Rutgers to Reorganize Alumni Association for the Better

From time to time, I write about Rutgers, the state university I know best. Rutgers is a very good school; U.S. News ranks my alma mater as one of the nation’s top 20 state universities–and quirky enough to be interesting to an education writer.

Rutgers is the state university of New Jersey; those four words follow the name in all school marketing, so people know for sure. Purdue, the College of William and Mary and most recently, the flagship campuses of the State University of New York are the only national public institutions that do not include the name of their state.

Rutgers University’s flagship campus in New Brunswick has been an exercise in organized disorganization for 35 years. The organized disorganization has preserved and protected the identities of four federated colleges, the first of which traces it’s roots to colonial times.

 Before 1972, Rutgers College, the oldest school, was all-male. Livingston, a liberal arts college founded to address issues of social change in the late sixties, was the only co-educational institution. Students in agriculture, engineering and pharmacy affiliated with Rutgers, Douglass or Livingston for their housing.

Things got only more confusing after 1972: the ag school became Cook College, another liberal arts school while Rutgers College became co-ed, and competed directly with Livingston for students—and resources. Today the Livingston campus provides housing for Rutgers College students, as well as their own and Douglass College is less a college than a residence life option for women.

No other flagship state university is organized the same as Rutgers. If had enrolled at the University of Maryland, for instance, I’d start as a University of Maryland student with an undeclared major and then apply to attend the school of business, journalism, education and the like. Even after I declared my major, I’d still be a University of Maryland student who’d become a University of Maryland alumnus, a Terrapin for life.

Not so at Rutgers; I’m a Rutgers College graduate, so I’m invited to join an association that includes the largest subset of Rutgers alumni—but not every one of them. I also get solicitations to the business school’s alumni association because I have a Rutgers’ MBA—and they invite undergraduate business students to join. I’m also solicited by the graduate public policy school, because I took their undergraduate courses for my bachelor’s degree. There’s no university-wide association that all Rutgers alumni can be a part of—and that’s damn silly.

Instead of one large association, I get hit up by three small ones that have overlapping memberships. I threw in the towel—joined none of them—and gave the same money to the Touchdown Club, the group that supports the football team. Why? Because the activities are fun and most of them are free. I love college football. I’m a season ticket holder, the activities are all informal, and I get discounts to buy licensed football apparel. I get a lot for my money—a lot more than I’d get from the alumni associations.

Rutgers got the message; the university administration wants to consolidate 19 separate alumni associations on three campuses into one. They will allow any of the legacy groups to soldier on, but there will be better-coordinated services for alumni within one association. This is necessary at a time when alumni desire services from the university, such as personalized Web content, continuing education and career services— that are not and never could be, managed by alumni relations.

What would I like to see from a single Rutgers alumni association?

• Membership for Rutgers’ parents; they want their children to succeed and they are in a better position to support the university while their son or daughter is starting life after college. There are also more “helicopter parents” then there have ever been in college communities. Development officers could use that to the university’s advantage.
• A Founder’s Week; there should be a huge celebration of the university’s history and accomplishments each year with events for students, alumni, their families and of course, parents. I didn’t know that November 10 was Rutgers’ Founder’s Day, until this year, twenty five years after I received my bachelor’s degree. That’s a good time to plan a Founder’s Week; it’s after midterms and before Thanksgiving. It’s also the best week to host a Homecoming football game.
• Low cost family events; alumni who graduated between 1980 and 2000 are not only in careers, they are likely raising families. It’s very difficult to attract them to campus events where their children cannot participate. Besides, a university should expose children of alumni to their campus at an early age; admission to Rutgers is a worthwhile goal.
• Customized Web content; I want to know about events and subjects of interest to me. Rutgers is a treasure trove of news, but my interests are very specific.
• An alumni career services office in New York City, to complement the campus career centers.
• A master discount card, as the students have, to shop at campus stores online and offline, as well as with participating merchants. Combine that with a hotel discount that students can also use, as well as discounts on Rutgers’ sports tickets for the teams that have no waiting list.
• Online networks for alumni to contribute their time to admissions and career development.
• The Rutgers print magazine delivered to my door each month, with a calendar of events—with alumni and family discounts.

