Woe, the Banana Slugs

Harvard edged ahead of Princeton this year in the annual least-meaningful-yet-most-publicized measure of higher education quality, the U.S. News & World Report college rankings. This is like using advanced satellite telemetry to figure out which Himalayan peak is the world's highest--marginally interesting in a trivial way, but beside the point, which is that they're both a whole lot taller than nearly all of the other mountains. A few meters here or there at the highest altitudes doesn't matter very much. Although it's interesting to note that Harvard appears to have improved not by manipulating the admissions process as colleges like to, but rather by simply hiring more professors, driving up the percentage of classes with fewer than 20 and 50 students. There are worse ways to get ahead.

More interestingly, U.S. News has for the first time published a list of "up-and-coming" colleges, based solely on a peer survey. Some of them clearly deserve the honor -- it's nice to see the University of Maryland - Baltimore County get recognized for years of hard work and success in helping African-American students graduate and earn degrees in science and engineering fields. Elon University consistently scores in the upper ranks on the National Survey of Student Engagement, a measure that--unlike anything in the regular U.S. News rankings--actually says something about the quality of teaching at the university.

But while annual changes in the U.S. News rankings get the most attention, they're actually remarkably stable. The "First Tier" Top 50 is almost precisely the same (Yeshiva University edge up from 52 to 50, knocking out Syracuse and Tulane, which were tied for the last spot last year). Things stay the same in higher education more than they change.

There were, however, a few major movers. No college seems to have fallen farther than UC - Santa Cruz, which dropped 17 places from 79th to 96th. The Banana Slugs' peer assesment score is down a tenth of a point, graduation rates are lower, class sizes larger, the acceptance rate is up, alumni giving is down, and fewer students are enrolling with high SATs. Perhap the distractions eco-terrorist firebombings and whatnot took their toll.

Note: I originally misidentified Elon University as Elon College in this post. I've corrected the mistake.