Lynn O'Shaughnessy

The College Solution

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The Best Colleges You’ve Never Heard Of

By Lynn O'Shaughnessy | Aug 6, 2009 |

Ouch.

Forbes Magazine rolled out its second annual list of America’s Best Colleges today and plenty of higher-ed pretty boys didn’t earn the sort of blue-ribbon college rankings they usually win.

Dartmouth College (98) got clobbered by likes of Centre College (14) and Wabash College (32).  St. Mary’s College of California (56) couldn’t beat Duke (104) on the basketball court, but in the ratings game it was a slam dunk.

Juniata College (75), which happens to be my daughter’s school, handily beat Penn State (324), its neighbor in central Pennsylvania.  Lawrence University (41) and Kalamazoo College (52) walloped UCLA (78),  Johns Hopkins (173), University of Texas (174),  and the University of Michigan (200).  And, gosh, what happened to New York University (355) and the University of Southern California (267)?

Here’s a big reason why a significant number of obscure schools on the list of the nation’s 600 top colleges and universities fared so well:  The Forbes’ methodology ignores reputation. Instead it attempts to measure the quality of learning that takes place at these institutions. And that’s a monumental improvement over the popular rankings that U.S. News & World Report cranks out each year, which focus foremost on reputation.

Forbes’ rankings, which were developed by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, used these criteria:

  1. Student evaluations from Ratemyprofessor.com 25%.
  2. Four-year debt load for typical borrower: 20%
  3. Four-year graduation rate: 16.66%
  4. National academic awards won by students and faculty: 13.33%
  5. Salaries of alumni from PayScale.com: 12.5%
  6. Alumni in 2008 edition of Who’s Who:  12.5%

Many schools that you have never heard of do an incredible job of educating their students, but they haven’t attracted attention because they don’t possess an Ivy pedigree or a big league sports prowess or they simply aren’t located on the East Coast. Frankly none of that should matter.

So next time you’re tempted to assume that a school is great because of its history, its location or football team — don’t.

Further reading. Want to learn more about college strategies? Read more of my posts:


 
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  •  
    1

    pnkearns

    08/12/09 | Report as spam

    RE: The Best Colleges That You've Never Heard Of

    I couldn't disagree more with this analysis on 2 major points.

    1. The highest score is based on student evaluations - basically a popularity contest for favorite teacher(s). Style can easily outweigh substance in these types of surveys.

    2. College vs. University
    I know that anyone can get a great education at most higher learning establishments. However, there is a major difference between a university (education + research) vs. a college (education focused). A univesity has the star professors on the leading edge of their field, a passion and the latest knowledge you cannot get out of a book. In addition, many universities allow students to participate in research programs.

    I believe the bias of this survey is obvious from the folks that conducted it, "Center for COLLEGE AFFORDABILITY and Productivity".

  •  
    2

    fdpelli

    08/14/09 | Report as spam

    RE: The Best Colleges That You've Never Heard Of

    I don't agree with pnkearns. I think it is naive to believe that because a professor is a star at research that he or she is a quality instructor. Some of these folks have NO desire or skill at teaching and only do so because it is part of the requirements of being a faculty member. And the frequency in which undergraduate students actually participate in meaningful research is negligible. As far as Ratemyprofessor, it is hardly a popularity contest since it is most often used to damn poor instructors. The Forbes evaluation appears to provide meaningful information for students seeking a good education for their dollars that will lead to a well-paying job. It is not an overall evaluation of the institution as an institution. It is about students finding schools that will provide them with the best education that will lead to a good future in their future career life.

  •  
    3

    MichP

    08/18/09 | Report as spam

    Not Very Scientific

    RateMyProfessor is not filled out by all students.

    Who's Who is not very selective. If you want to get listed, just send in your information with a check.

    To measure productivity, I'd like to see how many graduates get full-time jobs in fields related to their degrees.

  •  
    4

    Philip Yag

    10/22/09 | Report as spam

    RE: The Best Colleges That You've Never Heard Of

    The Forbes list has got to one of the worst, if not the worst listing for the best colleges in a America. The fact that one of the criterion used for determining the "best" college is a laugh. So basically if it is a private it automatically suffers because of the cost...what a joke. And then graduation rate...? If I go to joe schmoe college compared to lets say for the sake of argument a school like MIT... of course I have a better chance to graduate on time or even ahead of time because the classes being offered would more than likely be easy. The funniest thing to me is how student evaluations from something as ridiculous as ratemyprofessor is the highest basis for evaluation. While there might be students who give fair assessments, there are also those who evaluate based on grade received in class and sometimes the easiness of the professor (i.e. the rating of a particular professor may not be accurately portrayed by the student). One must also take into account that not all students rate the professors, so it is possible that the person reading these evaluations would only be receiving half the story. Overall I would not get too excited for having my school on this list of so called "best" colleges, because the criteria for evaluating said colleges just plain stink.

  •  
    5

    lynnisamoron

    11/22/09 | Report as spam

    RE: The Best Colleges That You've Never Heard Of

    jesus christ

    why do they let this idiot women write for this website
    all her articles are pointless

    they should at least take her picture off the side bar, so we don't feel nauseous when we read the article

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Lynn O'Shaughnessy

Lynn O'Shaughnessy is a financial journalist and the author of a critically acclaimed book, The College Solution: A Guide for Everyone Looking for the Right School at the Right Price. She has been a contributor to such publications as BusinessWeek, USA Today, Money Magazine, Medical Economics, The New York Times, Consumer Reports MoneyAdvisor, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, AARP: The Magazine and Kiplinger

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