Why We Need a Federal Ratings System

By F. King Alexander. The plan just released for rating colleges and universities is a concept that higher education should welcome as a first step toward developing more-comprehensive ways to measure colleges’ value. The U.S. Department of Education’s Postsecondary Institution Ratings System (PIRS), a continuation of the existing College Scorecard, will be complex for many reasons, including the diversity of our higher-education institutions and our well-documented limitations on data. But we should start by considering ways to make PIRS more effective, rather than immediately devaluing it and viewing it with suspicion and disapproval. More...