Rankings Methodology Hurts Public Institutions

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By MARTIN VAN DER WERF

In the 1980s, when the U.S. News & World Report rankings of colleges were based solely on reputation, the nation's public universities were well represented at the top. Four of the 14 national universities that were ranked in 1983 were public institutions. In 1987, the first year that the rankings expanded to a top 25, eight were public.

But as soon as the magazine began including its "measures of excellence," statistics intended to define quality, public universities nearly disappeared from the top. In 1989, the first year that the rankings included such statistics as graduation rates and financial resources, the University of California at Berkeley, which had been ranked fifth, plummeted to No. 24.

As the rankings methodology has evolved to include even more statistics, public universities have never returned to prominence. Berkeley is still the top-ranked public institution, at a tie for No. 21. Only three public universities even make the top 25.

Have America's public universities fallen that far behind their private competitors?

Brian Kelly, executive editor of U.S. News, says yes.

Public institutions, he says, "are not doing as well, and I think it reflects the reality on campuses. The states are not investing in their universities, and they are being surpassed."

Presidents and other top officials at research universities disagree with Mr. Kelly. The presidents, provosts, and academic deans surveyed about the academic quality of their peer institutions by U.S. News put seven public universities among the top 27 in 2007. According to peer reputation, Berkeley ties with the California Institute of Technology and the University of Chicago as the sixth-best research university.

So it appears that public universities have a hard time competing because of the other categories, based on quantitative data used by U.S. News. A closer look reveals that almost every one of those measures favors private institutions over public ones:

Six-year graduation rates. Most public colleges must, according to their missions, take less-qualified students. Private institutions graduate 64 percent of students, compared with 54 percent for public colleges, according to 2006 federal data.

Alumni-giving rate. Private institutions have typically been raising money for longer periods than have public ones. In 2006, 17.5 percent of graduates of private research universities contributed to their alma mater, compared with 11 percent of graduates of public research institutions, according to the Voluntary Support of Education survey.

Student-faculty ratio. There were 15.4 students per faculty member at public four-year institutions in 2005, compared with 12.5 students per faculty member at private institutions, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

Acceptance rate. Because of their public mission, many state institutions must accept higher proportions of applicants. Berkeley and the University of California at Los Angeles accepted 27 percent of applicants in 2006, the lowest rates among public institutions, according to U.S. News data. But 14 private institutions had lower rates.

Financial resources. It is not a perfect comparison with the data compiled by U.S. News, but the highest-rated public institution in endowment per student in 2006 was the Virginia Military Institute, with $263,502. That year 49 undergraduate private institutions had larger endowments per student.

The rankings are "not kind to large public universities at all," says C.D. Mote Jr., president of the University of Maryland at College Park. They are "designed to make small, rich private universities look good."

But Mr. Kelly insists "there's no intent to hurt any colleges in the rankings." (The magazine does provide a separate listing of the top-50 public national universities.) Mr. Kelly cites Maryland and the University of Florida as public institutions that are making strides in the rankings because their states "are intensifying the resources going to those schools."

Both institutions, however, have barely moved in the rankings. Florida first cracked the top 50 in 1996, then didn't appear again until 2000, and went missing again until 2004. For 2007, it is tied for 47th. Maryland was first ranked in 2004, tied for 53rd. For 2007, it is tied for 54th. (See table, Page A16, to see how several public institutions have fallen in the rankings.)

Mr. Kelly says he is thinking about changing the rankings because he has been struck by a number of surveys that show how important cost is in decisions about where to go to college. He says he has thought about adding a component to the rankings that would reward colleges that deliver a superior education at a low cost, a category that would help public institutions.

THE FORMULA This is the methodology used by U.S. News & World Report to calculate its rankings of colleges and universities. Peer assessment 25%   Retention 20%     Six-year graduation rate 16%     Freshman retention 4%   Faculty resources 20%     Faculty salaries 7%     Class size under 20 6%     Class size over 50 2%     Proportion of professors with highest degree 3%     Student-faculty ratio 1%     Full-time faculty 1%   Student selectivity 15%     SAT/ACT scores 7.5%     Freshman in top 10% of high-school class 6%     Acceptance rate 1.5%   Financial resources 10%   Graduation rate performance* 5%   Alumni giving rate 5%   *Difference between "expected" and actual graduation rate.