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College Rankings Fail to Measure the Influence of the Institution
Students， parents and educators increasingly obsessed with college rankings have a new tool： the Obama administration’s College Scorecard.1 The new database focuses on a college’s graduation rate， graduates’ median earnings 10 years after graduation and the percentage of students paying back their college loans.2
While Scorecard adds potentially valuable information to the dizzying array that is already available， it suffers from many of the same flaws that afflict nearly every other college ranking system： There is no way to know what， if any， impact a particular college has on its graduates’ earnings， or life for that matter.3 “It’s a classic example of confusing causation and correlation，” said Frank Bruni， the author of Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be， a book about the college admissions process， and an op-ed columnist for The New York Times.4 “Anyone who has taken statistics should know better， but when it comes to colleges， that’s what people do. They throw common sense out the window.”
Of course graduates of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology （average postgraduate earnings $91，600，5 according to the Scorecard） and Harvard （$87，200） do well. That’s because the students they admit have some of the highest test scores and high school grade point averages in the country， reflecting high intelligence and a strong work ethic6—two factors that cause high future earnings. That is generally true regardless of where such students attend college， as long as they go to a reputable four-year institution， various studies have shown.7
“It’s absurd，” said Jerry Z. Muller， a professor of history at Catholic University of America and the author of The Costs of Accountability， a study of misplaced and misunderstood metrics.8 “Their graduates have high earnings because they’re incredibly selective9 about who they let in. And many of them come from privileged backgrounds， which also correlates with high earnings.”10
The College Scorecard does not rank colleges， but anyone can use the data to do so. M.I.T. （No. 6 on Scorecard earnings） and Harvard （No. 8） are the only universities in the Scorecard’s top 10 that are also highly ranked by the influential U.S. News and World Report. The other schools have a narrow focus on highly paid skills. The No. 1 school on Scorecard is MCPHS University11， whose graduates earn， on average， $116，400. （MCPHS stands for Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences， which is not even ranked by U.S. News.） But pay， of course， says nothing about the relative quality of different colleges. “If you go to M.I.T. and earn a degree in engineering， you’re going to make more than if you go to Oberlin12 and major in music performance，” Professor Muller said. “But you already know this. To rank the value of colleges based on the ultimate earnings of their graduates radically13 narrows the concept of what college is supposed to be for.”
Andrew Delbanco， a professor at Columbia University and author of the book College： What It Was， Is， and Should Be， agreed. “Holding colleges accountable for how well they prepare students for postcollege life is a good thing in principle，” he said. “But measuring that preparation in purely monetary14 terms raises many dangers. Should colleges be encouraged first and foremost to maximize the net worth of their graduates？15 I don’t think so.”
And that is assuming the earnings data is reliable. Scorecard draws from a substantial database of tax returns， but measures the postgraduate incomes only of students who received federal loans or grants， which excludes most students from high-income families.16 And high family income is a factor that correlates strongly with postgraduate earnings.
PayScale， which ranks colleges based on postgraduate earnings reported by users of its web services， produces numbers that in many cases are substantially different from Scorecard’s. PayScale’s “midcareer”17 earnings for graduates of Harvard （ranked third at $126，000） and M.I.T.， （No. 6， at $124，000） are much higher than Scorecard’s figures.
U.S. News does not even include earnings data in its ranking formula18， although it said it might do so. “The federal data is a large and new data set， and we’re studying it，” said Brian Kelly， editor and chief content officer for U.S. News. “It represents a subset19 of students， and we’re looking closely to determine if it in fact tells us what it claims to.”
Last year， the Brookings Institution20 published its own ambitious college rankings that try to improve upon what it sees as flaws in the other lists. It calculates the “value added” of each college by comparing what graduates would be expected to earn given their entering characteristics to what they do earn after graduating.21 Because of their high test scores and other factors， students entering Harvard would be expected to do well in postgraduate earnings （a projected22 $85，950， according to Brookings）. That they actually earned $118，200 is a measure of what a Harvard education added to their potential earnings. The Brookings rankings factor in the nature of a college’s curriculum， the career choices of its graduates and the percentage of graduates prepared for so-called STEM occupations （science， technology， engineering and math）， so like Scorecard and PayScale results， its rankings are dominated by schools with narrow focuses on those high-paying areas.23
Jonathan Rothwell， a fellow at Brookings and an author of the study， said that many educators applauded this approach but it had drawn criticism from the liberal arts community， which says it unduly weights a narrow focus on high-paying STEM fields.24 Mr. Rothwell defended that approach， noting that a college’s curriculum and what field a student studies were “hugely relevant to graduate success.” But he acknowledged that liberal arts programs and programs that train students for lower-paying fields were valuable to both individuals and society. “If your only goal is to make as much money as possible， you should study engineering， computer science， biology or business，” he said. “But most people are interested in more than just making money.”
