Introduction: A Different Kind of College Ranking

America needs a different definition of higher education excellence, one that empowers public institutions at the expense of elites, instead of the other way around. One that measures what colleges do for their country, instead of for themselves. That’s the philosophy behind the Washington Monthly’s annual college rankings. Instead of rating colleges by wealth, fame, and exclusivity, we prize social mobility, public service, and research. 

The other rankings elevate colleges for keeping low-income students out. Ours reward them for letting those students in, and then helping them graduate with degrees that lead to good jobs, without unmanageable debt. Instead of reputational surveys that mostly measure the vague and long-ago, we focus on hard numbers: research expenditures, faculty awards, and producing graduates who go on to earn PhDs. Instead of giving colleges credit for how often their alumni give back to their alma mater, we measure how often students give to their communities by volunteering, starting public service careers, and enrolling in the Peace Corps and ROTC. 

The result is a very different hierarchy of the great, the good, and the not-very-good-at-all. Because we value public purpose, our rankings are much more likely to recognize public universities—there are six state schools in our top 20, but just one in theirs. Florida International University, for example, ranks number 162 on the other list, mostly because it doesn’t limit enrollment to rich valedictorians, and it was founded in the second half of the 20th century, not the first half of the 17th. We rank FIU at number 32 because, in addition to solid contributions in service and research, it is very affordable and helps a large number of students eligible for Pell Grants start their lives and careers with a high-quality degree. Columbia University is number 2 on the other rankings—or was, before it was de-ranked after being caught in the kind of massive data fraud scandal our rankings are much less vulnerable to because we rely on official government data, not self-reported metrics that invite abuse. We already ranked Columbia significantly lower
because we see little to no evidence of its commitment to public service. 

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