ACTA’s College Rankings and The New Duhploma
‘Tis the season - every year, same song. The US News college rankings pop up every August like Irving Berlin’s/Bing Crosby’s White Christmas does in early December.
Not this year, thanks to the American Council of Trustees and Alumni.
WhatWillTheyLearn.com introduces a novel way to rank colleges - on how they provide academic knowledge. [For those of you not used to the education sector, ranking schools by their ability to educate is a novel, courageous proposition.] The Wall Street Journal mentions ACTA’s efforts:
“The newest entrant in the ranking game is the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, which has the quaint notion that a university be judged on what it teaches its students. At the group’s Web site, WhatWillTheyLearn.com, schools are given grades based on the extent to which students are required to take classes in the core subjects of a general education, such as math, literature, science and history. Their effort to change the focus to learning is no doubt an admirable one, but I suspect that it will have a limited effect. Any grading scale that gives an “A” to the University of Arkansas and an “F” to Yale may prove too contrarian to capture the public imagination.”
Any newspaper that can’t fathom why Yale could earn an F is too ignorant of the state of higher education to capture my imagination.
The New York Daily News explained why Brooklyn College and Hunter stood tall in ACTA’s rankings.
… and how does your alma mater rank? I’d check mine - Boston University - but it’s not yet on the list.
What do I think of this new ranking system? I think it’s wonderful - finally, a ranking with an academic seriousness of purpose to replace that nearly-useless US News tripe. There are few organizations - if any - that could do it better than ACTA.
If the image below doesn’t entice you to check out WhatWillTheyLearn.com, nothing will.
