Capital University again was ranked among America’s best colleges and universities and in the top 10 best schools in Ohio in a report released last week week by Forbes and the Center for College Affordability and Productivity.
America’s Best Colleges 2011, released Thursday, August 4, by Forbes and the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, places Capital 10th out of Ohio’s 30 ranked schools and at 262 among Forbes’ selection of America’s top 650 public and private undergraduate colleges and universities. View the report’s profile of Capital.
The report looks at colleges and universities from the student’s point of view, focusing on “the things that matter the most to students: quality of teaching, great career prospects, graduation rates and low levels of debt,” according to Forbes Executive News Editor Michael Noer’s blog post on the methodology.
This is the fourth year these rankings were compiled by Forbes and CCAP — a Washington-based non-profit center that “exists to help facilitate a broader dialogue on the issues and problems facing our institutes of higher education,” according to its website. Its primary research agenda focuses on federal student aid, faculty productivity, inefficiency in higher education, for-profit higher education and accreditation.
The Forbes and CCAP methodology is based primarily on student satisfaction; career success after graduation; retention rate; four-year graduation rate; student debt load and educational loan default rate; and national awards won by students for academic achievement. Read the full story here.
A commonly asked question about college rankings is this: How can my institution’s ranking fluctuate significantly from year to year? Dr. Larry Hunter, Capital’s director of Institutional Research, said one factor is that the criteria used by Forbes and CCAP tend to be more subjective and therefore more variable than the criteria used for other college rankings, such as U.S. News and World Report’s America’s Best Colleges. For example, Forbes relies heavily on student evaluations from RateMyProfessors.com to determine student satisfaction.
All surveys have their critics, and this one is no exception. Still, it’s nice to see Capital get some of the recognition it deserves, especially from a report that prioritizes the student’s perspective. That’s certainly in keeping with Capital’s values.