Features THE 2017 COLLEGE GUIDE

What Comes After Identity Politics?

201

COLLEGE

RANKINGS

What Can College Do For You?

PLUS: The 12 most innovative colleges for adults

America's best bang for the buck colleges

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

$5.95 U.S./$6.95 CAN

The looming decline of public universities The colleges where students actually vote

Ivy League endowments: Share the wealth!

Closing the college advising gap

TOC IMAGES: middle: Shawn Spence; bottom: Alex Wong/Staff

82 58 76

VOLUME 49 NUMBER 9/10 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

Features

THE 2017 COLLEGE GUIDE

Introduction: A Different Kind of College Ranking

21

by Kevin Carey

America's Best Colleges for Adult Learners

25

Nearly half of all college students are twenty-five or older.

Yet no publication ranks the top schools for them--except us.

by Paul Glastris

Best Colleges for Adult Learners Rankings

28

A Note on Methodology: Best Colleges for Adult Learners 36

The Twelve Most Innovative Colleges for Adult Learners 38

College isn't designed for students over twenty-five. These schools are working to fix that.

by Joshua Alvarez

America's Best Bang for the Buck Colleges 2017

46

Our exclusive list of schools that help non-wealthy students

attain marketable degrees at affordable prices.

by Robert Kelchen

Best Bang for the Buck Rankings

48

College Electoral

58

Young people don't vote. Can colleges change that?

by Saahil Desai

A College Adviser in Every School

62

Poor kids need college admissions help the most but get it

the least. This injustice can be solved without breaking the bank.

by Gilad Edelman

Ivy League Endowments Under Fire

67

Liberals and conservatives agree that it's time for ultra-

wealthy colleges to start sharing their wealth.

by Anne Kim

The Looming Decline of the Public Research University 71

Cuts in research funding have left midwestern state schools-- and the economies they support--struggling to survive.

by Jon Marcus

Borrower's Remorse

76

The Obama administration promised debt relief to the victims

of predatory for-profit colleges. Then came Trump.

by Stephen Burd

National University Rankings

82

Liberal Arts College Rankings

96

Top 150 Master's Universities

108

Top 150 Baccalaureate Colleges

114

A Note on Methodology: 4-Year Colleges and Universities 120

Departments

Editor's Note: Will Higher Education Reform Become Another Ideological War Zone? 14

Ten Miles Square

Has D.C. Teacher Reform Been Successful? 16

A Debate.

by John Merrow and Mary Levy, with a reply by Thomas Toch

On Political Books

The Health Care Debate

We're Not Having

122

Two new books show how access to health care is only part of the problem.

by Shannon Brownlee

What Your Country Should Do for You 126

This post-Clinton repudiation of the politics of personal responsibility, though elegant, may still not convince skeptical voters.

by William A. Galston

Identity Crisis

129

Liberalism needs a broader collective vision to break free of its captivity to the political interests of narrow groups.

by Daniel Oppenheimer

What Would Donald Do?

131

How evangelical Christians got to the point where they could embrace a Hugh Hefner? like president.

by Samuel Buntz

The Constitutional Case for Equality

133

The founders assumed that America would always be a middle-class nation. That makes it particularly important to check the power of plutocrats today.

by Kevin Carty

10 September/October 2017

Editor in Chief Paul Glastris

Founding Editor Charles Peters

Senior Editor: Phillip Longman Managing Editor: Amy M. Stackhouse Editor: Gilad Edelman Digital Editor: Saahil Desai Senior Writer: Anne Kim Books Editor: Kukula Kapoor Glastris Legal Affairs Editor: Garrett Epps Contributing Writer: Nancy LeTourneau Web Editor: Martin Longman Art Director: Amy Swan Associate Editor: Joshua Alvarez College Guide Guest Editor: Kevin Carey College Guide Data Manager: Robert Kelchen Contributing Editors: Jonathan Alter, Steve Benen, James Bennet, Thomas N. Bethell, Tom Bethell, Katherine Boo, Taylor Branch, Matt Connolly, Matthew Cooper, Michelle Cottle, Kevin Drum, Gregg Easterbrook, Haley Sweetland Edwards, John Eisendrath, James Fallows, T. A. Frank, Daniel Franklin, John Gravois, Joshua Green, Charles Homans, David Ignatius, Mickey Kaus, Phil Keisling, Ed Kilgore, MichaelKinsley,ChristinaLarson,NicholasLemann,Suzannah Lessard, Arthur Levine, Joshua Micah Marshall, Jon Meacham, Stephanie Mencimer, Matthew Miller, Rachel Morris, Timothy Noah, Joseph Nocera, John Rothchild, David Segal, Walter Shapiro, Joshua Wolf Shenk, Amy Sullivan, Nicholas Thompson, Steven Waldman, Benjamin Wallace-Wells, Robert Worth Editorial Advisory Board: Nicholas Lemann, Chair; Clara Bingham, Debra Dickerson, James Fallows, Steven Teles Strategic Advisory Board: Emanuel L. Rouvelas, Chair; Clara Bingham, Markos Kounalakis, Jeffrey Leonard, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend Intern: Alex Caton

