America's Worst Colleges

I think a lot about higher education. I know, obvious for someone who has worked in higher education their entire adult life but it is true, all of my work day and a substantial portion of my non-work time I think about higher education. When I read articles about colleges and universities I always want to read student success stories, how learning outcomes are improving, how at-risk students are being helped and encouraged to complete, but the one type of article that disappoints me the most are ones about the best and the worst colleges in the country.

The Best:

The best colleges are always the same. Northeast and midwest private schools with large endowments and cute campuses. Large state universities that are have a heavy research focus and good football teams. The quality of these institutions is never doubted even when there is little to no actual assessment data; legacy proof.

The Worst:

This brings me to the worst. I wrote about acceptance rates before and how US New and World Report has two lists (amongst many); 100 Highest Acceptance Rates and the 100 Lowest Acceptance Rates. This list implies, not subtlely, that schools with lower acceptance rates are better; this metric has been used for years to prove quality.

This brings me to an article titled, America’s Worst Colleges at the Washington Monthly. The description reads:

“We set out to make a list of the poorest-performing colleges. What we found is that, while good schools are basically all alike, every crappy school is crappy in its own way.”

Besides being awkward the description leads with negativity. As you read the article the writer does bring-up valid points about the difficulty of going to college, the debt many accumulate, graduation rates, net price to students, and the like. There are four different lists with twenty schools each with some schools appearing on multiple lists. The author explains the four lists and does a good job but he ever shares his metrics which as an online article makes sense, we just have to trust the numbers.

The one thing that that author does not address are the students and the socioeconomic factors that the schools have to deal with. It is like talking about the quality of a novel without actually talking about the words, the sentences, the chapters, the actual story, and the content.

Fast forward to the closing paragraph; although again the author tries to bring up valid and important issues in higher education he assumes too much.  

“The high quality of America’s best colleges creates a strong public belief that all U.S. institutions of higher education must be of similar quality. Top colleges lists reinforce this assumption, while the obsession over admissions sucks up all the air in public debates over college quality.”

I don’t know anyone who assumes that if you go to Arizona State University or Missouri State University the quality of education must be similar to Grinell College or Stanford (undergraduate education only). Is the content covered at those colleges similar? Yes, of course. You also cover the same course content at Shaw University as an undergrad that you do at Princeton; content and curriculum are not magic and there is no elite fairy dust that makes learning outcomes better at elite schools.

The next quote I find the author is just getting mean:

“This is a boon for those schools that are decidedly not world-class and that struggle with debt, cost, and completion. They fly under the radar with little attention and unearned positive reputations. And only the students who have the misfortune to enroll at one of these places find out the truth.

Not everyone can attend Brown University like the author and be high powered by 18. Often, poorer students, at-risk students, and underprepared students go to the local college that fits for them; not everyone can move to Providence, Rhode Island for four-years.

All colleges educate, students try to learn, faculty try to teach, staff try to support, and the administration try to keep it running with the tools and resources they have. To say that school have unearned positive reputations is insulting. Being overly snarky, elite schools have unearned positive reputations because we assume they are the best because of their large endowments, their low acceptance rates, and alumni success. Do these factors mean that undergraduate students learn more during their four years at an elite school? Prove it.

If we want to improve higher education and deal with college cost, the blame game cannot continue. When it comes to educating America’s adult learners I do not care what the elite colleges do, their students are fine and they have the cash to support them in pretty much any way possible. What I care about are the colleges and universities that are educating students who need help getting through school, are working multiple jobs, have kids, have life events occur during schools, et cetera. These are the students that need help attaining their undergraduate degrees and should not be insulted by calling the institutions they go to, the worst.