The bottom line25 is that no ranking system or formula can really answer the question of what college a student should attend. Getting into a highly selective， top-ranked college may confer bragging rights， status and connections， but it doesn’t necessarily contribute to a good education or lifelong success， financial or otherwise.26
The obsession with college rankings and graduates’ earnings “is just the most recent example of a larger phenomenon， which is that the gathering of numerical27 information acts as a kind of wish fulfillment，” Professor Muller said. “If you have enough metrics and benchmarks28， somehow people believe that’s going to solve a major problem. It rarely does.”
1. be obsessed with： 痴迷于；College Scorecard： 美国高校记分卡。
2. database： 数据库；median earning： 平均收入。
3. 虽然高校记分卡在原本那一大堆令人头晕的排名上增加了有潜在价值的信息，它仍存在其他学校排名都存在的缺陷：无法得知某所大学对该校毕业生薪资和今后生活有多大影响。dizzying： 使人糊涂的，使人头晕的；array：（数字、符号的）排列，数组；flaw： 缺陷；afflict： 折磨，使苦恼；for that matter： 就此而言，在这方面。
4. causation： 原因，起因；correlation： 相互关联；admission：（大学的）入学许可；op-ed： opposite editorial page，（与社论版对页的）专栏版的；columnist： 专栏作家。
5. Massachusetts Institute of Technology： 麻省理工学院（简称M.I.T.），被誉为“世界理工大学之最”；postgraduate： 大学毕业后的。
6. grade point average： 简称GPA，平均成绩点数；ethic： 道德规范，道德准则。
7. regardless of： 不顾，不管；reputable： 有声望的。
8. absurd： 荒唐的，愚蠢的；Catholic University of America： 美国天主教大学，是美国罗马天主教会官方大学；accountability： 有责任，下文accountable for意为“对……负有责任的”； metric： 度量标准。 9. selective： 精挑细选的。
10. privileged：（因非常富有或社会地位高而）享有特权的，优越的；correlate with： 与……相关联。
11. MCPHS University： 麻省药科与健康科学大学。
12. Oberlin： 欧柏林学院，美国一所有着顶尖文理学院和音乐学院的教育机构。
13. radically： 根本地，彻底地。
14. monetary： 货币的，能用金钱衡量的。
15. first and foremost： 首先；maximize： 使……最大化；net worth： 净值。
16. 高校记分卡主要依据庞大的纳税申报数据，但却只衡量接受联邦政府贷款或助学金的毕业生收入，排除了大多数来自高收入家庭的学生。substantial： 数目大的，大量的； tax return： 纳税申报单；grant： 资助，拨款；exclude：（故意）把……排除在外，不包括。
17. midcareer： 职业中期。
18. formula： 方案，方法。
19. subset： 子集，这里指“小部分”。
20. Brookings Institution： 布鲁金斯学会，美国著名智库之一，被称为美国“最有影响力的思想库”。
21. 这个排名通过比较毕业生的预期收入（依据他们入学时的品质）和他们毕业后的实际收入，从而计算出每所大学的“附加值”。
22. projected： 预期的。
23. 布鲁金斯学会排名把大学课程、毕业生就业选择和准备进入STEM（科学、技术、工程和数学）行业的毕业生比例纳入参考标准，所以就像高校记分卡和薪酬调查报告的结果一样，布鲁金斯学会排名也被那些只关注高薪行业的学校所占据。factor in： 把……计入；curriculum：（某个学校的）课程。
24. applaud： 称赞，赞许；liberal arts： 文科；unduly： 过度地。
25. bottom line： 结果，不得不接受的事实。
26. 进入高淘汰率的顶级大学也许能让你拥有吹嘘的资本、社会地位和人际关系，但是它并不能保证你能获得良好的教育，也不能确保你今后一定会成功，不论是在收入还是其他方面。confer： 授予（权力、权利或荣誉等）；brag： 吹牛，自夸。
27. numerical： 用数字表示的，数字的。
28. benchmark： 基准。
Students， parents and educators increasingly obsessed with college rankings have a new tool： the Obama administration’s College Scorecard.1 The new database focuses on a college’s graduation rate， graduates’ median earnings 10 years after graduation and the percentage of students paying back their college loans.2
While Scorecard adds potentially valuable information to the dizzying array that is already available， it suffers from many of the same flaws that afflict nearly every other college ranking system： There is no way to know what， if any， impact a particular college has on its graduates’ earnings， or life for that matter.3 “It’s a classic example of confusing causation and correlation，” said Frank Bruni， the author of Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be， a book about the college admissions process， and an op-ed columnist for The New York Times.4 “Anyone who has taken statistics should know better， but when it comes to colleges， that’s what people do. They throw common sense out the window.”
