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By the Staff of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity1 Ranking Factors and Weights
The Center for College Affordability and Productivity (CCAP), in conjunction with Forbes, compiled its college rankings using five general categories, with several component factors within each category. The weightings for each category and component are listed in parentheses: 1. Student Satisfaction (25%) Student Evaluations from RateMyProfessor.com (15%) Actual Freshman-to-Sophomore Retention Rates (5%) Predicted vs. Actual Freshman-to-Sophomore Retention Rates (5%)
3. Student Debt (17.5%) Average Federal Student Loan Debt Load (10%) Student Loan Default Rates (5%) Predicted vs. Actual Percent of Students Taking Federal Loans (2.5%) 4. Four-year Graduation Rate Actual Four-year Graduation Rate Predicted vs. Actual Four-year Graduation Rate 5. Academic Success Student Nationally Competitive Awards Alumni Receiving PhDs (11.25%) (8.75%) (2.5%) (11.25%) (7.5%) (3.75%)
School Selection
The 650 institutions of higher education included in this list award undergraduate degrees or certificates requiring 4 or more years of study, according to the U.S. Department of Education and are classified by The Carnegie Foundation as Doctorate-granting Universities, Masters Colleges and Universities, or Baccalaureate Colleges.2 We have accounted for any changes in the names of institutions that have occurred over the past year.
lower the number of RMP evaluations per enrollment, the higher the schools composite RMP score. The other main objection to the RMP measure is that instructors can buy high rankings by making their course easy and giving high grades. Again, to some extent the huge variations in individual instructor rigor and easiness are reduced when the evaluations of all instructors are aggregated nearly every school has some easy and some difficult professors. Nonetheless, we take this criticism seriously and controlled for the effect that easiness has on evaluations of instructor or course quality. Perhaps the simplest method for controlling for the bias that easiness (or, in this case, perceived easiness) plays in instructor evaluations is to adjust the RMP Overall Quality ratings by the Easiness ratings students report. Furthermore, there are additional theoretical reasons (besides simply controlling for bias) to take course difficulty into account. For example, arguably courses which students perceive to be the most difficult and challenging are precisely those courses in which more students learning gains are the greatest, regardless of the quality students otherwise perceive. For these reasons, we gave special consideration to the difficulty factor in the measurement of this factor, as discussed below. Scholarly Assessments of RateMyProfessors.com There have been a number of studies assessing the validity and/or reliability of the RMP ratings data. The general approach is to relate the results on this website to the more established student evaluations of teaching (SET) that are routinely performed by most institutions of higher education. Many colleges think their own SET data provides useful information in assessing the effectiveness of faculty and instruction (after all, these evaluations are a consideration for promotion and teaching at many educational institutions).5,6 Therefore, if these institutional evaluations are mirrored by the RMP results, it enhances the likelihood that RMP data are a valid measure vis--vis official SET data. The research to date cautiously supports the view that RMP is relatively similar to the SET used by universities themselves. One study states, The results of this study offer preliminary support for the validity of the evaluations on RateMyProfessors.com.7 Coladarci and Kornfield, surveying instructors at the University of Maine, note that ...these RMP/SET correlations should give pause to those who are inclined to dismiss RMP indices as meaningless, although they also expressed some concerns that the correlation between the two types of instruments were far from 1.00.8 Otto, Sanford and Ross conclude that their analysis of ratings on RMP reveals what would be expected if the online ratings of professors were in fact valid measures of student learning.9 More recently, Bleske-Rechek and Michels, in an analysis of students across majors at a single state university, contradict the popular notion that students who use RMP only post highly negative or highly positive ratings.10 Bleske-Rechek and Michels also conclude that the evidence does not support the common assumption that students who post on RMP are not typical of the whole student body. To be sure, the research is not all enthusiastically supportive of RMP. Felton, Koper, Mitchell, and Stinson suggest that the positive correlation between RMP quality ratings and ease of course assessments make this a questionable instrument.11 Bleske-Rechek and Michels confirm the existence of a positive relationship between student evaluations of quality and easiness at the
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instructor level, Bleske-Rechek and Michels warn that it is misguided to jump to the conclusion that the association between easiness and quality is necessarily a product of just bias and suggest that the RMP data may only be reflecting that quality instruction facilitates learning.12 However, regardless of the precise causes of positive relationship between student assessments of quality and easiness, we have adjusted the RMP score for course easiness to correct for this potential bias. In spite of some drawbacks of student evaluations of teaching, they apparently have value for the 86% of schools that, historically, have some sort of internal evaluation system. RMP ratings give similar results to these systems. Moreover, they are a measure of consumer preferences, which is what is critically important in rational consumer choice. When combined with the significant advantages of being uniform across different schools, not being subject to easy manipulation by schools, and being publicly available, RMP is a preferred data source for information on student evaluations of teachingit is the largest known