Bill Gates Says There Is Something Perverse In College Ratings

At the undergraduate level, however, the rankings measure something different. Essentially, they measure: 1) the test scores and grades of the incoming freshman class; 2) the reputation of the undergraduate program; 3) how much money (directly or indirectly) the school spends on undergraduates. As a big state school, Berkeley can't measure up in these categories.

Incidentally, I'm not sure the USNWR rankings are totally senseless in what they measure. For undergrad, I went to a big state research university with very highly ranked graduate engineering programs. For law school, I went to a private university whose undergraduate program was ranked in the top 20. While the two situations weren't directly comparable, I have to say that there is something to what USNWR measures. The experience of being a student at the big state MRU was terrible. Enormous freshman weed out classes, professors and TA's that didn't speak English, outdated facilities, etc. The experience at the private university was wonderful. Very supportive administrators, great facilities, approachable professors, etc. My law department was about the same size as my undergraduate major school, yet I got more personal attention from professors in my first semester of law school than my entire time in engineering school.

That said, attempts to game the rankings creates terrible incentives for universities. Pretty much the whole ranking boils down to how much money you can spend. You can buy high SAT's by spending more on scholarships, you can buy smaller class sizes by spending more on professors, etc. That works fine for well-established private schools with enormous endowments, but not so much for state MRU's. Berkeley's $3 billion endowment supports 35,000 students. Duke's $7-8 billion endowment (depending on how you count) supports 15,000 students.

You are effectively providing the student (your child) with a full time, one-on-one tutor (you) which is significantly more effective (even with a less experienced teacher) than an instructor being asked to teach 20/30/40 children at one time.

A teacher in a full classroom of 30 students simply cannot pay attention to a child's advancement as precisely as a teacher working one-on-one.

I'm sure Bill Gates has a more nuanced view on college ratings than this article suggests. Welcome to media.

We all know why the college rankings are the way they are. Frankly, no one cares who the "most improved" olympic athlete was in London. People generally want the unambiguity of an outright set of winners. Unambiguous winners may be ok in sports, but not in colleges, where the rankings have a big impact on education here in the US. Gates points out this flaw and argues instead for a "most improved student" metric.

Unfortunately, Gates' "solution" wouldn't really solve the problem either. What is the positive feedback loop for schools that rank highly on "produces the most improved students"? Would they receive extra government funding? Attract better students? I see neither of these as likely. Try again Mr. Gates.

An alternate reading could be that the statement is meant to be obviously opinion; one school of thought on writing is that it should be obvious which statements are fact and which are opinion by the very nature of the statement, and it is superfluous to preface them with phrases like "in my opinion".