INTRODUCTION: A DIFFERENT KIND OF COLLEGE RANKING.

• Date: 01 September 2020
• Author: Gedye, Grace

It's safe to say that the current generation of college students is getting an education unlike any other in American history. They spent the spring and summer in pandemic-induced disruption, isolation, and stress, with vanished jobs and internships, taking hastily arranged online classes, and, in most cases, paying the same tuition that they would have if they had been on campus.

Now, as students are beginning their fall semester, the virus is still not under control. Most have been offered the option of continuing to take online classes while being urged, and in some cases all but forced, to move back on campus and attend in-person classes by colleges that need the dorm revenue--a vast socio-epidemiological experiment that will likely be abandoned amid sickness and unnecessary death. Those attending poorly resourced state schools--disproportionately minority and low-income students--probably aren't even getting the benefit of the weekly or daily virus testing that elite private schools are providing.

Current college students have also gotten a real-world education in the power of political activism. This summer, in the wake of George Floyd's killing, large numbers of them took to the streets in support of Black Lives Matter. In November, these same students will have a chance to vote in a national election, many for the first time. It will, to say the least, be no ordinary election--especially for young people, who, by definition, will have to live with the consequences longer than older Americans.

These searing generational experiences are likely to have long-term consequences none of us can predict. But it is a good bet that in the short term they will lead today's college students to demand fundamental change from the institutions they experience most directly: the colleges and universities they attend.

What might they demand? Well, for starters, they are going to want to see schools make a greater effort to do right by students who are Black, Latino, and Native American, or who come from low-income backgrounds. They are going to want to see colleges double down on their efforts to produce the research and technologies that will create the new high-paying jobs they will need to sustain themselves, as well as the solutions to climate change and other existential threats. And they are going to want their institutions not just to tolerate their civic activism but to sincerely encourage it.

What today's students could use is a reliable tool to gauge how well their colleges measure up on these demands. As it happens, there is one. The Washington Monthly's annual college guide ranks individual schools based on how well they promote upward mobility, research, and civic engagement. These criteria are quite different from those employed by U.S. News & World Report, which ranks schools based on their wealth, exclusivity, and prestige...