GOP blasts Obama college rating system

GOP lawmakers are calling the Department of Education’s plan to rate colleges “unnecessary” and “a fool’s errand.”

The Department of Education released a framework Friday for a college rating system of two-year and four-year institutions that will be based on access, affordability and graduation rates. 

{mosads}Instead of ranking schools numerically, colleges and universities will be rated as one of three performing categories: high performing, low performing and those that fall in the middle. Two-year and four-colleges will be grouped separately, and the agency is trying to find a way to credit institutions that make vast improvements. 

But House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline (R-Minn.) said the Obama administration is trying to arbitrarily grade and rank the nation’s diverse system of colleges and universities. 

“We should be looking for opportunities to empower students and families with information that allows them to make informed decisions,” he said in a statement Friday. “This should be done through common-sense reforms of the law, and there is already strong bipartisan support for such an effort. This so-called college ratings system is a fool’s errand and the secretary should stop it immediately.”

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, called the ranking system a higher education “popularity contest.” 

“Trying to create yet another complicated, federal system — this time for grading our country’s 6,000 colleges and universities — is every bit as impossible and unnecessary as it sounds and is sure to fall flat on its face,” he said in a statement. 

But Young Invincibles, a nonprofit group representing the interests of 18- to 34-year-olds, said Friday that it supports the agency’s vision and goal for the rating system. 

“While there are still many details to be finalized, we are encouraged with the Department of Education’s draft framework for the Postsecondary Institutional Ratings System,” Jennifer Wang, the group’s policy director, said in a statement. 

She later added, “In particular, we’re encouraged by the department’s commitment to include workforce outcomes in the ratings, because students tell us they pursue higher education in order to expand their career opportunities.” 

Some of the metrics that could be used to determine college ratings include percentage of students receiving federal Pell grants, college completion rates, transfer rates, labor market success, graduate school attendance, percentage of low-to-moderate income students and percentage of first-generation students. 

The public has until Feb. 17 to comment on the proposed framework.