Students and parents today do not have access to enough information about America’s colleges and universities, a dearth of information that some experts say has led to higher student loan debt and lower graduation rates.
A Washington Monthly and New America Foundation panel held Tuesday discussed the need for a better rating system of higher education institutions, touting the current plan bounced around by President Obama.
Obama first started discussing his college-rating system back in 2013. The idea back at that time was that the Obama administration would begin evaluating colleges on measures like the average tuition they charge, the share of low-income students enrolled and the amount of debt each student has at the time of graduation. The idea was that more federal aid would be allotted to schools that scored higher in the ratings.
Obama’s plan is expected to be in place by the 2015 school year, but no date has been set.
Washington Monthly played on this “ideal rating system” with its new “Worst Colleges” list released this month. The panel discussed its methodology and need to reform these colleges through Obama’s new plan.
But mostly what they found was that necessary information for students to make informed decision about their college choice was not readily available.
Ben Miller, a senior policy analyst in the New America Foundation’s Education Policy Program, skewered most of the existing rating systems out there. He said these completely ignore the cost of student debt and the non-completion rates, as well as the rate at which people borrow not just how much they have to borrow.
Existing rating systems play to “privileged” students who have their pick of universities, he said. The federal rating system — and the one he helped Washington Monthly create — needs to be one for students who are making the choice of whether or not to go to college at all.
Miller’s colleague at New America, Kevin Carey, agreed.
“We feel the stakes are much higher,” he said. Choosing a college is “much riskier than most people realize.”
Carey said choosing the wrong school due to a lack of information is part of the reason so many students have taken on a lot of student loan debt only to drop out before earning their degree.
Jamie P. Merisotis, the president and CEO of the Lumina Foundation, said the solution is three-pronged. First, colleges and universities need to want to serve students better. Second, the market needs to “apply more pressure” to higher education institutions and force them to be honest with students about their prospects. Lastly, everyone needs access to “more and better information.”
“The question isn’t, ‘Is college worth it?’ I think there is enough proof that it is,” Merisotis said. “The question is, ‘How can we build a system that will literally serve more people better?'”
Obama’s plan is rooted in solving this issue and even opponents of the proposed rating system seem to agree with the overarching premise. However, they worry about the unintended consequences of a federal system.
When the Education Department asked for public comment on the proposed regulation, they received a lot of concerns about the weight being placed on data points that can be skewed depending on methodology used to create them.
They were also concerned that schools would focus more on the data elements that make up the rating system rather than the quality of education, especially if federal funding was tied to this system.
