
<p>@xiggi
</p>
<p>So, enlighten us. What is your big criticism of the Useless Spending News poll? </p>
<p>I could point to dozens of posts but here is one written in … 2005! Is that far enough? </p>
<p><a href=“Consolidated thread about leaked US News 2006 Rankings - #448 by xiggi - College Search & Selection - College Confidential Forums”>Consolidated thread about leaked US News 2006 Rankings - #448 by xiggi - College Search & Selection - College Confidential Forums;
<p>I happen to like the ranking but ONLY for the fact that it does a reasonable job in compiling the numbers - despite the lunacy of pretending to be scientific. The cost of subscribing is a very good investment. However, that does not stop me for considering the end product -if the ranking is supposed to be a ranking- to be entirely misleading and lacking basic integrity. There is no science behind the methodology, and their own former director admitted that the methodology is very suspect and lacks statistiscal integrity. The information is there, but it is manipulated and massaged in order to arrive at pre-established numbers to cater to a set clientele.</p>
<p>Twelve monkeys could probably rearrange the criteria by tossing darts at a board and not change much of the final outcome.</p>
<p>-:::::::</p>
<p>Or from the same year in 2005</p>
<p>The US News has become an even bigger joke than it ever was, and that is no small feat.</p>
<p>Or </p>
<p>I think that USNews would show a lot more integrity by telling unsuspecting students that they can and do manipulate the rankings by changing the methodology and weighing the elements to follow their yearly desire. </p>
<p>Or </p>
<p>If the USN had an ounce of integrity</p>
<p>
Only ROTC scholarships students receive significant financial aid; namely full tuition. </p>
<p>Non-scholarship ROTC students (roughly half of the total number) get zero money from the military during their first two years in college. For their final two years they get less than $500 per month for up to 10 months per year. In other words, less than $10,000 total during their junior and senior years.</p>
<p>Most scholarship students come from middle class families, and their average ACT scores are above 26. The overwhelming majority of Air Force and Navy ROTC scholarship students major in engineering or hard science. They would earn considerably more money as civilians, yet choose the military path.</p>
<p>ROTC is a merit based program. Cadets and midshipmen earn every dollar they receive from the military.</p>
<p>@NROTgrad, thanks for explaining!</p>
<p>I have a hard time with rankings as they do go for averages and you can have your back side on fire with your head in the deep freeze, and be considered comfortable on average.</p>
<p>The fact of the matter is that most students that go on to college cannot afford to go away to school. They commute. Their families can continue to provide a roof over their heads, the proverbial “cot and 3 squares”, though how that even works with food these days I can’t even say but really, they just continue to live at home and take whatever amentiies their family, home, relatives, neighbors, friends, community, school, county, state, city, government has to offer. Some of these students are from families that may be well to do by FAFSA or most financial measures, so they do not qualify for any aid other than the DIrect Loan. Some are not citizens and don’t qualify for any government aid at all. Some have parents who won’t fill out the financial aid forms; you’d be surprised how many just won’t, can’t do that. For whatever reason, the local state school or maybe some local private school will take these students and make it work financially at least for that first term. </p>
<p>My son got an offer that basically was free tuiton for a local private college that doesn’t do well in any rankings. But I know a number of grads, including a Rhodes scholar (yes, from that very school) who are doing so very well with degrees from there. Frankly, had he taken up their offer and gone to their business program and gotten an Accounting degree, he’d have far better prospects than what he ended up choosing for a lot more money Also, the differential in costs is well over $150K over those 4 years. That’s an awful lot of money, a huge differential. </p>
<p>A lot of schools that are primarily commuter schools in areas where there are a lot of low income families will have a lot of PELL grant kids. Some schools aggressively go after that money, not the kids so much as the money It makes their financial wheels turn. They sit there and show kids how they could go to school for “free” with PELL, state money if any and those Direct loans. </p>
<p>So how to come up with good ratings, good lists for people to use, I don’t know. Like anything else, research is needed and one has to apply to a lot of different choices to see what pans out the best</p>