Rutgers has over 360,000 living alumni, and they have considerable buying power. It’s time for Rutgers to put that buying power to work. Alumni might not need another credit card, or insurance policy, but they are willing to support family-oriented events and quality services they can actually use.

So, for the new association, whatever it may be called, I suggest that they be guided by these words: School spirit and family values.

18 in ’08 Gets My Vote

On October 1, I had the privilege to come to Rutgers to see a screening of 18 in ’08, a documentary produced by David Burstein, a Haverford College freshman. The documentary’s purpose: to get out the youth (18 to 24 year-old) vote and tell politicians how to make it happen.

Burstein and friends interviewed over 60 elected and former office-holders: Congressmen, Senators, Governors, mayors, state legislations and Presidential candidates, as well as activists, campus leaders, journalists and political consultants—but thankfully, only one celebrity—Richard Dreyfuss. If Burstein, et al. had to include a celebrity, Dreyfuss was an excellent choice; in Mr. Holland’s Opus, he played a music teacher beloved by more than two generations of high school students.

18 in ’08 is not a “Rock the Vote” appeal to youth. It includes the words of many current students and recent graduates of varied political persuasions; that makes it more real-life to college audiences than celebrity appeals.  18 in ’08 does an excellent job of explaining the obstacles to youth voting, which included:

• The right to vote is under-appreciated and taken for granted. Passed by Congress, the 18-year-old vote was signed into law by President Nixon in 1971. It was, oddly enough, a reaction to young people’s complaints that if they were old enough to be drafted into the military service, they were old enough to vote.
• Politics offers little in the way of immediate gratification; you have to be involved or hold public office for a long time before you can achieve tangible accomplishments.
• Recent high school graduates, college students and recent college graduates are experiencing dramatic changes in their lives, such as a change in schools or move from school to work, so they lack the time to get involved or become more informed about political issues.
• Hassles in the absentee ballot process. College students and military personnel stationed far from home are not given clear information or direction on how to register to vote, or complete their ballot.
• Candidates talk down to young voters, or appear disinterested in “mainstream” issues such as the terrorism, foreign affairs and affordable health care; younger voters are just as interested in these issues as their parents are.
• Young people do not believe that politicians are “interested” in them as voters, or as a voting bloc; some feel the two major parties ignore them, so therefore, an appeal to register by one party or the other means nothing.

Most amazing, this short (15-20 minute) documentary was directed and produced by a 16 year old; he and his friends believed strongly enough in the right to vote to contact and collect all of these interviews before they were old enough to vote. Burstein took a year off between high school and college to complete the project; it’s a major sacrifice to delay personal life plans for personal convictions.

The hosts at Rutgers’ Eagleton Institute of Politics had gathered some useful facts about the youth vote in the 2004 Presidential Election to complement Burstein’s presentation. Most interesting was that 87 percent of students, registered voters, successfully cast a ballot on Election Day, while 13 percent tried to vote but were unable to or did not attempt to vote at all.

On a more positive note, 63 percent of students said they voted because they believed it was their duty as citizens. I hope this number increases; according to Young Voter Strategies, a non-partisan project at the George Washington University, potential Millennial Voters, ages 18-38 will become one-third of the U.S. electorate by 2015.  It seems contradictory for a generation known to resist authority (positively and negatively) and challenge convention to leave the decision about “who governs” to their elders.

I don’t know if this was one of Burstein’s intentions, but 18 in ’08 made me realize that a career in politics progresses as swiftly as other paths. Elected officials and campaigns are chock full of activists, managers, researchers and opinion leaders under 30, especially in leadership positions.

Young elected leaders also have a history of advancement to higher office. According to my Rutgers’ hosts, of the 19 men who served as President of the United States during the twentieth century, 12 held their first elective office at age 35 or younger. The same is true for 57 of the 100 men and women in the U.S. Senate in 2003 as well as 215 of the 435 members of the U.S. House and 25 of the 50 governors holding office that year.

Taking those numbers to heart, politics is a young person’s game. That makes it more surprising that candidates have such a difficult time attracting more enthusiasm from young people; they have staff more than capable of designing the right message.

