AAUP Leader Calls for Moratorium on ‘U.S. News’ College Rankings

Washington — The new general secretary of the American Association of University Professors is calling for a “moratorium” on U.S. News & World Report’s college rankings as part of a broader effort to get colleges to be, and be seen as, focused on serving the best interests of American society.

People in academe need to shift their thinking away from a market-oriented competition for status and toward the goal of serving the public good, said the AAUP’s new leader, Gary Rhoades, in an open letter sent today to President Obama and members of Congress and in a speech delivered to an informal gathering of higher-education advocates held here last night.

“What has come to predominate in the academy is an individually focused, status- and revenue-seeking orientation aimed at enhancing the position of the individual enterprise, academic unit, or of the individual faculty member,” Mr. Rhoades wrote. “Perhaps nothing captures this more than our participation in rankings games. And perhaps no ranking system captures this more than U.S. News & World Report rankings.”

Given the economic crisis and the challenges society faces, colleges and faculty members should be focused “not on status seeking, but on seeking to better engage and serve students and communities,” the letter says. The pursuit of better rankings and elite status, it says, drives colleges to spend money on areas other than instruction and “to try to recruit wealthier and wealthier students, at the expense of focusing more on the types of students who represent the growth demographic in our nation.”

Mr. Rhoades called for the forging of “a new social compact … between the academy and society,” in which each is committed to the vitality of the other. As part of that compact, he urged President Obama and Congress to spend economic-stimulus funds on colleges, to improve their capacity to build up their faculties and serve students. —Peter Schmidt