Says reports favor private universities
Presidents of Arizona's three state universities spent much of yesterday's Arizona Board of Regents meeting pointing out flaws in college rankings produced by U.S. News and World Report and justifying their relatively low positions therein.
The report ranked the UA 99th out of national universities and 48th out of national public universities in the overall quality of education.
UA President Peter Likins said the low rankings had to do with the report's bias towards private universities.
"The (U.S. News) methodology now is very heavily skewed toward private universities," Likins said, adding that the top 20 universities on the U.S. News list are all private.
He pointed to a report by the Association of American Universities, which ranks the UA 13th among national public universities and 29th overall.
The AAU includes the top 60 American research universities.
Likins said a number of categories measured by the report, including freshman retention rate, graduation rate, freshman SAT scores, and alumni giving rates, ruined the university's ranking.
"Some of the metrics used in the ranking gave us a disastrously low rating," he said. "When we look at ourselves, we look at rankings by our peers in the AAU."
Likins suggested that if U.S. News based its rankings on how much students learned rather than putting so much weight on reputation, the results might be very different.
"This is something that's very complicated to measure. But if you could, we may find that some schools with low reputations have been doing a really good job," Likins said.
Nevertheless, Likins said he sees the UA moving up in the U.S. News rankings in the near future.
"In 2006, we'll have the ability to make our own decisions about admissions standards. We'll move up in the rankings when we become more selective and control our growth," Likins said. "Even now we're deciding how many students we'll want, how many in-state and how many out-of-state. It'll allow us to keep more freshmen and produce more graduates."
ASU President Michael Crow felt that the U.S. News rankings underpinned many of the budgetary problems that exist in Tempe.
"It's only by looking at the stark reality of these rankings rather than a candy coating view, that we can grow to be better," Crow said. "We have a number of systemic issues dealing with financing higher education in Arizona that reflect on us in negative ways."
Crow suggested that with more funding, ASU could move out of U.S. News' third tier of schools, which lists universities ranked between 127 and 190 in alphabetical order.
"With the exception of our acceptance rate, all of our worst indicators are affected by fiscal revenue," Crow said.
Crow cited large class sizes as the most debilitating reality of ASU, which in turn leads to low freshman retention and graduation rates.
"Our average math class has 60 students, although instructors tell me there needs to be no more than 20. One-third of those 60 students fail math, and of those that fail, half leave the university," Crow told the board. "You might say those students were ready to learn, but actually they were ready to learn in a way that math is supposed to be taught."
Crow said that the regents need to explore sources of revenue other than tuition and state subsidies.
"Even if we were getting the same amount of money as, say, the University of California, we still would not have as much as we need," Crow said. "We need to add hundreds of sections in math and English."
Crow noted that local companies and local contributions are vital to the success of all three universities.
"Corporations in Illinois and Michigan play a big part in the advancement of universities, but for whatever reason that hasn't happened in Arizona," Crow said. "Also, our three universities together are among the lowest in the country in alumni giving."
Student regent Danelle Kelling sympathized with ASU students.
"Indicators such as class size are influenced by policy and by this board. If people are failing classes because of large class size, then something must be done," Kelling said.
Regent Jack Jewett noted Crow's suggestions but thought that lobbying the Arizona Legislature would prove to be more effective in the near term.
"Some funding sources could be more richly developed in the future, but we should not take our eye off the ball in working with the Legislature," Jewett said.