Watch 18 in ’08; you’ll see this is a challenge for political leaders of all persuasions; candidates have more control over an apathetic electorate than an active one, but all of the office holders who appeared in 18 in ’08 preferred an electorate that was active and engaged. Party and ideology didn’t matter. Everyone felt the same.

If you’re a parent, order a CD of the film at 18in08.com. Watch it with your young voters.

You won’t need to persuade them to register to vote.

They’ll do it on their own accord.

The Abstinence Teacher Gets an A in My Grade Book

Tom Perrotta and I have two things in common: New Jersey roots and novels about sex education; his latest work, The Abstinence Teacher is the only other novel, besides my own, The Sex Ed Chronicles, that I have read which covers a subject that is still considered taboo in some social circles.

The Abstinence Teacher has two main characters: Ruth Ramsey, a divorcee’ and high school sex educator who makes one inappropriate comment too many, drawing the ire of the evangelical Tabernacle church and its’ hell for leather Pastor Dennis, and Tim Mason, a former stoner and rock n’ roller, also divorced, turned born-again Christian and doting soccer dad. Tim is struggling to stay along the straight and narrow path, as defined for him by the very same evangelical leader who torments Ruth.

The descriptions of Ruth and Tim’s mental conflicts are fascinating. They are both searching for self-worth through someone else.  Since their divorces, Ruth and Tim’s lives have taken divergent paths, but each believes that they have lost something that one might call faith. They are both close-minded, though Tim’s close-mindedness is manufactured from his relationship with the Tabernacle. It was interesting that Tim likened the fellowship of the Tabernacle to the camaraderie of the rock bands of his youth; both are closed circles that welcome loners who are taught to pity or look down on others who don’t fit in. 

Tim has tried to embrace a Christian life, though his sexual desires for his ex-wife and unhappiness in his second marriage lead him to doubt his piety. Tim repeatedly returns to Pastor Dennis to reconcile his adopted faith. Tim and Carrie, his second wife, try to find sexual bliss under a church-defined set of rules; the rules for shopping, for instance, try to draw a fine line between naughty and nice.

Ruth has lived professionally by the mantra that “pleasure is good, shame is bad and knowledge is power,” however she doubts that her students are listening to her more medically accurate, age appropriate messages. In her private moments, she doubts her own sexuality, wondering if love, or just plain good sex, will elude her for the rest of her life. Her desperation reaches new heights as she seeks an old high school flame through the ‘Net.

Ruth and Tim’s paths cross at a soccer game where Tim has asked his team, including Ruth’s daughter Maggie, to join in prayer after a victory. Ruth objects, drawing further wrath from the Tabernacle faithful. Her first clash led her principal and superintendent to institute an abstinence-only sex education course that she lacks the heart to teach. Her second compromises her relationships with her two daughters: Maggie, who wants to continue to play soccer for Tim, and Eliza who uses her mother’s objections to public prayer as a means to consider evangelical fellowship for herself.

Unlike my work, The Sex Ed Chronicles, which takes place in 1980, a time before sex education had been adopted in many public schools; Teacher is based in our times. In Chronicles, I was guided by the history and politics of the late 1970’s. Teacher devotes more attention to the culture of fundamentalist Christianity than the art, science and politics of teaching sex education in public schools. In Teacher, sex education is a regular part of the school day.

 In reading Teacher and Chronicles back to back, I noticed similarities.  Both novels position sex educators under the belief that knowledge is power and show that sex education is too important and too difficult a subject to teach poorly in the classroom. I made the same point as an observing news reporter as Perrotta makes by getting inside Ruth Ramsey’s head. In Teacher and Chronicles, the teachers are also asked to swallow some pride. I will only say that Ruth is asked to swallow harder.

Chronicles and Teacher share concerns about abstinence-only sex education being something that is watered down and therefore, not taking too seriously—unless it is consistent with the teachings of their family or place of worship. However, sex education outside of the public schools is less consistent from student to student, than inside the classroom—and both sides of the culture wars acknowledge this point.

Then the academic questions that come from reading Teacher and Chronicles are who provides the views that will dominate, and not demonize, public school sex education? Which minority view will take center stage in a theatre where parents and students are a silent majority? Will it be activist conservatives (they are not all Christians; Orthodox Jews and Muslims share deep seeded objections to comprehensive sex education) or activist educators perceived to be liberal, or is it more appropriate to say, sexually liberated?

