New System for Ranking Colleges
Never do I skimp on out-pourings of crankiness regarding the backward and highly ridiculous college ranking “system” (I use the term loosely, and here’s proof of the system’s innate uselessness). It is difficult to write ill-tempered posts of this nature because my eyes keep rolling up in disgust. Plus, I waste an inordinate amount of time deleting foul language and unprofessional remarks about the people responsible for the rankings. I hope your pure souls appreciate how strenuous that last bit was to write, and how much editing was involved. I didn’t even use the word a**, which is practically expected when writing about money-hungry, college-rankings bast**ds. Damn. I was so close.
In the spirit of being more with the optimism and less with the cynical pessimism, here’s a lovely breath of hopeful fresh air (minus the butterflies because I’m not that cheerful): GlobalHigherEd has a guest post about a new and better way to rank colleges and universities. The article was written by Uwe Brandenburg of the Centre for Higher Education Development (CHE) and CHE Consult, a “think tank and consultancy focusing on higher education reform.”
They’re based in Europe, but I’m hoping that the Europeans will prove the system’s worthiness and the Americans will jump on board. It worked with Vespas.
Old Vespa Ad:
New Vespa Ad:
Posted by Alexa Harrington
Very nice Alexa – wasn’t aware that there was an alternative to those thieving uppity-uppity buy-your-college-rating pricks. Oops.
In all seriousness that’s a very credible issue that has lacked any kind of logical standardization for as long as I can remember. I can vividly remember scratching my head at Grinnell’s ranking even when I was a fresh-out-of-HS-Iowa-grad – and I don’t want to tell you how many years ago that was nor how little has changed since then. Here’s to hoping that we can implement something like this across the pond in a few years to come.