Of course graduates of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology （average postgraduate earnings $91，600，5 according to the Scorecard） and Harvard （$87，200） do well. That’s because the students they admit have some of the highest test scores and high school grade point averages in the country， reflecting high intelligence and a strong work ethic6—two factors that cause high future earnings. That is generally true regardless of where such students attend college， as long as they go to a reputable four-year institution， various studies have shown.7
“It’s absurd，” said Jerry Z. Muller， a professor of history at Catholic University of America and the author of The Costs of Accountability， a study of misplaced and misunderstood metrics.8 “Their graduates have high earnings because they’re incredibly selective9 about who they let in. And many of them come from privileged backgrounds， which also correlates with high earnings.”10
The College Scorecard does not rank colleges， but anyone can use the data to do so. M.I.T. （No. 6 on Scorecard earnings） and Harvard （No. 8） are the only universities in the Scorecard’s top 10 that are also highly ranked by the influential U.S. News and World Report. The other schools have a narrow focus on highly paid skills. The No. 1 school on Scorecard is MCPHS University11， whose graduates earn， on average， $116，400. （MCPHS stands for Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences， which is not even ranked by U.S. News.） But pay， of course， says nothing about the relative quality of different colleges. “If you go to M.I.T. and earn a degree in engineering， you’re going to make more than if you go to Oberlin12 and major in music performance，” Professor Muller said. “But you already know this. To rank the value of colleges based on the ultimate earnings of their graduates radically13 narrows the concept of what college is supposed to be for.”
Andrew Delbanco， a professor at Columbia University and author of the book College： What It Was， Is， and Should Be， agreed. “Holding colleges accountable for how well they prepare students for postcollege life is a good thing in principle，” he said. “But measuring that preparation in purely monetary14 terms raises many dangers. Should colleges be encouraged first and foremost to maximize the net worth of their graduates？15 I don’t think so.”
And that is assuming the earnings data is reliable. Scorecard draws from a substantial database of tax returns， but measures the postgraduate incomes only of students who received federal loans or grants， which excludes most students from high-income families.16 And high family income is a factor that correlates strongly with postgraduate earnings.
PayScale， which ranks colleges based on postgraduate earnings reported by users of its web services， produces numbers that in many cases are substantially different from Scorecard’s. PayScale’s “midcareer”17 earnings for graduates of Harvard （ranked third at $126，000） and M.I.T.， （No. 6， at $124，000） are much higher than Scorecard’s figures.
U.S. News does not even include earnings data in its ranking formula18， although it said it might do so. “The federal data is a large and new data set， and we’re studying it，” said Brian Kelly， editor and chief content officer for U.S. News. “It represents a subset19 of students， and we’re looking closely to determine if it in fact tells us what it claims to.”
Last year， the Brookings Institution20 published its own ambitious college rankings that try to improve upon what it sees as flaws in the other lists. It calculates the “value added” of each college by comparing what graduates would be expected to earn given their entering characteristics to what they do earn after graduating.21 Because of their high test scores and other factors， students entering Harvard would be expected to do well in postgraduate earnings （a projected22 $85，950， according to Brookings）. That they actually earned $118，200 is a measure of what a Harvard education added to their potential earnings. The Brookings rankings factor in the nature of a college’s curriculum， the career choices of its graduates and the percentage of graduates prepared for so-called STEM occupations （science， technology， engineering and math）， so like Scorecard and PayScale results， its rankings are dominated by schools with narrow focuses on those high-paying areas.23
Jonathan Rothwell， a fellow at Brookings and an author of the study， said that many educators applauded this approach but it had drawn criticism from the liberal arts community， which says it unduly weights a narrow focus on high-paying STEM fields.24 Mr. Rothwell defended that approach， noting that a college’s curriculum and what field a student studies were “hugely relevant to graduate success.” But he acknowledged that liberal arts programs and programs that train students for lower-paying fields were valuable to both individuals and society. “If your only goal is to make as much money as possible， you should study engineering， computer science， biology or business，” he said. “But most people are interested in more than just making money.”
