What's "better" in higher ed?

After reading Kevin Carey's blog post about CLA scores and the trepidation with which the higher education community accepts recent efforts to publicize the achievements of the University of Nebraska at Omaha, I thought we should talk a little bit about rankings and the politics of postsecondary institutional evaluation.

My impression from peers in general is that the U.S. News and World Report rankings of top colleges and universities are widely accepted and considered a very important factor in applying to schools. But inside the higher ed community, I've found rankings are highly criticized for a variety of well-founded reasons, including continual changes in methodology, self-reported qualitative information from institutions, and weighted emphasis placed on reputation, selectivity of the student body, and physical characteristics such as square footage and number of books in the library. Rather than looking at these "inputs", a more productive conversation for many students and families would to be look at graduation rates, if students drop out after their first year, how much tuition costs and whether there is ample financial aid to support students, what sort of jobs graduates hold, the income level of new graduates, etc. True, U.S. News does factor some of these elements in, but in relatively small proportions compared to the inputs.

Assessments such as the Community College Survey of Student Engagement and the College Learning Assessment are the manifestation of this need for outcome measurement. As Carey mentions, these are not the whole picture and there is no perfect measurement tool out there, but they do bring new and valuable information to the table about how we can evaluate what is "better" in higher ed. And as the publication of these institutional results becomes more commonplace, we will begin to see the ice burg below the surface (if you will...). Traditional 18-22 year olds, attending top-tier institutions full time is hardly the norm. Some would argue the students attending these top-tief institutions are often very well prepared from high school, financially equipped, and receive ample family/network support...meaning they will likely succeed whether they go to Stanford or the University of Michigan. The majority of students though, are not "traditional" in age, dependency status, enrollment status between full and part-time and in terms of continual enrollment in one institution. And there are many more community colleges, state colleges, minority-serving institutions, etc. out there who are educating the vast majority of students, in particular students of color, low-income, and first-generation students. As Carey points out, most of these institutions never show up on the U.S. News rankings but do stand to gain much from new outcome assessments that show a more accurate picture of the quality of the education they are providing and the large quantity of service they are providing to the college-going population.

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What do you think about rankings? What role did they play in your application to UT? I'm not very familiar with the CLA, what it's orgins are and how exactly it's measuring "outcomes." Who administers it? Could anyone fill me in?