Research Notes: Can U.S. Higher Education get past the rankings?

U.S. News & World Report's yearly rankings of "America's Best Colleges" claim to measure academic quality, but critics have little difficulty establishing how current ranking systems in higher education -- U.S. News principal among them - probably fail in this regard and perhaps even harm the students and institutions they aim to inform.  At the same time, though, a rare few leaders in higher education have successfully used rankings to affect substantial strategic gains in their schools.  What should we make of the current rankings mania and how might it be possible for ranking or survey data to be helpful in higher education?

In a sweeping commentary on the origins and purposes of higher education rankings, and current trends in large-scale survey data in higher education, Bob Zemsky takes on these questions.  He analyzes current rankings instruments and fads, establishing how they are much more indicators of institutions' market position than barometers of quality.  He also points to promising instruments and trends in data collection that, if properly and funded, may be able to helpfully inform the U.S. system of higher education.  

For Zemsky, a valid customer satisfaction-type survey would offer the best chance of accomplishing what the rankings set out to do: measure and rank institutions based on academic quality. But with a potentially exorbitant price tag and loaded with political security difficulty, such a survey would be very difficult to administer.

"The Rain Man Cometh - Again" appears in Academy of Management Perspectives, 22(1).