The publication of this two-parter by the Martin Center reminded me that I had drafted something on the topic of college ratings but dropped it. Here it is for your edification and "enjoyment":

Thoseinterested in attending, or sending their children, to university must decideif the time and monetary investment is worth it and, if it is, where to spendtheir precious dollars. Strident claims by presumably knowledgeable governmentofficials that student loans should be wholly or partially forgiven suggestthat many students made the wrong decision and shouldn’t have gone to school atall, or at least not majored in Oppression Studies at Woke U. Some of the “collegecurious” may have decided on emotional or other irrational grounds based onfamily history or an affinity for certain sports, while others were undoubtedlyled astray by college rankings.

Thenotion that colleges and universities can be confidently ranked from top tobottom smacks of deep intellectual hubris. Even the bond rating agenciesattempt only to lump securities into classes based on risk of default and oftenget even that wrong, as anyone who lived through 2008, 1997, 1982, and so forthmay recall. To ascertain that institution X is a smidge “better” than Y, therankers rely upon small changes in various quantitative metrics. Becauseadministrators’ careers and tuition rates often depend upon rankings, thosequantitative metrics havebeen manipulated or even concocted, most recently byColumbia University, the shenanigans of which were exposed by a whistleblowerwho believes that college rankingsare essentially worthless. Before making any decisions, the college-boundat least need to realize that a more highly ranked school may simply be betterat gaming the ranking system, at being dishonest in other words.

Inaddition, properly interpreting many metrics requires context that is noteasily quantified. A school with a high 8-year graduation rate (as measuredby the Washington Monthly), for example, may have an abysmal unreported4-year rate, suggesting that it is adept at bilking students for more tuitionthan expected by making it difficult for them to graduate on time but easy forthem to eventually get a degree, perhaps by making courses challenging butpressuring faculty to relax the requirements for students making up incompletesor retaking classes who appear ready to bail. A relatively low graduation rate,by contrast, might indicate that a school is trying to maintain standards andwilling to fail out students to do it.

Mostimportantly, major rankings never include arguably the two most importantmetrics, learning (what students know/can do upon graduation minus what theyknew/could do upon admission) and lifetime earnings. Some measure purported jobplacement rates and even initial salaries but those skew toward schools withsticky reputations, usually hoary institutions that continue to attract the attentionof recruiters from high paying firms because they presumably produced qualitygraduates in the past. Most of the college curious, however, care more aboutlifetime earnings than initial salary. Moreover, the trajectory of earningsprovides more information about the quality of a school’s ability to educate,rather than to merely train or signal the employability of, their studentsbecause it proxies the original stated goals of higher education, which is tocultivate lifelong learning and independent thought, both of which remainessential to a robust private economy and a vibrant civil society.

Ifirst called for such metrics over a decade ago, in a book (Higher Education and the Common Weal:Protecting Economic Growth and Political Stability with ProfessionalPartnerships, 2010) socontroversial it could only be published in India and is already out of print. Universitiesdo not want to track systematically the careers of graduates, at least thoseunlikely to make big donations, or to measure learning because such informationmight expose their individual and collective weaknesses. Once informed of theindustry’s overall ineffectiveness, fewer people would opt for “higher”education in the first place and many others would attend less expensive, butpedagogically equivalent, institutions. That, of course, would tend to dampentuition, or at least its rate of increase, forcing universities to invest morein pedagogy (and its crucial cognate, research) and less in sports complexes andcomplex administrative systems. Rest assured, then, that the college curiouswill never know with certainty which schools are most likely to increase boththeir ability to earn a living and their ability to positively impact thesocial sphere.

Rankings,however, do not have to be so rank. To better aid those interested in attendingcollege, a disinterested third party could create a grading system focused onthree major cognates of lifetime learning and social and economic achievement.I call it “ESG,” not for the thoroughly debunked environmental, social justice,and corporate governance investment grading system recently popular in Wokecircles but for intellectual energy, social engagement, and universitygovernance.

Intellectualenergy refers to the atmosphere on campus, including the number of outsidespeakers and respectful attendees of their talks (not anti-intellectualprotestors). Contrast Hillsdale College, where I recently spoke to over twoscore faculty and economics students on a balmy weeknight during Homecoming,with another midwestern college of similar size where during an otherwiseuneventful week only a few students turned out on the same subject (theeconomics of slavery) and had to be bribed with “extra credit” to sit physicallyin the room while investigating their social options later that evening ontheir phones.

Bysocial engagement, I mean old-fashioned civic engagement and well-informed,dare I say research-based, attempts to ameliorate social problems. In otherwords, schools should be judged not on the extent that they encourage merevirtue signaling, which signals only iniquity and an anti-intellectualismunbecoming any institution devoted to “higher” education. Universities shouldbe judged on the extent that they encourage students to engage in rationalaction. Society needs the energy, verve, and long-term outlook of its youthbut is not aided by inducing young people to slavishly follow fads ginned up bythe Left, or the Right for that matter. Universities should inculcate responsiblefree speech by directing students to research, write, and orally defend theirpositions before protesting or engaging in other direct action.

Thequality of a university’s governance should be assessed by the checks andbalances that it incorporates to ensure that it keeps its promises and does notdistort its record. As the MartinCenter has shown, some schools have forced out tenurednon-Woke professors by threatening the budgets of noncompliant departments andmembers of promotion and tenure committees and by employing non-disclosureagreements in unethical, if not illegal, ways. If accreditors will notdiscipline, an outside rater should expose such schools because they cannot betrusted to administer donations in line with donorintent, let alone to put the interest of students firstduring publichealth or other emergencies.

Thecollege curious need quality university quality ratings like “ESG” becauseoften they do not (yet) have the intellectual tools needed to properly assessthe claims that college admissions officers and marketing materials make. Few,for example, understand the implications of public choice theory or itsapplication to public and private university administrators. They do not realizethat the beautiful school with the great reputation and super sports teams maybe run to serve the interests of administrators, coaches, and, to a lesserextent, faculty, not students. Such institutions of course claim to bestudent-centered but do not credibly commit to putting students first in anybut the most cursory fashion. They may be highly ranked but in the “ESG” systemsketched above would be graded low.

Infact, most of America’s colleges and universities would receive a failing “ESG”grade, at least initially, because most have repressive intellectualatmospheres where mindless Woke virtue signaling prevails, implicitly supportedby faculty cowed into submission by the ouster of outspoken opponents of thestatus quo enabled by poor governance practices. FIRE and College Pulse joinforces to rankuniversities on 13 free speech metrics. The rankings are relative, though, notabsolute. The fact that the University of Virginia ranks sixth best suggeststhat the rankings only gauge speech prohibitions and do not measure positivecampus intellectual energy (the E in my “ESG” rating) because a recent Heritagereportreveals that Virginia’s universities are “drowningin”DIE (diversity, inclusion, and equity) administrators and policies, and thatUVA is the second worst offender.

Presumably, though, toattract more students from a shrinkingpool some universities will reform to achieve a higher “ESG” grade. Indeed,some new institutions with stronger “ESG” bona fides haveformed and a few incumbents have reformed their cultures rather than joiningthe raceto the bottom taking place in standards. American higher education remains sick,perhaps chronically ill, but by exposing its rotten parts while highlightingthose institutions that remain true to the industry’s original mission ofhelping students to become independent thinkers capable of adding value to boththe economy and society, it could improve outcomes without further ballooningthe national debt.