And, do students and school administrators really care about the material taught in those classes? There is evidence in Teacher and Chronicles that administrators care mainly about staying out of trouble that comes in the forms of negative press and parental pressures and, that most students will “learn” whatever their school system decides to put in front of them.

 The Abstinence Teacher made me more concerned for the professional well-being and skin thickness of sex educators who work in settings similar to Ruth. A teacher cannot teach well when forced to suppress their own values to protect faculty colleagues from embarrassment.   I likened Ruth Ramsey’s job to managing the late shift at the 24-hour convenience mart, a no-win scenario whenever you lose your cool in head-to-head or eye-to-eye combat.

For this reason, as well as Perrotta’s humorous and insightful scenes of sex re-education in our times, The Abstinence Teacher gets high marks in my grade book.

Sex Education Once Considered “Communist Plot”

Going back to 1980 to write The Sex Ed Chronicles required me to return to the 60’s and 70’s to get the political setting just right. Until I started my research, I did not know that sex education had been considered part of a ‘Communist plot’. 

In 1960, John Birch Society president Robert Welch urged parents to join their local Parent-Teacher Associations and take them over. According to a Time magazine reporter in 1969, Welch had “decided that sex education was a ‘Communist plot’ akin to community fluoridation plans.”

As part of my research, I read a National Education Association (NEA) manual, published in 1970, advising state and local teachers unions on how to confront extremists opposed to sex education in the public schools. The manual referred to a documentary supported by the Society called ‘The Innocents Defiled’ which put sex education instructors in an unflattering light, saying that they were spreading “moral depravity” and that they were “bent on the corruption of America’s youth, with the ultimate aim of overthrowing the United States.”

The John Birch Society also formed a front group called the Movement to Restore Decency (MOTOREDE) to attract non-members to their cause. The NEA manual mentioned an irony: the Society emulated the Communist party, their sworn enemy, by forming a front to hide their true motives.  This movement did succeed in attracting its own base: according to author and sociologist Janice Irvine, 80 to 90 percent of MOTOREDE members were not John Birchers. MOTOREDE was not the only organization of its kind; others were parents’ organizations with names such as Sanity of Sex (S.O.S.) and Parents against Universal Sex Education (PAUSE).

While opinion polls of the time showed overwhelming (71 percent) support for sex education, and sex education was endorsed by not only the NEA, but also the National Council of Churches, the American Medical Association and the U.S. Catholic Conference, vocal conservative opposition led legislators to reconsider sex education, or gave their political kin ammunition to fight it. Organizations opposed to sex education in public schools existed in 35 states in 1969.

One politician, for example, the late California State Senator John Schmitz, introduced the Sex Education Act of 1969 in the Golden State. While innocently named, this legislation required an ‘opt-in’, meaning that any sex education program required 100 percent parental approval before it could be taught in a public school. Schmitz’ legislation also called for dismissal and revocation of teaching credentials for any instructor who taught an unapproved class. Three years later, elected as a Congressman from Orange County, Schmitz became the presidential candidate of the American Independent Party, attracting over a million votes.

Aside from linkages to Communism and liberal ideology, opposing arguments against sex education were similar to today: classes are too explicit or specific; they are taught too early; or, abstinence should be stressed over contraception.

However, during the 60’s, the organized opposition was also linked to causes that had become, or were about to become unpopular. Parents could be opposed to sex education, but also opposed to, as examples, anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism or the Vietnam War. As a result, single-issue groups strictly opposed to sex education were more effective than broad coalitions.

Today’s opposition to sex education is more sophisticated; conservative Republicans have done a much better job of being more inclusive and grass roots; they are embarrassed when they are seen on the side of any organized group that preaches segregation or discrimination, or shown as hypocrites when they take moral actions contrary to their political views.

Sex education advocates are also more sophisticated; they are better focused on the health and medical reasons for comprehensive sex education, and less disposed to label their opposition as fanatics. There were quick dismissals along this tone during the 60’s; they kept their opposition alive—and possibly legitimized them with voters.

A major problem was that sex educators had looked at their cause as a liberal one; that was a mistake in appealing states with sizable conservative voting blocs and activist conservative legislators. Neither conservatives nor liberals want their opponent’s views legislated on them, even when they are in the minority.

