The Correlates of Changes in Prestige among American Colleges and Universities
Open Access
- Author:
- Sweitzer, Kyle
- Graduate Program:
- Higher Education
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- June 03, 2008
- Committee Members:
- James Fredericks Volkwein, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Roger Lewis Geiger, Committee Member
Patrick T Terenzini, Committee Member
Jonna Marie Kulikowich, Committee Member - Keywords:
- college prestige
US News
College rankings
multilevel modeling - Abstract:
- This study is the first to examine changes over time in the U.S. News and World Report peer assessment ratings. The purpose of the study is to examine what variables, if any, relate to these changes in ratings. The study employs two theoretical constructs – resource dependency and prestige maximization – in order to inform the selection of variables for inclusion in the study. A total of 412 institutions are included in the study – all of which had an above-average difference between their lowest and highest peer assessment rating between 1999 and 2007. These are the institutions that have experienced noteworthy change over time in the reputation (peer assessment) ratings, and they are the schools which motivate this study. Three separate, but similar, analyses are conducted – one for the entire group of 412 schools, and one for each of the two largest groups of schools represented in the study (master’s universities and comprehensive colleges). Principal components analyses and ordinary least squares regression analyses are both used in order to reduce the variable space. The predictor variables fall under one of five theoretical constructs – size, finances, selectivity, faculty, and student outcomes. In all three analyses, variables representing three of the five theoretical constructs remain significant over time in predicting changes to peer assessment ratings. The most powerful predictor is student selectivity, measured via the percent of students in the Top 25 percent of their high school class. Six-year graduation rate is the student outcomes variable that remains significant over time. Faculty productivity, as measured by publications per full-time faculty, also remains significant in relating to changes in reputation scores, albeit the relationship is a weak one. The results of the study partly confirm many prior studies which found student selectivity to relate to reputation ratings for a one-year period. However, institutional size, the other variable that many studies found to relate to reputation, does not remain significant in explaining changes over time to reputation scores. Institutions simply do not change enough over time in their size to precipitate change in reputation. Whether changes to student selectivity should relate to changes in reputation depends on how one defines excellence in education. While it is true that students educate students (the concept of peer effects), which would suggest that incoming student characteristics are critical, it is also the case that a student has many diverse experiences both in and out of class during the college years which all sum to the overall student experience. How good any given institution is may differ for each student, and educational excellence may add up to several components and experiences beyond one number. However, in the absence of any agreed-upon measures of student learning or student outcomes, an institution’s reputation just might be the best measure of excellence a prospective buyer has available.