The bottom line25 is that no ranking system or formula can really answer the question of what college a student should attend. Getting into a highly selective， top-ranked college may confer bragging rights， status and connections， but it doesn’t necessarily contribute to a good education or lifelong success， financial or otherwise.26
The obsession with college rankings and graduates’ earnings “is just the most recent example of a larger phenomenon， which is that the gathering of numerical27 information acts as a kind of wish fulfillment，” Professor Muller said. “If you have enough metrics and benchmarks28， somehow people believe that’s going to solve a major problem. It rarely does.”
1. be obsessed with： 痴迷于；College Scorecard： 美国高校记分卡。
2. database： 数据库；median earning： 平均收入。
3. 虽然高校记分卡在原本那一大堆令人头晕的排名上增加了有潜在价值的信息，它仍存在其他学校排名都存在的缺陷：无法得知某所大学对该校毕业生薪资和今后生活有多大影响。dizzying： 使人糊涂的，使人头晕的；array：（数字、符号的）排列，数组；flaw： 缺陷；afflict： 折磨，使苦恼；for that matter： 就此而言，在这方面。
4. causation： 原因，起因；correlation： 相互关联；admission：（大学的）入学许可；op-ed： opposite editorial page，（与社论版对页的）专栏版的；columnist： 专栏作家。
5. Massachusetts Institute of Technology： 麻省理工学院（简称M.I.T.），被誉为“世界理工大学之最”；postgraduate： 大学毕业后的。
6. grade point average： 简称GPA，平均成绩点数；ethic： 道德规范，道德准则。
7. regardless of： 不顾，不管；reputable： 有声望的。
8. absurd： 荒唐的，愚蠢的；Catholic University of America： 美国天主教大学，是美国罗马天主教会官方大学；accountability： 有责任，下文accountable for意为“对……负有责任的”； metric： 度量标准。 9. selective： 精挑细选的。
10. privileged：（因非常富有或社会地位高而）享有特权的，优越的；correlate with： 与……相关联。
11. MCPHS University： 麻省药科与健康科学大学。
12. Oberlin： 欧柏林学院，美国一所有着顶尖文理学院和音乐学院的教育机构。
13. radically： 根本地，彻底地。
14. monetary： 货币的，能用金钱衡量的。
15. first and foremost： 首先；maximize： 使……最大化；net worth： 净值。
16. 高校记分卡主要依据庞大的纳税申报数据，但却只衡量接受联邦政府贷款或助学金的毕业生收入，排除了大多数来自高收入家庭的学生。substantial： 数目大的，大量的； tax return： 纳税申报单；grant： 资助，拨款；exclude：（故意）把……排除在外，不包括。
17. midcareer： 职业中期。
18. formula： 方案，方法。
19. subset： 子集，这里指“小部分”。
20. Brookings Institution： 布鲁金斯学会，美国著名智库之一，被称为美国“最有影响力的思想库”。
21. 这个排名通过比较毕业生的预期收入（依据他们入学时的品质）和他们毕业后的实际收入，从而计算出每所大学的“附加值”。
22. projected： 预期的。
23. 布鲁金斯学会排名把大学课程、毕业生就业选择和准备进入STEM（科学、技术、工程和数学）行业的毕业生比例纳入参考标准，所以就像高校记分卡和薪酬调查报告的结果一样，布鲁金斯学会排名也被那些只关注高薪行业的学校所占据。factor in： 把……计入；curriculum：（某个学校的）课程。
24. applaud： 称赞，赞许；liberal arts： 文科；unduly： 过度地。
25. bottom line： 结果，不得不接受的事实。
26. 进入高淘汰率的顶级大学也许能让你拥有吹嘘的资本、社会地位和人际关系，但是它并不能保证你能获得良好的教育，也不能确保你今后一定会成功，不论是在收入还是其他方面。confer： 授予（权力、权利或荣誉等）；brag： 吹牛，自夸。
27. numerical： 用数字表示的，数字的。
28. benchmark： 基准。