07

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Sept. 6 WSJ Rankings" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The Wall Street Journal issued college rankings based on "how much a college improves its students’ chances of graduating on time, and how much it boosts the salaries they earn after graduation." The original poster is interested in seeing the list but had been unable to find it when visiting the library. The original poster also mentioned that the College of William and Mary had dropped significantly on the list which caused an immediate diversion of the thread to discuss William and Mary. Posters suggested ongoing construction at the university and the quality of the food in the cafeteria might be responsible. However, it doesn't appear that either of those would be factors that the WSJ considered. When posters finally got back to discussing the rankings, several posters had the same reaction that I did which was to the question the emphasis on those particular metrics. Other posters, however, argued that return on investment is among the most important factors when considering colleges. This is another example of a phenomenon in the forum about which I have complained in the past in which a significant number of posters seem to view universities as little more than glorified vocational schools. Of course, this WSJ rankings are the ultimate expression of that view. Schools are ranked, not by their effectiveness at teaching or spreading knowledge, not by the contributions of their graduates to the public good or society, but solely on their ability to pump out graduates as quickly as possible and put them into high-paying jobs. Universities are seen less as fountains of knowledge and more as widget factories, the widgets being employees for the worlds of tech and finance. The focus of the WSJ methodology caused some colleges to drop considerably from where they normally appear in rankings, provoking surprise among some posters. Others noted that top schools were penalized for having strong programs in low-paying majors.