EDITORIAL: RATINGS

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Comparing colleges is fine, but assigning numbers doesn't help.

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Rather than simply questioning the specific criteria used, we should be questioning the concept of college ratings themselves. The tendency to want to quantify everything is, perhaps, understandable. But can the value of a college education be reduced to a single number?

Every university is different; each has its own unique character; each will provide a somewhat different education. Consider, for example, Money magazine's college best buys for this year: New College of the University of Florida, Caltech and Rice. Can we really compare such disparate schools?

Rankings only serve to mislead students into thinking that they must go to a "top school" and lead administrators to put resources not where they will help students but where they will boost rankings.

U.S. News , Money and their like are probably doing more harm than good. We urge them to reconsider their approaches to college guides.

This item appeared in the Opinion section of the November 1, 1996 issue.

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