College Rankings a Mixed Bag for Texas Universities
Depending on whom you ask, the University of Texas is either the 45th best university in the country, or the 186th. Texas A&M University is either the 58th, or it's the 178th. The practice of ranking colleges and universities has become pervasive, but interpreting them can be difficult since no two publications take the same approach.
Today, U.S. News & World Report released its annual list, arguably the most influential (and one of the most controversial, particularly among university administrators). Here's a sampling of how Texas institutions fared on the list of best national universities: Rice University ...
Comments (9)
John James via Texas Tribune on Facebook
U of H is a great school and thrifty too!
Texas Longhorns
If UT had a smaller student body, it would rank in the 20s in this list.
The list penalizes schools with higher enrollment.
As a research university, UT far outranks Rice.
Enedelia Obregon via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Proud to have our son at Swarthmore, ranked No. 3 among liberal arts colleges.
Rodney Marsden via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Hell...even higher education in Texas is going down the tubes. THANKS PERRY!!!!
T D
To say that Richard Vedder "does" the rankings may give him too much credit. He does run a "Center" which employs former and some current undergraduates from his home university, and it is this Center which Forbes traditionally credits with the rankings.
One could argue that Vedder is leveraging the power of the Forbes name to have Texas taxpayers subsidize the very research (the figures which the University supplies, on demand) that, if they receive compensation for it, makes him and his Center money.
So . . . the next time you hear Vedder complaining about "unsustainable" tuition increases, ask him to disclose his Center's finances, as well as his personal income from these educational analyses. You and the rest of the state's taxpayers may have been helping him out all along.
Ray Grasshoff via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Trinity University in San Antonio is No. 1 in its U.S. News & World Report category. Not too shabby!
Stanley Moore via Texas Tribune on Facebook
No, this proves U of H pretty much sux.
Gary Bennett
And according to Webometrics Ranking of World Universities, the University of Texas ranks #11 among all world universities (#7 among US public universities); and Texas A&M comes in at #20 in the same ranking. I have actually seen UT ranked as high as #2 among US public universities. US News & World Report's rankings are not only the most popular of the rankings, but also among the most flawed. Flaws include: (1) a very high weighting is given for "alumni giving," which means that schools such as certain of the Ivies and Duke, among others., which set aside a large number of places for children of millionaires at the expense of more promising students get an undeserved boost in their ratings; (2) selectivity is given a high rating, in spite of the fact that when high school counselors started advising students to apply to many more colleges (in my day, applying to four schools was considered reasonable; now students end up applying to 12, 16 or more), those schools became much more "selective," despite ending up with about the same quality students as before! Average SAT or ACT scores are far more indicative of the actual quality of the student body. But even there, problems exist: UT, and to a lesser extent A&M, would rank considerably higher without the Top Ten Percent Rule, which in finite campus space forces them in many cases to reject more academically promising students in order to ensure campus diversity.
About the only things we know of for sure is that the top four schools in the state at this point are Rice, UT, A&M and University of Houston (newly accepted into an elite group of research universities), and that the state needs many more places available at first class universities, given the great expansion in academically elite students (reflecting the population explosion in the state).
Jeff Harmon
Governor Perry also trumpets student satisfaction as a key to a university's ranking and success. That is putting the inmates in charge of the asylum. If a student perceives your course as hard and he does poorly, he will rank his professor poorly despite the professor's best efforts and knowledge. Professors should not be best friends with the student, they should set high standards for them, and allow the students to rise to the challenge. The best student review of a professor is one that says, "the professor was hard but I really learned something." and "The professor knows his topic and conveys his enthusiasm and fun for it."