Education

Obama’s College Ratings Won’t Actually Rate Colleges

Taylor Beck Contributor
Font Size:

According to Inside Higher Ed, the Department of Education has recently changed its tune regarding a college rating system and instead opted for a system that will provide college applicants with a large pool of data for each institution.

As part of President Barack Obama’s education policy, the president originally intended to create a systematic ranking of all the country’s colleges and universities in an attempt to streamline the college selection process for applicants. However, the rating system has been completely reworked to allow the applicant, rather than the government, to make comparison between the institutions. (RELATED: Education Department Unveils Plan To Rate Colleges)

When President Obama had released information on his idea nearly two years ago, he wanted to use a point based system that would “rate [colleges] on who’s offering the best value so students and taxpayers get a bigger bang for their buck.”

The idea of connecting federal financial aid to these ratings had created concerns among many Republicans in Congress as well as the colleges themselves. The reasoning behind this pushback is that an arbitrary rating may not show how one institution may be a perfect fit for one type of student and not another. Essentially the system could not take into account all the factors that determine what makes one college “good” and a large part of that equation includes the students’ preferences. (RELATED: Conservatives Shrug At Obama’s Higher Ed Plans, Colleges Howl In Rage)

The new system will allow high school students to find an institution that matches their preferences without being influenced by a number, arbitrarily assigned by the government. In the past a fact-centric structure has been proven to more easily meet applicants needs as seen through databases created by private organizations.

One of these organizations is the University and College Accountability Network (UCAN), an organization that provides facts about private colleges in a consumer-friendly format. One of the thousands of institutions registered for UCAN is Gettysburg College.

In a comment Gettysburg College president Janet Morgan Riggs says she believes, “the new federal tool will be similar to UCAN in many ways … but the key to the new approach will be the variables chosen and the accuracy of the data reported.”

With a proven structure already in place in the private sector, the federal government has a baseline from which to launch its system. Last December, the government released 11 data points that would be targeted for the original ratings system so it is safe to assume that this data will still be provided without the numerical rating. The three general areas for the data are college access, affordability and performance.

Although the success of the system remains to be seen, many institutions are happy that the Department of Education has chosen to stray from its original ranking system in an effort to allow students to form their own opinions. By giving Americans the facts perhaps President Obama will exit office with a bright spot in education reform after all.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel