How to Rank Colleges: Reproducers of Privilege or Transformers?

• In Event: 416 - Regular Session. Sociology of Higher Education II - "Legitimate" Institutional Expansion, Transformation, and Stratification

Abstract

As the Obama administration is poised to unveil a college ratings system that will assess schools on their accessibility to low-income families, their affordability, and their student outcomes, it is imperative that sociologists of higher education and stratification be involved. Too often, schools that serve less privileged populations show up poorly in national rankings. Without outcome measures (something the national plan still lacks at this point), measures of “quality” take center stage. This paper proposes an alternative model that measures the impact college has on its students, as measured by economic returns on net cost, once a relative measure of privilege of students is factored in. In other words, the model here proposed ranks colleges by their (economically) transformative effect. This alternative model distinguishes between reproducing privilege (high economic returns as expected) and facilitating social mobility (higher returns than would be expected given the incoming characteristics of students).

Author

• Allison L. Hurst, Oregon State University