Unless the metrics used for the ratings are based upon things like per capita salary x-many years after graduation (broken out into specific fields of study and private/public sectors), then it all comes down to either a popularity contest, or a measure of how well a school's policies reflect the latest "progressive" education practices.
In other words, unless it shows what the student "gets" out of the experience when done, they are selling dreams.
"Things like" would count things that mattered per category. If you wanted to go into pure science, most likely you'd be concerned about the freshman average GPA, the % of graduates who change majors, and the graduating percentage that find employment as researchers and educators.
Medical school costs (and the insurance load to practice medicine) are already tipping the scales against GPs (low return on educational investment), and many medical students already know this. The real looming healthcare crises will be when the margins on being a general practioneer sinks below the educational investment cost, and all we are left with are specialists.
As far as investment return on the cost of college education goes, earnings would be a useful metric, especially when one has to finance the education with student loans that have fixed rates of repayment. It is the most universally applicable metric, and although it may not make everybody's world go around, it does keep things from coming to a grinding halt (apart from coercion and intimidation).
In any case, I doubt the college U.S. News college ranking is the largest signal to where most incoming freshman apply.
Maybe the problem is that, for many kinds of education that are useful and/or beneficial to society, money is a poor measuring stick and market forces are not a desirable influence.
The effect on GPs you describe is already driving a health care crisis in the US. We may be left with an overhang of specialists who will surely argue their education should not become a "stranded asset."
When you measure by these metrics, you end up getting the law school scam, where schools employ unemployed graduates for juuust long enough to count them as long term employed, and only make an effort to collect the salary of highly paid graduates (and use "reported salaries" as their denominator, not total grads)
OK, I'm not advocating that those metrics must be used, and must be collected in a certain way. What I am doing is being critical of rankings that aren't at least related in some way to the reasons most people seek higher education.
If anything, I am most critical of a single ranking that is supposed to tell me how good something is crafted from within the community that is being ranked.
Too simplistic. There are a lot of things that bring bias into the equation if the question is about the effectiveness of teaching/education and not about the ability of a school to create (rather than select or influence) 'success' outside of it actually succeeding at teaching or educating.
Comments
Unless the metrics used for the ratings are based upon things like per capita salary x-many years after graduation (broken out into specific fields of study and private/public sectors), then it all comes down to either a popularity contest, or a measure of how well a school's policies reflect the latest "progressive" education practices.
In other words, unless it shows what the student "gets" out of the experience when done, they are selling dreams.
That would work for MBAs and perhaps JDs, but why tip the scales against, say, a med school that produces great GPs but not many cosmetic surgeons?
A money-based measurement is also heavily canted toward the "old money" set and their legacy admissions to their alma maters.
Money isn't everything. And often it isn't even accurate at measuring how well a school equips students to make it on their own.
"Things like" would count things that mattered per category. If you wanted to go into pure science, most likely you'd be concerned about the freshman average GPA, the % of graduates who change majors, and the graduating percentage that find employment as researchers and educators.
Medical school costs (and the insurance load to practice medicine) are already tipping the scales against GPs (low return on educational investment), and many medical students already know this. The real looming healthcare crises will be when the margins on being a general practioneer sinks below the educational investment cost, and all we are left with are specialists.
As far as investment return on the cost of college education goes, earnings would be a useful metric, especially when one has to finance the education with student loans that have fixed rates of repayment. It is the most universally applicable metric, and although it may not make everybody's world go around, it does keep things from coming to a grinding halt (apart from coercion and intimidation).
In any case, I doubt the college U.S. News college ranking is the largest signal to where most incoming freshman apply.
Maybe the problem is that, for many kinds of education that are useful and/or beneficial to society, money is a poor measuring stick and market forces are not a desirable influence.
The effect on GPs you describe is already driving a health care crisis in the US. We may be left with an overhang of specialists who will surely argue their education should not become a "stranded asset."
When you measure by these metrics, you end up getting the law school scam, where schools employ unemployed graduates for juuust long enough to count them as long term employed, and only make an effort to collect the salary of highly paid graduates (and use "reported salaries" as their denominator, not total grads)
OK, I'm not advocating that those metrics must be used, and must be collected in a certain way. What I am doing is being critical of rankings that aren't at least related in some way to the reasons most people seek higher education.
If anything, I am most critical of a single ranking that is supposed to tell me how good something is crafted from within the community that is being ranked.
Nothing wrong with employment.
Too simplistic. There are a lot of things that bring bias into the equation if the question is about the effectiveness of teaching/education and not about the ability of a school to create (rather than select or influence) 'success' outside of it actually succeeding at teaching or educating.