Businesses and parents frequently turn to college rankings and accreditations to discover the best school for their kids or future employees.
At cocktail parties, I smile as parents, hell-bent on their children going to the best college, try to tell me this school is better than that school because of the rankings. Schools themselves bend over backwards to report their rankings and tout their accreditation to student prospects and the employers who hire them upon graduation.
As an educator going on my 39th year in the trade, having taught high school and college – both undergraduate and graduate and now doctorate level – I have seen quite a bit that never gets reported. It is time to demystify education and all the hype surrounding this very important and costly decision.
There are two types of colleges or universities: teaching and research. All schools do a little of both teaching and research, but the main focus is still very distinct. Teaching schools are in place to teach and graduate students in a specific skill or knowledge, while research institutions are there to lead inquiry, such as the cure for cancer.
The teaching schools usually have smaller class sizes and are taught by the real professor while the research institutions are often taught by the teaching assistant to the professor who is too busy researching to teach little Johnny the basics of the class. Besides researching, these professors usually hire their best and brightest students to be graduate assistants who often oversee the professors research, experiments and fact finding. It is these professors who also publish, speak on their area of expertise and look to move the needle of our understanding in this great, big universe.
When I advise parents and employers, they all ask the same question: Which is better? The simple answer is: It depends.
If Johnny has the goal of graduating from a school and then going to work, the teaching school should be more than adequate for his preparation.
Now, let’s take Jill. She wants to be a rocket scientist for NASA discovering unknown plant and animal species in deep space. I suggest the research school for her.
For most employers, the teaching school graduate should be just fine with all the skills needed in today’s competitive workforce. But there are some employers that need the analysts, researchers and probers that come out of the research institute.
A good number of my friends are currently doing the college search with their kids. They travel to the East Coast where they think all the good schools are located, where the ivy grows. But what is wrong with a “moss” school and what is so good about an Ivy League school?
Moss schools are the next tier down in the rankings. But here is a true story from my own experience and career: Jill has a choice between a local college that has been around for more than 100 years, or Harvard. If Jill goes to the local college, her pre and post program scores increase 20%-30%. She goes from being an average student versus her peers in the nation to being in the top two percentile. If Jill went to the Ivy school, she comes in at a 98% versus her peers, in the top 2% in the country, and exits the school in the top 2% in the country.
Which school has done a better job of educating Jill? Well, that depends upon what we want for Jill and what kind of a student she is. Parents, be honest about your children and what type of student they are. Sending a student to the wrong school to satisfy your own ego is detrimental to the student and your pocketbook or theirs. Employers, ask yourself which type of employee you really need.
There are a great deal of inputs that go into the college ranking output. There are international rankings, which attempt to measure schools by their peers around the globe and there are domestic rankings we are used to hearing about, which are an attempt to sell more magazines.
