Even MORE Rankings

Maybe I should change the name of this blog to Rank This! Over the past weeks, I've been mentioning a few of the more prominent college rankings that have come out, as they always do this time of year. Well, what good would my first post-Labor Day post be without a mention of yet another rankings list? This time, we'll reference the Washington Monthly College Guide and Rankings, touted by the authors as "A different kind of college ranking." Okay, let's see about that.

Just what does "different" mean to these editors? Some excerpts from their rationale: "Calling attention to these service-oriented schools is one of the reasons this magazine got into the college-ranking business in the first place . . . But while there are plenty of guides out there that help students and parents decide how to spend their tuition dollars wisely, there wasn't one to tell citizens and policymakers which colleges were spending their tax dollars wisely . . . many colleges that are routinely buried in the lower reaches of the U.S. News rankings stand out on our list." Sounds refreshingly different, no?