A Rank System

"This competition spawns many evils that should shame a higher education system devoted to intellectual honesty. But perhaps the worst thing about it is what the ranking obsession is doing to the allocation of financial aid. More and more scholarship money is being shifted from aid based on financial need to aid based on 'merit.'
"That sounds nice -- who could be opposed to merit? But today's 'merit scholarships' are primarily bait to attract students with very high SAT scores who don't need the aid. The flip side is less aid available to students from less affluent families, who can't attend college without aid, or who must sacrifice academic work to paid jobs, or who graduate with staggering debt loads."

Robert Kuttner in The American Prospect describes the consequences of college rankings.


"My point is a more far-reaching one. Some people are smarter than others. Some people are less smart. The less smart don't just deserve a 'fair chance' to succeed, a chance they're bound to squander due to lesser ability. Instead, insofar as they're willing to work hard, contribute to society as best they can, and abide by the rules of the game, they deserve a fair share of society's wealth--the highest standard of living we can manage to arrange for them."

Matthew Yglesias adds further criticism of supposed merit in The American Prospect.