College Rankings Now a Duopoly, Forbes Publishes Its First Best 569 Colleges

The college rankings game is now a duopoly. Forbes has published its first annual ranking of America's best colleges because "for too many years, information about the quality of American higher education has been monopolized by one publication, U.S. News & World Report," meaning, I think, the editors of Forbes wished they thought of ranking colleges first. Top prize goes to Princeton University and the ultimate also-ran is 569th ranked Milwaukee School of Engineering.

The methodology "attempts to put itself in a student's shoes" by using some questionable metrics, like Who's Who in America listings and student evaluations from Ratemyprofessors.com. Here's the formula:

1. Listing of Alumni in the 2008 Who's Who in America (25%)
2. Student Evaluations of Professors from Ratemyprofessors.com (25%)
3. Four- Year Graduation Rates (16 2/3%)
4. Enrollment-adjusted numbers of students and faculty receiving nationally competitive awards (16 2/3%)
5. Average four year accumulated student debt of those borrowing money (16 2/3%)

Forbes beat US News to the punch this year. The 2009 edition of its America's Best Colleges rankings will go live on its website on August 22th. Professional school rankings from Forbes next?

RateMyProfessor's 2008 Top 50 rankings contest by prof, school and hottest is underway. No gaming going on, right? Here's RateMyProfessor's 2007 Top 50 by Schools. [JH]