State’s Flagship University one of Nation’s Top Underperformers

Higher education is critical to the future of the U.S as a world leader. Our universities educate the future leaders, athletes, scientists, and bartenders. As well research in conducted that helps the country maintain its competitive advantage in innovation and global output.

On December 12, U.S. News and World Report released a report listing the country’s top higher education overperformers and underperformers. The over/under ratings compare the schools overall ranking and the peer assessment ranking. If the peer assessment ranking is higher than the overall ranking, then the school is an overperformer. If the peer assessment is lower, then the institution is an underperfomer. The authors stated that overperformers do better on a relative basis in the following key academic statistical indicators: admissions selectivity, financial and faculty resources, graduation and retention rates, alumni giving and graduation rate performance.

Most of the overperformers are small research universities which tend to be located in the Midwest or East Coast. On the other hand many of the underperformers are large public universities located in the Midwest or West Coast.

At the time the University of Colorado joined the PAC-12 Athletic Conference, CU President Benson got in hot water for discussing the academic strength of the PAC-12 and the academic weakness of certain schools in the Big 12. Ironically, there are only two schools from the former Big 12 Conference on the list of underperformers and they are five PAC-12 schools, including CU Boulder, on the list of underperformers. Hopefully, the mention of the two CU campuses on the underperformer list will be addressed.

There are a variety of reasons schools may be underperformers, some of those reasons relate to deficiencies in the universities, while others relate to idiosyncrasies in the ranking process. There are flaws in reports such as those produced by U.S. News just as there are flaws in the system used to determine the national collegiate football champion. Having said that, the rankings provide universities with a set of metrics for evaluating their systems and processes and improving services to their students.

The Overperformers

The Underperformers

 Source: U.S. News Analysis Shows Universities Where Reputation, Rank Don’t Match

by Diane Tolis and Robert J. Morse December 12, 2013.

©Copyright 2011 by CBER.