single uniform data set for student perceptions of the quality of their instruction. Calculating the Schools Scores We took the average overall quality rating for all instructors at each school based on the quality ratings of individual professors listed on the RMP website, reported on a scale of 1 to 5. We also derived an estimate for student perception of course rigor from the reported RMP easiness variable. The RMP easiness variable, like the overall quality variable, is based on a scale from 1 to 5, with 5 being the easiest. To establish a measure of course rigor, we invert the scale of the rating by subtracting the easiness score from 6 to yield a course rigor variable, also on a scale also of 1 to 5. We computed the overall RMP score by summing the quality weighting with the derived rigor rating, such that the weighting for the quality rating was three times higher than the weighting for the derived rigor rating. This composite score was then adjusted using Bayesian methods that consider the number of votes submitted.13 This composite score accounts for 17.5 percent of the final score for each school in the Forbes ranking.
Freshman-to-sophomore retention rates are part of the dataset annually collected by the U.S. Department of Education from any college or university which reports to the U.S. Department of Education comprehensive database, Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). For those schools in our sample which do not report retention rates to the U.S. Department of Education (notably Hillsdale College), we obtained the data by other means. The data we used were the retention rates reported in IPEDS for Fall 2011. In the final computation to obtain the rankings, the data for the actual retention rate were weighted so that they constituted a 5 percent importance in determining the final Forbes ranking. Summary of the Statistical Model In addition to incorporating the actual retention rate component, we also included a statistical model to predict an institutions retention rate based upon a variety of demographic and institutional input factors. The primary source of the data used in the model is the U.S. Department of Education IPEDS database. We used a number of student demographic factors in our model including proportional enrollment by ethnicity, the percentage of students who are female (or, equivalently, the percentage that are male). Similarly, we also included the percentage of the undergraduate population who are between the ages of 25 and 65 and the percentage of students attending part-time. Additionally, we used student financial aid variables, such as the percentage of students receiving any grants, percentage receiving Pell grants, average amount of Pell grant received, percentage taking out federal loans, and the average amount of federal loans students borrow. We also included measures of institutional selectivity: 25th percentile SAT scores, percent of applicants admitted and the matriculation rate. We also included various measures of per student spending, the student-faculty ratio, tuition and enrollment. Finally, we also controlled for type of institution, degree of campus urbanization and geographic location. In constructing the model, we first transformed the retention rate variable with the logistic transformation (also known as the log of the odds ratio) to account for the bounded nature of the retention rate data. We then regressed this variable against the aforementioned independent variables using the least squared method. Due to the nature of the logistic transformation, we do not encourage interpretation of coefficient estimates on retention rates and therefore suppress them in this methodology. 14 A school received a better score for this metric by having an actual retention rate that exceeded that predicted by the regression model, controlling for difference between the actual retention rate and the perfect retention rate of 100 percent. Conversely, a school received a lower score if the actual retention rate fell below the models predicted rate. In the overall Forbes rankings, this retention model accounts for 5 percent.
which is updated frequently, is one of the largest online salary surveys in the world. Persons complete the PayScale Salary Survey in exchange for a free salary report that anonymously compares them to other people with similar jobs in similar locations. In addition to individual surveys, PayScale receives data from employers administered on behalf of trade associations. Why this measure? For many (if not most) college students, the bottom line of higher education is whether it helps them get a good job after graduation. Other things being equal, students will choose a school that provides them the opportunity to earn the highest possible salary upon graduation. Historically, it has been difficult, if not impossible, to obtain institutional level data on the salaries of college graduates. The salary data published by Payscale is among the most comprehensive salary data publicly available and these data are increasingly used by higher education policy analysts seeking to quantify the economic returns to higher education and compare how those returns vary by school and major of study.15 While some may criticize the Payscale data as unreliable due to problems associated with self-selection bias, we view these data as reasonably reliable, particularly in light of the fact that there is not better institutional level data available at the same scope and because these data are used by credible higher education policy analysts in other research. Calculating the Schools Scores We used salary data for 1-4 years experience and data for 10-19 years experience. Specifically, we used salary data for 1-4 years experience as an estimate for beginning salaries and the growth in salary from 1-4 years experience to 10-19 years experience. Taking the growth rate between 14 year and 10-19 year is an indicator of value-added skills that were learned during school, both technical and soft skills. In other words, we believe that the acceleration of growth in salary is just as important starting salary throughout a career. The composite salary score is weighted at 15 percent of the overall rankings.