Today, people of all views are more accepting towards sex education. We do see legislatures with ‘abstinence-only’ and ‘abstinence until marriage’ positions as well as ‘opt-in’ policies—but sex education is not going away. Advocates need to do a better job of convincing voters that comprehensive sex education is not a liberal issue, but a health and medical one, as well as an opportunity to deter predatory acts and child abuse.

Today, we see a presidency that prefers to fund ‘abstinence until marriage’ programs, although some governors courageously refused to pursue the money this time around, as the requirements became too extreme—to educate ‘abstinence until marriage’ through the age of 29. However, the next presidency will promise a more moderate position—or leave the funding issues to the states.   

SAT Optional Schools Not Always Easy Schools

It has been 30 years since I was a high school senior, but I had to take the SATs just as 11^th and 12^th graders do now. I did okay, but not good enough to get into my two first choice schools. Back then, I blamed the SATs and called them unfair, but life went on. I graduated happily in four years from the school I chose.

I am no better qualified to evaluate the validity of the SAT today than I was in high school, but I know that the test is still a fact of life. I also learned that students who performed at a high level in all college-prep subjects usually scored high on the SATs. That is a very small segment of a high school graduating class; it is the people at the very top. Most of us had difficulty with a subject or two. Sciences were my weak point in high school and I avoided them in college.

 

The people who did the best on these tests were well read, studied Latin and also achieved excellence in math. I took four years of math, through pre-calculus; I was doing math problems every day at school, so I was adequately prepared for SAT math. However, I was not the reader I am today, nor did I have a large vocabulary, so my verbal scores were not so hot. When I got to college, I met someone who had scored over 700 on the verbal portions of the test. “The SAT vocabulary was easy,” he said, “if you knew Latin roots.” He had three years of Catholic school Latin under his belt, so his education gave him an advantage. I will not call that an unfair advantage; he still had to remember all those roots for the test.

 

I got a better understanding of reading comprehension, an important part of the SAT, when I took my GMATs for business school. My Princeton Review tutor warned us non-scientists about the science essays on the exam; she pointed to the “caffeine passage from hell”, an essay on the chemical composition of coffee, to make her point. If you had done poorly in chemistry, your eyes would glaze over that essay and you were likely to get the questions wrong. If you did well in the sciences, and understood the passage, you could get those questions right.

What is my point? The best students, the ones who do well in every subject, should have little to fear from the SATs. They should score well enough to get into an excellent school. Especially if they are well read, do math every day and bone up on their Latin, if they have the chance. That will land an applicant in all but the most selective schools, where admissions officers must split fine hairs to make a decision—and decision is likely to be based on something other than SATs.

 

Fairtest.org, a non-profit education advocacy group, reported that 704 U.S. colleges and universities do not require the SAT for admissions purposes. However, the same organization reports that some schools still use the test results to evaluate applicants who do not meet their minimum criteria for class rank and grade point average; this includes flagship state universities such as the University of Texas-Austin (except engineering), the University of Iowa and the University of Oregon. In addition, some SAT-optional schools still use the SAT to place students into freshman-level courses. It’s wise to get specifics from the schools of interest to you before deciding to avoid the test.

Who benefits from an SAT optional policy at a competitive four-year college? The students with good to excellent grades in college-prep subjects, but are also exceptional or passionate, about an academic subject or a creative pursuit. Such talents can be demonstrated in the application packet, recommendations, a portfolio, or interviews, but not on the SATs.

An SAT optional policy makes admissions more competitive, because it atrracts larger numbers of qualified applicants. Every competitive college wants their fair share of artists, performers, activists, scientists, and even athletes in their entering class; some are willing to deemphasize standardized tests to get them. While an SAT optional policy obviously lessens the likelihood an applicant is rejected because test scores, the applicant must be exceptional in some other way to compensate.

If you want to take a shot at an SAT optional school, and you have to contend with SAT scores below the school’s average, take the time and attention to prepare an exceptional application that stands out from the crowd, and show that each school is your first choice.

The line of applicants to SAT optional selective schools and flagship universities will be getting longer every year. It will be harder to stand out in a larger applicant pool.

