This is our value add

[Snave]

http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports2/2015/04/29-beyond-college-rankings-rothwell-kulkarni

View attachment 1973
I can't believe their list, however as Ole Miss is placed 3rd from last of the four year universities in Mississippi.

 

[MSUDawg25]

Apparently these numbers are some kind of score out of 100? What they actually mean no one knows. Does Rust College's 1/100 on repayment mean 1 in 100 people repay their debt at the average rate? Or are they in the 1th percentile of something? I doubt our 69/100 in earnings means we are in the 69th percentile in earnings. Is that a number they came up with that is relative to cost of attendance? I hate these kinds of rankings.

And OM isn't third from last. They are just missing data.

 

[OleMissLogo]

I've looked into Brookings numbers a good bit, and while I think that they do a pretty good job at looking at things from a different perspective than most, they are still missing a good bit.

(Note: the 100 is a scale score that Brookings derives based on actual results vs expected/average results. The scale for each data point can change from year to year depending on the expected/average results.)

For example, Ole Miss is given a score of 37 out of 100 for Average Pell Grant award of $1,282. MSU is 45 for $1,431. What they don't take into consideration is that Pell Grant awards are partially based on the school's tuition. Ole Miss and MSU have low tuition compared to the average. Plus, Pell Grants are federal financial aid, not school financial aid. Thus, judging the school on Pell Grants is counter-intuitive.

Additionally, Ole Miss has a low rating on STEM, because, well duh. Ole Miss isn't a STEM college.Only 22.7% of students are "prepared to work in occupations requiring STEM knowledge." Well, a student going to med-school doesn't count in that, because they aren't entering the workforce. So, judging a liberal arts school on a STEM check-list is a pretty dumb ranking.