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by Ken Lund

The Truth About College Rankings

College rankings are very important to students and parents. Or rather, those who publish college rankings are always telling us how important college rankings are and how much weight an education ir degree from a “top-ranked” college or university will carry. But how important are college rankings, really? The simple fact is, rankings are more important to colleges and universities than they are to students or parents.

What are college rankings? Rankings are a way of evaluating the perceived value of a college or university based on pre-defined factors. Publishers usually survey colleges, universities and students to obtain information related to a variety of factors. The most common factors evaluated include number of students enrolled, student-faculty ratios (number of students per teacher), out-of-pocket costs (the amount left over after scholarships and other financial aid are applied), financial aid availability (what percent of students receive financial aid), sports, demographics (breakdown of enrollments by sex, ethnicity, age), quality of life, partying habits, and availability of sports and/or extracurricular activities.

Essentially, rankings tell you how well a particular aspect of a college or university is marketed or how well students and others perceive a factor related to a college or university. Whether one or more factors is or should be “significant” to you as you make your decisions regarding which colleges or universities to apply to is entirely up to you.

The truth is, this is not as important as publishers would have you believe. True, an education/degree from a “top-ranked” school may be perceived as more prestigious. However, the student choosing the prestigious school (the one school everyone strives to attend) may face much larger classes and receive instruction in primarily from teaching assistants (generally graduate students). Thus, in actuality an education/degree from a lesser ranked school–where the concentration is on one-to-one interactions with degreed professionals who have years of experience in their field–may hold more value for the student. These are, of course, generalities and the reverse (smaller classes, etc., at the prestigious school) may be just as true.

The important thing for you to remember about college rankings is that these rankings do not, in any way, give you information on the quality of the instruction you are likely to receive. The potential value of an education/degree from XYZ University, therefore, should be calculated based upon your needs and educational/career objectives rather than on a set of criteria important to another individual or agency.

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