Britney Spears and College Rankings

I'm in Miami Beach this weekend, sitting out by the pool while my lovely wife attends a conference on utility regulation. It turns out that Britney Spears is also staying at our hotel (sans Fed-ex, naturally), which I guess makes me either famous or trashy by association, I'm not sure which.

As some of you may know, I've been spending a lot of time recently writing and talking about college rankings. This gist of the report we published on the subject: rankings--specifically the U.S. News & World Report rankings, have a big influence on how colleges and univerisities behave. And because the rankings are primarily based on wealth, fame, and exclusivity, they cause higher education institutions to focus on those things, instead of what's best for students. Rankings can't be eliminated--the public wants them, so someone will always publish them. Thus, we need new rankings based on better information, such as how much college students actually learn while they're in school.

Several critics have responded along the lines of, "The rankings aren't as influential as you think. Sure, universities pay attention, but they're not the be-all and end-all." I thought of this as I read the Miami Herald this morning, out by the pool (it's funny how they build a hotel next to the beach and then everyone sits by the pool, where you can't even see the beach), and came upon an article on the front page of the Metro section, beginning as follows:

University of Florida leaders have been so obsessed with rankings in college guide books that they initiated a national advertising campaign to persuade academics around the country to give the school more respect. But as the ads went out last year, the state's flagship university was racking up a multimillion-dollar debt in its College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, where most students take their core classes.

The fallout -- proposed cuts in math, English and other humanities teaching positions -- has critics arguing that UF is undermining its efforts to bolster its image. Cuts could lead to larger classes and the perception of diminishing quality, prompting the best professors to leave, critics say.''You're not going to become a top 10 school if you start gutting the humanities,'' said Donovan Hulse, a 32-year-old philosophy graduate student whose department is slated to lose a fourth of its grad student slots.

Actually, that's entirely wrong. You could gut the humanities 'til kingdom come and still become a top 10 school, because the rankings have nothing to do with the quality of education in the humanities, or anywhere else. The only real "academic" measure is a reputational survey, which is all about the research reputation of your faculty. As the article goes on to note:

T.K. Wetherell, the president of rival Florida State University, is promoting his own bold plan: to recruit 200 ''superstar'' professors within 10 years in an attempt to put the school in league with UF as a top research university.

How many of the those "superstars" attained that status because they're good at teaching? Without knowing anything about them, I'm confident that the number is, give or take a few, and accounting for the statistical margin of error, none.

I've also noted that the U.S. News rankings contribute to the endless escalation of college costs, because they're substantially based on how much money colleges spend. It doesn't really matter how they spend it, other than lowering class sizes, which is a crude measure with no proven link to learning at the collegiate level. The important thing is just that you get more money, and spend it somewhere.

Last week I made this point on the PBS Nightly Business Report, which also featured Brian Kelly, executive editor of U.S. News. He disagreed, saying, "We're not the problem." But here's what the University of Florida wants to do:

UF has argued that it cannot reach its own aspirations without a lot more money. President Bernie Machen has led the campaign among state university presidents to wrest power from the appointed Board of Governors and the Legislature to set the school's tuition -- and perhaps double it from its current $3,200 a year.

Maybe--just maybe--the rankings actually do have something to do with out-of-control increases in spending and tuition. Just a guess.

But the larger issue is that the U.S. News rankings, divorced as they are from the core educational mission of higher education, create strong incentives for colleges and universities to pursue unworthy goals--wealth, superficial attractiveness, and fame for fame's sake. That's what the rankings are based on, so that's what colleges try to acquire.

In other words, U.S. News makes colleges try to be like Britney Spears. As long as the rankings continue to be so influential, this pervasive and growing Spearsification of higher education is sure to continue.