TIMES HIGHER EDUCATION COLLEGE RANKINGS 2019 METHODOLOGY
Data comes from a variety of sources: the US government (Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), the US Department of Education’s Federal Student Aid (FSA), the College Scorecard, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), the THE US Student Survey, the THE Academic Survey, and the Elsevier bibliometric dataset.
The Wall Street Journal/ Times Higher Education College Ranking is a pioneering ranking of US colleges and universities that puts student success and learning – based on around 200,000 current student voices – at its heart.
The ranking includes clear performance indicators designed to answer the questions that matter the most to students and their families when making one of the most important decisions of their lives – who to trust with their education. Does the college have sufficient resources to teach me properly? Will I be engaged, and challenged, by my teacher and classmates? Does the college have a good academic reputation? What type of campus community is there? How likely am I to graduate, pay off my loans and get a good job?
The ranking includes the results of THE US Student Survey, which examines a range of key issues including students’ engagement with their studies, their interaction with their teachers and their satisfaction with their experience.
The ranking adopts a balanced scorecard approach, with 15 individual performance indicators combining to create an overall score that reflects the broad strength of the institution. For all questions about this ranking, please email: usrankings@timeshighereducation. com
DATA SOURCES
Data comes from a variety of sources: the US government (Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), the US Department of Education’s Federal Student Aid (FSA), the College Scorecard, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), THE US Student Survey, THE Academic Survey, and the Elsevier bibliometric dataset.
Our data is, in most cases, normalised so that the value we assign in each metric can be compared sensibly with other metrics.
METHODOLOGY
The overall methodology explores four key areas:
Resources
Does the college have the capacity to effectively deliver teaching? The Resources area represents 30 per cent of the overall ranking. Within this we look at:
Finance per student (11%) Faculty per student (11%) Research papers per faculty (8%) Engagement
Does the college effectively engage with its students? Most of the data in this area is gathered through THE US Student Survey. The Engagement area represents 20 per cent of the overall ranking. Within this we look at: Student engagement (7%) Student recommendation (6%) Interaction with teachers and students (4%) Number of accredited programmes (3%)
Outcomes
Does the college generate good and appropriate outputs? Does it add value to the students who attend? The Outcomes area represents 40 per cent of the overall ranking. Within this we look at:
Graduation rate (11%)
Value added to graduate salary (12%) Value added to loan default (7%) Academic reputation (10%)
Environment
Is the college providing a learning environment for all students? Does it make efforts to attract a diverse student body and faculty? The Environment area represents 10 per cent of the overall ranking. Within this we look at:
Proportion of international students (2%)
Student diversity (3%) Student inclusion (2%)
Staff diversity (3%)
Metrics used Resources (30%)
Students and their families need to know that their college has the right resources to provide the facilities, tuition and support that are needed to succeed at college.
By looking at the amount of money that each institution spends on teaching per student (11%), we can get a clear sense of whether it is well funded, with the money to provide a positive learning environment. This metric takes into account spending on both undergraduate and graduate programmes, which is consistent with the way that the relevant spend data is available in IPEDS. Schools are required by the Department of Education to report key statistics such as this to IPEDS, making it a comprehensive source for education data. The data on academic spending per institution are adjusted for regional price differences, using regional price parities data from the US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis.
By looking at the ratio of students to faculty members (11%), we get an overall sense as to whether the college has enough teachers to teach. It gives a broad sense of how likely it is that a student will receive the individual attention that can be necessary to succeed at college, and also gives a sense as to potential class sizes. The source of this statistic is IPEDS. We are using the average of two years of data for this metric in order to provide a better long-term view.
Faculty who are experts in their academic fields and pushing the boundaries of knowledge at the forefront of their discipline can significantly enhance a student’s educational experience when they are able to distil their knowledge and demonstrate the power of real-world problem solving and enquiry. So our teaching resources pillar also offers a sense as to whether faculty are experts in their academic disciplines by looking at research excellence. We look at the number of published scholarly research papers per faculty (8%) at each institution, giving a sense of their research productivity, and testing to see whether faculty are able to produce research that is suitable for publication in the world’s top academic journals, as indexed by Elsevier.