been elected to the National Academy of Sciences or have been awarded a Nobel Prize (20022012), Pulitzer Prize (2002-2012), Guggenheim Fellowship (2004-2013), or MacArthur Fellowship (2003-2012). Our list of American Leaders contains members of the Big Five orchestras (located in New York, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Cleveland) and winners of an Academy (2004-2013), Emmy (2003-2012), Tony (2003-2012), or Grammy Award (General Field, 2003-2012). We have also included biographical information for nearly 1,900 federal officials, including the governors of all 50 states and the four American territories (American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, and Puerto Rico), all one hundred United States Senators and 441 United States Representatives (including delegates from the American territories and the District of Columbia), all 849 Article III judges appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate for lifetime appointments (a number which includes nine Supreme Court Justices, 177 Court of Appeals judges, 9 Court of International Trade Judges, and 654 District Court judges), and 506 members of the executive branch (including the President and Vice President of the United States, members of the Cabinet, senior members of the bureaucracy within each Cabinet department, and the heads of major non-cabinet agencies). We have also included the President and Board of Directors of the 12 Federal Reserve banks and over 8,000 current state-level legislators and executive branch officers. Data on the educational background for each of these leaders was obtained through various sources. We removed any duplicates (for instance, an individual serving as CEO at one of the leading corporations who also served on the board of one of the leading charities) to avoid double counting. After obtaining our complete sample, totaling approximately 30,000 names, we removed the duplicates, as well as the individuals for whom no relevant collegiate information could be found. This process produced our total sample size of 17,600 usable individuals. After computing the absolute number of leaders who received degrees from each school, we adjusted the absolute number by the average undergraduate enrollment at each institution in 1980, 1985, 1990, 1995, 2000, and 2005 in such a way as to both account for the absolute number of notable alumni a particular college produced as well as that number of alumni as a proportion of the historic enrollment. This composite score accounts for 20 percent of the overall Forbes/CCAP ranking for each institution.
debt level at these schools is not necessarily zero, for these schools, we estimated the level of debt based upon the ratio of each of these three schools sticker tuition as a percentage of the average tuition for private institutions. The debt data are weighted at 10 percent of the overall Forbes ranking.
Finally, we controlled for type of institution, degree of campus urbanization and geographic location. In constructing the model, we first transformed the percent taking out federal loans variable with the logistic transformation (also known as the log of the odds ratio) to account for the bounded nature of the retention rate data. We then regressed this new variable against the aforementioned independent variables using the least squared method. As with the retention rate and graduation rate models, due to the nature of the logistic transformation, we do not encourage interpretation of coefficient estimates and therefore suppress them in this methodology. The results from our statistical model account for 2.5 percent of the overall ranking.
Summary of the Statistical Model We rely upon a statistical model to predict what a schools four-year graduation rate is expected to be based on a number of input criteria which measure the academic quality of incoming students. In order to capture the quality of students, we use 25th percentile composite SAT scores, acceptance rates, full-time enrollment rates (how many admitted students actually matriculate), percentage of students receiving Pell Grants, percentage of students enrolled in STEM majors,18 a dummy variable for public or private institutional control, and regional dummy variables. We first transformed the four-year graduation rate data with the logistic transformation (occasionally referred to as the log of the odds ratio) to account for the particular bounded nature of that variable. We next regressed this transformed variable against the list of regressors mentioned above using the least squares method. Due to the nature of the logistic transformation, and the history of even respected academics misinterpreting the coefficient estimates, we do not encourage interpretation of coefficient estimates on graduation rates and therefore suppress them in this methodology. A school received a better score by having an actual graduation rate that exceeded the one predicted by the regression model, controlling for difference between the actual graduation rate and the perfect graduation rate of 100 percent. Conversely, a school received a lower score if the actual graduation rate fell below the models predicted rate. A Note on the Data Sources The primary source for the data used was the U.S. Department of Educations IPEDS database. The actual graduation rate, according to IPEDS, is computed by dividing the total number of students completing a bachelor degree or equivalent within 4-years (100% of normal time) by the revised bachelor sub-cohort minus any allowable exclusions. The IPEDS database is also the source of the data for the variables used in the statistical model, with a few exceptions. There were several schools (notably Hillsdale College) where the data came from other sources. In cases where current data were unavailable at any of these sources, we developed estimates based on the most recent publicly available data. The graduation rate component accounts for 11.25 percent, apportioned between the actual graduation rate (8.75 percent) and the graduation performance of a school relative to its predicted graduation rate (2.5 percent).
