flaws in the Monthly's meth- future years, we would prefer

odology, any serious effort to to expand our criteria and

shift the national focus away
from individual graduates'
earning power and toward the
broader contributions of the
nation's college graduates to
society would seem to be a
positive move.
While clearly imperfect,
the magazine's look at data
it hnked to "social mobil-
ity"—such as the proportion
of Pell Grant recipients in an
institution's student body and
the predicted graduation rate
of students at the institution
versus tbe actual rate (based
on a formula the magazine
constructed assuming that a
bigber number of Pell Grant
recipients—and thus needy
students—would tend to low-
er the rate)—seemed pretty
refreshing. So did its stab at
formulating a "community
service" score by looking at
tbe number of graduates cur-
rently serving in the Peace
Corps, the number of students
enrolled in Reserve Officer
Training Corps programs, and
tbe percentage of a college's
federal work-study students
assigned to community-ser-
vice projects. It didn't neglect
researcb contributions, look-
ing at the total number of
dollars a university received
in research grants and number
of PhDs it awarded in the sci-
ences and engineering.
Those measures are clearly
only partial gages—and
perhaps not tbe best ones at
all—of any group of gradu-
ates' contributions to society.
Indeed the article says, "In
develop an even more com-
prehensive measure of the
qualities by which colleges
and universities enrich our
country. There's only one
problem: Many of these data
aren't available." Tbe article
notes that the editors would
"love to add a category mea-
suring academic excellence"
and bemoans the fact that "tbe
vast majority of colleges and
universities" refuse to let their
scores on tbe National Sur-
vey of Student Engagement
(NSSE), led by researchers at
Indiana University, be made
public. (See the Washington
Monthly, Sept, 2005.) ' ^
New Look at
Rankings
A more traditional, but
interesting and tbougbt-
fril, look at tbe rankings game
is contained in a new book by
Robert Zemsky, Gregory
Wegner, and William R Massy.
Remaking the American
University: Market-Smart
and Mission-Centered (Rut-
gers University Press, 2005)
makes familiar criticisms
about the problems caused if
Outsourcing Human Capital
W e're not building buman capital the way we used
to. Our primary and secondary schools are fall-
ing behind tbe rest of the world's. Our universities are
still excellent, but the foreign students who come to
tbem are increasingly taking tbeir educations back home.
As other nations multiply tbeir science and engineer-
ing graduates—building the foundation for economic
progress—ours are declining, in part because those fields
are seen as nerdisb and simply uncool. And our culture
prizes cool....
Low-cost countries—^not just China and India but
also Mexico, Malaysia, Brazil and others—are turning
out large numbers of well-educated young people fully
qualified to work in an information-based economy.
China will produce about 3.3 million college graduates
this year, India 3.1 million (all of tbem English-speak-
ing), the U.S. just 1.3 million. In engineering, China's
graduates will number over 600,000, India's 350,000,
America's only about 70,0(X).
Tbe result is that many Americans who thought out-
sourcing only threatened factory workers and call-center
operators are about to learn otherwise. Tbat is a giant
development, because information-based services are tbe
heart of tbe U.S. economy. ^ ^
—Geoffrey Colvin, in the July 25, 2005,
issue of Fortune magazine
universities spend too much quality and accountability.
time focusing on admissions As part of this analysis, the
and advancing in the typical authors—long-time partici-
rankings rather than con- pants in, as well as observers
centrating on their academic of, higher education—present
programs. It also, though, an interesting breakdown of
presents an interesting the college market. They note
analysis of why the rankings that at the top end of the mar-
mania over the past decade or ket—students and parents in-
more has not, in the authors' terested in tbe most selective
view, produced any particu- institutions—the participants
lar increase in academic or ': all understand that "what is
financial accountability or ' being purchased at great ex-
strengthened a link between pense is a degree, the value of
CHANGE • NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2005