Publisher Diane Straus

Vice President Edwin S. Grosvenor

Board of Directors: Paul Glastris, Nicholas Lemann, Diane Straus President and Publisher Emeritus: Markos Kounalakis Business Management Consultant: Claire Iseli Business Manager: Sarah P. Weeldreyer Web Site Development: Kettul Subscription Rates: U.S. and possessions: Institutional and Library Rates--one year (five issues) $29.95; two years (ten issues) $52.00; three years (15 issues) $75.00; Rates for Individuals--one year (five issues) $19.95; two years (ten issues) $34.95; three years (15 issues) $49.95. For Canadian and foreign subscriptions, add $20 per subscription year. Back issues, $6. Washington Monthly is indexed in the Book Review Index, Political Science Abstracts, Public Affairs Information Service, the Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature, and Ulrich's International Periodicals Directory and may be obtained on microfilm from University Microfilms International, Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Reprints: Please call 202-955-9010, or email services@. Subscription Service: Please call our customer service department toll-free at 855-492-1648, or email wmcs@. Advertising: Please contact Robert Jenkins, Director of Sales, at 202.955.9010 x203, rjenkins@; or David Greene at 202.413.4736, d.greene1@ . Editorial Offices: 1200 18th Street, NW, Suite 330, Washington, DC 20036; telephone 202-955-9010; fax 202-955-9011. Unsolicited manuscripts can be emailed to editors@ or sent to the editorial offices.

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Editor's Note

Paul Glastris

Will Higher Education Reform Become Another Ideological War Zone?

Back in the spring, with the Trump White House in disarray and the GOP-controlled Congress unable to make headway on repealing Obamacare (or do much of anything else), conservative media outlets like Fox News were struggling to keep audiences engaged. So they hit on the strategy of minimizing D.C. coverage and instead running wall-to-wall stories about PCrelated incidents on college campuses, such as left-wing student protesters shutting down speaking appearances by Ann Coulter and the like. That strategy not only helped shore up the conservative media's flagging ratings; it also proved once again its power to shape base Republican opinion. A June Pew Research Center poll found that 58 percent of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents think universities have a negative effect on the country, up from 45 percent a year earlier. No change was detected among Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters.

That big asymmetrical shift is a danger sign. For years, higher education policy has been what you might call "pre-ideological." That is, the two parties haven't had fixed, irreconcilable differences on the subject. Everyone knows that Republicans and Democrats line up on opposite sides of issues like tax cuts for the wealthy and government-funded health coverage. But on most higher education issues--say, federal grants for academic research--there's long been rough bipartisan consensus. Democrats may be stronger supporters of expanding Pell Grants, and Republicans more resistant to regulations on for-profit colleges. But even on these issues, individual lawmakers occasionally cross party lines.

This ideological fluidity is one of the reasons we at the Washington Monthly look forward to putting together our annual College Guide, as we have for more than a decade. Though a magazine of the left, we know that on this issue, at least, we're not talking just to our own side. The Bush and Obama administrations were both open to our arguments for more disclosure of federal data on individual colleges' costs and student outcomes. And the metrics we use to rate schools--recruiting and graduating students of modest means, creating the ideas and technologies that fuel economic growth, and encouraging students to serve their country and communities--defy ideological labels. Rather, they sum up what most Americans should expect colleges to deliver in return for $160 billion in annual federal subsidies for student aid.

If there is a bias in our rankings, it's in favor of schools that do an exceptional job educating the average college student at a reasonable price and against the elite schools that dominate the U.S. News & World Report rankings by catering to the 1 percent. But

that's a bias that, as a general matter, a growing number of Americans in both parties share. On higher ed, we were populists before it was cool.