College or Pros, What Pays for Young Baseball Players?

If your son is a professional baseball prospect, you might want to know what makes more sense for him: continue playing at the collegiate level, or turn pro right away. The price where it pays to go pro might surprise you.

 

Of the four major U.S. sports, only baseball and basketball draft high school and college players together. However, the basketball draft lasts only two rounds and includes players from overseas professional leagues, while baseball provides far more opportunities. The Amateur Baseball Draft lasts ten rounds and includes only high school and college players.

 

While baseball offers immediate professional opportunities to high school graduates, a minor leaguer ballplayer usually needs three of four years of seasoning to be ready for the major league roster. A player who signs a contract in 2007 and immediately reported to a Rookie League or Class A team should be on the major league roster on or before the 2010 season.

 

First year salaries for a minor league ballplayer range from $850 a month for the first contract season to $2,150 when the player reaches Triple-A, one level below the major leagues.  Given the low salaries, the decision to skip college has to depend on the player’s signing bonus and the quality of the college programs that are offering scholarships. It might not pay a ballplayer to pass on a top college program if the academics are strong enough to help them with life after baseball.

 

What is a good guideline for a signing bonus for a high school baseball player?

 

My rule of thumb is that the signing bonus should equal or exceed the projected cost of four years of college plus the major league minimum salary.  This assumes the player would remain in college through his senior year—although it is common for baseball players to drop out without completing their degree. At worst, if the player does not make the major leagues, they should the opportunity to save enough money to pay for college while he toils in the minors.

 

Following this rule of thumb, a high school player would need to receive a minimum signing bonus of $600,000.

 

The $600,000 minimum is based on:

 

• The combined costs: tuition, fees, room and board and essentials at a top private university and traditional baseball powerhouse such as Stanford, the University of Miami, or the University of Southern California approached $45,000. It is quite likely that these costs will approach, if not surpass, $200,000 to complete a bachelor’s degree.

 

• A 2010 major league minimum salary of $400,000, as stipulated in the most recent agreement between the Major League Baseball Players Association and the owners of the all 30 Major League Baseball teams. The 2011 league minimum is not known at this time; it is tied to a future cost of living increase.

 

How many players chosen in the 2006 Amateur Draft earned the recommended minimum signing bonus of $600,000?

 

Only the top 60 players received a signing bonus of $600,000 or more. Only 27 were high school players, the rest were college prospects.

 

What about the ballplayer who has finished some of their college education or completed his degree?

 

A college player’s signing bonus should, as a minimum, cover the remaining costs of their college education, plus the wages they might have earned by using their degree, but not playing baseball.

 

The player with a community college degree has already invested in their education; he can use his community college degree to find work, continue his education at a four-year college, or turn pro.   The community college graduate might need as much as $100,000 to complete a four-year degree at a private college. His entry-level salary, after completing his bachelor’s degree might range from $35,000 to $55,000 depending on grades and course of study and, this player might still need three to four years of seasoning in the minor leagues.

 

This player would need a signing bonus in excess of $180,000, but he has a chance of getting a larger bonus if he stays in school and performs well the next season.

 

The scholarship player who completed his degree can play ball, or use his education to do something else. Like other prospects, he may need some seasoning in the minors–and his salary after three or four years of non-baseball employment could approach, maybe exceed $50,000, almost the same as tuition and expenses for college. His bonus should also be in excess of $180,000.

 

How many college draftees earned the recommended minimum signing bonus of $180,000?

 

There were 150 prospects who received a signing bonus of $180,000, or more with the lowest ranked player selected at the top of the fifth round of the draft.

 

What is the major tradeoff?

 

The top high school baseball prospect must consider the risk of postponing college against their chances of making a major league roster within four years. It is quite difficult for a professional baseball player to attend college in the off-season because of travel and seasons that overlap into the fall and spring semesters. Top prospects are also encouraged to play winter ball; that also overlaps into study time.

 

However, the number of high school players who can command the big bonuses that make it pay to go pro is an elite few—and that number fluctuates from year to year because it is based on the annual level of talent in the pool of draft-eligible players.    