The following eight nationally competitive student awards were considered with the years of award observations included in parentheses: The Rhodes Scholarship (2005-13) The British Marshall Scholarship (2005-13) The Gates Cambridge Scholarship (2005-13) The Harry S. Truman Scholarship (2009-13) The Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship (2010-13) National Science Foundation (NSF) Fellowships (2010-13) The Fulbright U.S. Student Program (2010-13) USA Today All-Academic First and Second Teams (2005-10) The Rhodes, Marshall, and Gates-Cambridge Scholarships are included because they are widely recognized as three of the most selective and prestigious of all postgraduate awards to undergraduate students. The list of USA Today All-Academic First and Second Teams include winners from across the country and are some of the most accomplished college students across many different academic disciplines for the years included in our dataset. The remaining four awards attempt to encompass a variety of different academic backgrounds. The Truman award is directed toward students interested in pursuing careers in public service while the Goldwater Scholarship targets students pursuing careers in the natural sciences, mathematics or engineering. National Science Foundation (NSF) Fellowships are awarded to students wishing to pursue graduate study in the sciences (including social sciences), mathematics and engineering. Finally, the Fulbright U.S. Student Program offers fellowships to U.S. graduating undergraduate students (in addition to young professionals and artists) to travel abroad for one academic year to conduct research, study or teach English as a second language. We use observations across a range of years to expand the sample size of awards in our database. However, because the number of recipients varies across the different awards, the range of years we used for capturing observations varies by award. For instance, the Rhodes, Marshall and Gates-Cambridge scholarships, because they are widely viewed as the most prestigious awards, necessarily have the smallest number of awards given out each year so the range of years we used for cataloging recipients of these awards is larger than for the other awards we count in this factor. Furthermore, we gave greater weight to the prestigious awards in order to reward institutions for producing students of greater achievement. We also account for the enrollment size of an institution. A school with a greater number of students, other things equal, has a better chance of winning an award. The number of award
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winners is adjusted by the schools average full-time equivalent undergraduate enrollment such a way as to both account for the absolute number of award recipients a particular college produced as well as that number of award recipients as a proportion of the enrollment. The enrollment adjusted numbers for student award recipients account for 7.5 percent of the final score for each school in the overall ranking.
maintaining a list that indicates high quality, and not just low tuition, this adjustment is necessary).
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Endnotes
1
The compilation of these rankings was done at the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, although in cooperation and active consultation with the staff of Forbes. At CCAP, Director Richard Vedder, with the assistance of Jonathan Robe, oversaw the project team which included: Harrison Cummins, Virginia Ewen, Amanda Denhart, Christopher Denhart, Zak Frank, Daniel Garrett, Joseph Hartge, Anthony Hennen, Chase Peterson-Withorn, Jan Skapa, Hannah Urano and Grace Urano.
2
For further information on this system of classification, see The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, The Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, available at: http://classifications.carnegiefoundation.org/, accessed July 1, 2013.
3
James Otto, Douglas A. Sanford Jr., and Douglas Ross. Does ratemyprofessor.com really rate my professor? Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education 33, no. 4 (August 2008): 355-368.
4
We should note, however, that if we assume that the distribution of student ratings on ratemyprofessor.com is symmetric about the mean and that the students who submit those ratings are only either disgruntled or excessively happy about their professors (that is, the censoring decision is also symmetric about the mean), then given a sufficiently large sample, the expected mean using the truncated sample would, in fact, be equivalent to the true mean using a sample of all students. For a formal mathematical proof, see: http://www.centerforcollegeaffordability.org/uploads/RMP_Proof.pdf
5
James Otto, Douglas Sanford and William Wagner. Analysis of Online Student Ratings of University Faculty. Journal of College Teaching and Learning 2, no. 6 (June 2005): 25-30.
