In an earlier post - US News America's Best Colleges 2008 - 8 Questions in Need of Answers I listed up 8 questions that were passed around to the business writers of the KnowMoreMedia network.
I'd like to take a stab at the questions one by one. Perhaps readers and visitors will share their answers.
5 - What about online colleges? Why are they never listed in the US News college ranking?
This is a good question.
A look at the ranking criteria indicates there are 18 different areas in which the schools are evaluated....Peer Assessment, retention rates, faculty resources, % of full-time faculty, selectivity, acceptance rate...and so on.
Some of these criteria are irrelevant to online universities.
Online universities don't employ faculty full-time...mostly.
Online universities do not
exercise selectivity...mostly.
Online universities have a higher acceptance rate ...can we get you signed up for a loan somehow?...okay, you're in.
Online universities don't get money from alumni, have no alumni giving rank...the online university is usually a business entity.
When these sorts of things are considered, even an online school was in the rankings, they would score a zero in more than one third of the 18 criteria.
A better question - why don't the US News people put out a ranking for the online colleges/universities?
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