Are U.S. News’ Rankings Inherently Biased Against Black Colleges?
The U.S. News & World Report’s annual college rankings have long had their share of critics, and Dr. Walter Kimbrough, president of historically Black Philander Smith College, is trying to enlist his HBCU counterparts in boycotting the rankings.
http://www.diverseeducation.com/artman/publish/article_7831.shtml
July 1st, 2007 at 5:24 pm
Dr. Kimbrough certainly has ligitimate grounds for complaint and he is not alone. What I would hope, however, is that the institutions that refuse to participate in the US news rankings would extend beyond HBCUs to include both those institutions that feel the rankings are flawed as well as those who find themselves in the top 100. Competition for students, research dollars, and corporate and individual contributions continues to stiffen among US postsecondary instititions. With the increasing globalization of higher ed, US institutions find themselves also competing with campuses abroad. Rankings such as the US News listing are one tool schools use to distinguish themselves from the rest. But until these rankings are reengineered or US News goes out of business, it is in every institutions’ best interest to continue to identify ways to tell their own stories of success, beyond the rankings, and to tap into “markets” of students and benefactors who can appreciate the unique contribution they make to today’s higher education landscape.