6
Yining Chen and Leon B. Hoshower. Student Evaluation of Teaching Effectiveness: An Assessment of Student Perception and Motivation, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education , 28, no. 1 (2003).
7
Michael E. Sonntag, Jonathan F. Bassett, and Timothy Snyder. An Empirical Test of the Validity of Student Evaluations of Teaching Made on RateMyProfessors.com, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education (July 2008). See also, Scott Jaschik. Validation for RateMyProfessors.com? Inside Higher Ed, April 25, 2008, available at http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/04/25/rmp, accessed July 1, 2013.
8
Theodore Coladarci and Irv Kornfield, RateMyProfessors.com Versus Formal In -class Evaluations of Teaching, Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation (May 2007).
9
10
April Bleske-Rechek and Kelsey Michels. RateMyProfessors.com: Testing Assumptions about Student Use and Misuse, Practical Assessment, Research and Evaluation 15, no. 5 (May 2010).
11
James Felton, Peter T. Koper, John Mitchell, and Michael Stinson. Attractiveness, Easiness, and Other Issues: Student Evaluations of Professors on RateMyProfessors.com, the abstract page of which is available on http://ssrn.com/abstract=918283, accessed on August 5, 2010.
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13
For further discussion of Bayesian approaches to rankings see James O. Berger and John Deely. A Bayesian Approach to Ranking and Selection of Related Means With Alternatives to Analysis-of-Variance Methodology Journal of the American Statistical Association 83, no. 402 (June 1988): 364-373.
14
One prominent example of a misinterpretation of a logistic regression coefficient is discussed in the following letter to the editor: Andrew Gelman, Letter to the editors regarding some papers of Dr. Satoshi Kanazawa Journal of Theoretical Biology 245, no. 3 (April 7, 2007): 597-599 14
15
For a two examples of this use of PayScale salary data, see: Philip R. P. Coelho and Tung Lui, The Returns to College Education, working paper, Department of Economics, Ball State University, August 12, 2012 (available at: http://econfac.iweb.bsu.edu/research/workingpapers/bsuecwp201202coelho.pdf) and Mark Schneider and Jorge Klor de Alva, Who Wins? Who Pays? The Economic Returns and Costs of a Bachelors Degree , NEXUS and American Institutes for Research, May 2011(available at: http://www.air.org/files/WhoWins_bookmarked_050411.pdf).
16
Federal Loans are by far the most common form of undergraduate loans. In the 2011-12 academic year, more than 90% of all undergraduate loans (in terms of total dollars) originated from federal loan programs according to the College Board. See: Sandy Baum and Kathleen Payea, Trends in Student Aid: 2012, Washington, DC: The College Board, 2012, p. 17.
17
The underlying data we used can be obtained from the U.S. Department of Educations Office of Student Financial Assistance Programs website at: http://www2.ed.gov/offices/OSFAP/defaultmanagement/cdr.html.
18
This control variable was added to address the (valid) criticism that, other things equal, students enrolled in STEM majors tend to take more time to graduate because of the higher rigor associated with their fields of study. The addition of this control variable allows us to take into account that schools with higher percentages of students enrolled in STEM majors will likely have lower four-year graduation rates. Thus, these schools should not be penalized by the model because of the higher percentage of STEM students.
19
For more information about the Survey of Earned Doctorates, see the National Science Foundations website at: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/srvydoctorates/. We should note that the NSFs dataset on earned doctorates included institutions which do not report data IPEDS or participate in Title IV financial aid programs.
20
As of 2011, the National Science Foundation reports that the median time to completion of a doctoral degree from the time of conferral of the bachelors degree was 9.1 years. See National Science Foundation, Science and Engineering Doctorates: 2011, Table 31, available at: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/sed/2011/data_table.cfm.
21
For private schools, in-state tuition and fees is the same as out-of-state tuition.
22
Berea College in Kentucky also offers their students full scholarship and grant coverage for the cost of tuition, but according to the IPEDS data, students are required to pay a $876 fee to the school for the year.
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