 

The top college prospect must consider the opportunities to complete their education and increase their signing bonus after each season of amateur competition. The college prospect will have a degree, but he will be off to a later start in his professional career, especially if he needs seasoning in the minor leagues. However, the college graduate has more options for life after baseball.

 

Unless the player becomes an established major league star, it would be better for him to build a post-baseball life off a college degree than return home to lament glory days.

One Look at Excellent Colleges

This fall, as numerous college rankings hit the bookstores, I was curious to find an answer to the question: “What is an ‘excellent school’?” after a parent, prospective student or college recruiter sifted through all of this material.

There has been debate among admissions officers and college presidents over the value of ranking one school over another based on statistics, and those debates are valid—to a point. The rankings mean little to the best of the best; Harvard, for example, will not lose applicants for being the #2 school. They mean little to quality schools that charge little or no tuition, such as the military service academies, flagship state universities and specialty institutions like Cooper Union and Webb Institute. These schools will always fill their classes with excellent students, regardless of their ranking.

 

Rankings could however, mean something to families that have to make a choice between similar regional or national schools that appear below the best of the best, for instance a top regional university versus an excellent national university that’s listed in the top 100. They might also help applicants make a choice between the flagship state university in their home state and similar school in other states that charge low out-of-state tuition and room and board rates. Being a Rutgers graduate from New Jersey, I’m especially sensitive to this; the University of Delaware and West Virginia University have been popular destinations for Garden State residents for decades.

 

Rankings appear to mean a lot to the presidents of some schools; high rankings can convince trustees to increase their investments in facilities and scholarships to build-up the school’s reputation. A boost from 75^th to 50^th means more to an up-and-coming national university than it does for a school that has a long-cemented international reputation. These ambitions are not necessarily bad; a nation can never have enough quality schools.

 

I did my own “kitchen table exercise” with the most recent U.S. News college guide after sifting through the published rankings. I set my own standard of excellence, based on the reported graduation and student retention rates. My thought was that the best schools are the ones that do the best to attract, retain and graduate their entering classes.

 

Graduation and retention rates are not perfect, but they’re the results by which admissions and student services are best measured. An excellent school has rigorous academics, but does all it can to help their students succeed; it serves no one to make college an intense “boot camp” experience to whittle a class down to an elite few. High retention and graduation rates are more likely to help attract alumni support and interest from graduate schools and employers than poor ones.

 

I set my bar high: an 85 percent freshman retention rate and a 65 percent six-year graduation rate. I dislike the idea of using a six-year graduation rate, but there are legitimate reasons: leaves of absence, military or missionary service, cooperative educational opportunities (combine school and work) and interest in multiple degree programs being examples.

 

In my kitchen table exercise, I found that 265 4-year schools met my standard. Among the nation’s 262 Large Research Universities—these are the large public and private universities–104 schools met or exceeded the 85-65 standard, including all of the top 72 in the rankings. Among 266 National Liberal Arts Colleges, 105 met or exceeded both numbers. There were also 37 regional universities and 8 baccalaureate colleges that met or bested both marks, as well as 11 specialty (fine arts, performing arts, engineering and business) schools.

 

By my standard, the list of “excellent” schools is larger than some parents might think. It does include the most selective public and private institutions, but also 84 schools that admitted more than 65% of their applicant pool for this years entering class. But there is another side to this analysis: the verbal and math SATs. The higher the school ranked in U.S. News, the higher the range of the scores. A combined 1,050 to 1,100 on the verbal and math SATs put most applicants near the bottom quarter of the pool in most of my excellent schools. Excellent grades might offset the test scores at all but the best of the best, but its best to prepare for the tests.

What could I conclude?

The best of the best schools deserve the accolades they receive, but there are other schools equally deserving of the same attention. Ask me to name names. Some might surprise you.

 

Are these the only numbers a family should consider?

 

They’re a start. If financial concerns are paramount, then ask about the average tuition increases and student loan indebtedness for the recent graduating classes. Also ask about the school’s bond rating; it reflects the school’s ability to earn income and cover its costs, while keeping tuition increases as low as possible. Both of these measures are important, because scholarships and grants do not always increase as tuition increases; you might have to make up the difference.

There are plenty of choices among excellent schools, but only you and your financial advisors can determine your ability to pay for college. It might surprise you to find out which school is your best value.