Penn's No. 7 spot on the 2007 U.S. News & World Report college rankings may not be an indicator of the University's ability to educate students, according to a new report from an education think tank.
The report from the Washington-based Education Sector criticizes the popular U.S. News rankings and calls for the creation of a better college ranking system.
Report author Kevin Carey, Education Sector's research and policy manager, said that the U.S. News rankings are based almost entirely on universities' "money, fame and prestige," not on how well they educate students.
Since the rankings take into account SAT scores, colleges are tested on how smart their students are when they enter rather than how much they learn while there, Carey said.
A better ranking system would use measures from standardized learning assessments and student surveys, Carey added.
Experts say that the report will have little impact, however.
Jim Boyle, president of the group College Parents of America, said that he expects neither U.S. News nor figures in higher education to take the think tank's criticisms and recommendations very seriously.
Boyle said that the U.S. News rankings - the oldest such system - do a good job, even though, like any ranking system, they are subjective in many ways.
He added that he does not think it is realistic for anyone to "come up with a system that would truly assess the teaching quality at thousands of schools across the country."