But conservative media are ginning up a very different kind of populism. It's one that portrays the entire higher ed sector as a leftist threat to freedom. And it dovetails with another backlash among non-college-educated whites--the group that put Donald Trump in office--against the value of higher education itself. A poll this summer sponsored by the Democratic-leaning House Majority PAC found that 57 percent of such voters believe that a college degree would saddle them with more debt without helping them get a good-paying job. Other demographic groups, including workingclass minorities, do not share this same level of skepticism toward the value of college.

"I love the poorly educated," Donald Trump famously said on the campaign trail. As president, he hasn't done much yet to exploit the emerging rifts in attitudes toward higher education--though recent reports that his Justice Department plans to investigate college affirmative action programs may signal a first step.

Even if he goes in that direction, I'm guessing that higher education policy won't become just another ideological war zone anytime soon. First, Trump has burned congressional Republicans enough by now that they may not support another populist crusade that runs counter to the interests of business, which wants educated workers. Second, Democrats seem to have gotten wise to the danger. Conspicuously absent from congressional Democrats' "Better Deal" economic plan, designed to broaden support among working-class white voters, is Bernie Sanders's "free college" idea. In its place is a proposal for a tax credit to employers to hire and train new workers either on the job or via community colleges. That's a good move, on political and policy grounds. Not every American needs or wants a BA, but some form of postsecondary training and credential is fast becoming a universal necessity.

A third reason higher ed might remain pre-ideological is that many of the best ideas for reforming the sector really are bipartisan--from taking on swollen Ivy League endowments (see Anne Kim, "Ivy League Endowments Under Fire," page 67) to improving education for adult learners (see "America's Best Colleges for Adult Learners," page 25, and Joshua Alvarez, "The Twelve Most Innovative Colleges for Adult Learners," page 38). Lawmakers who care about these areas aren't going to want to sacrifice the possibility of shaping good policy just so Trump and Fox News can have a little more red meat to feed their followers.

14 September/October 2017

INTRODUCTION:

A DIFFERENT KIND OF COLLEGE RANKING

By Kevin Carey

F or the last twelve years, the Washington Monthly has published a different kind of college ranking. Unlike the prestige- and wealth-driven metrics put out by the likes of U.S. News & World Report, our rankings measure what colleges do for their country.

Instead of rewarding colleges for the number of applications they reject, we give them credit for enrolling unusually large numbers of low-income and first-generation students. Instead of assuming that the most expensive schools are also the best, we recognize universities that produce research, train the next generation of scientists and PhDs, and instill their graduates with an ethos of public service.

Our rankings are meant to be more than just a guide for potential students. An educated, enlightened society is a better society, for everyone. We all have a stake in how well our colleges succeed.

To that end, we've called for colleges to release much more information about themselves--in particular, how much their students learn.

And we've seen leaders of both parties, at the highest levels of government, respond. Not long after our first rankings were published, George W. Bush's education secretary, Margaret Spellings, issued a high-profile report calling for colleges to release more information about how well undergraduates are educated, and be accountable for the results.

The Obama administration then developed a "College Scorecard" that shows prospective students how likely they are to get a good job and pay back their loans. When Obama announced an ambitious (though ultimately unfulfilled) effort to tie federal aid to a new college ratings system, the measures he proposed sounded an awful lot like the Monthly rankings. The world was getting better--too slowly, but moving in the right direction.

Then came Trump. It's hard to know exactly where the president and his education secretary, Betsy DeVos, stand when it comes

to making higher education more transparent, accountable, and focused on the best interests of students and citizens. Neither are distinguished in the collegiate and policymaking fields.

Trump, of course, infamously ran a grifty real estate seminar disguised as an eponymous university and said, "I love the poorly educated!" because the degree-less were more likely to give him votes. DeVos is a free market ideologue from the world of K?12 schools. She has chosen not

For more on our rankings and the latest in higher education reform news, go to the College Guide section of our website, at 2017-college-guide

to fill the most important higher education position in her department, the undersecretary of education. Her most significant actions to date have involved rolling back Obama regulations designed to protect students from predatory for-profit schools (see Stephen Burd, "Borrower's Remorse," p. 76) and campus sexual assault.

Which is a shame, because our 2017 rankings show promise and peril in equal measure. There are still colleges and universities, most of them public, making fantastic contributions to the public good. But there are also schools, some of them prestigious and conventionally well regarded, that appear to be little more than expensive sorting machines for the already privileged. They're inward-facing places that spend their resources mostly on themselves.

Here are highlights of what we found.

National Universities

While the U.S. News list of "best" national universities is dominated by elite private institutions, ours is stocked with

Washington Monthly 21

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