Liberal Rag Publishes Shocking College Rankings

[Extra Stout]

The liberal rag Washington Monthly recently published its rebuttal to the now-ubiquitously-read US News and World Report rankings. Rather than trying to identify the "best" schools overall, WM endeavored to identify which schools were "best for society." They considered three points: 1) How much does each school engender social mobility (i.e., helping the poor become rich, rather than helping the rich become richer); 2) how much does each school promote scientific and humanistic research; and 3) how much does each school promote an ethic of service toward its country.

Some of the schools are what you would expect from a ranking done by liberals. At least one in the top 10 is a jaw-dropping shock.

So here it is, Washington Monthly's 10 Best Colleges List as per the Liberal Ethos:

1) MIT

2) Univ of California @ Berkeley

3) Penn State

4) UCLA

5) Texas A&M

6) Univ of California @ San Diego

7) Stanford

8) Cornell

9) South Carolina State

10) Univ of California @ Davis

[Spurminator]

mookie's head just esploded.

[exstatic]

So did AHF's.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

Given their criteria, especially the one about service towards one's own country, that's not really surprising.

[johngateswhiteley]

...beautiful. and not surprisingly, 5 schools from my beloved state. now why wasn't USC on that list? they are huge in the criteria of #2 & #3, but maybe not so much #1....i don't know. not surprisingly 4 of the schools from California were state schools.

[johngateswhiteley]

OK, that makes sense. i just got the article and here is the top 30 list...as you can see USC is #19. i knew they had to be ranked...

http://lazowska.cs.washington.edu/wm.guide.htm

EDIT: Oops, that was last years.

[Nbadan]

5 Schools from California, 1 in Texas and none in Florida. Sounds about right.

[DarkReign]

Can someone name a top flight school that isnt supposedly liberal?

I dont see Harvard or Yale on there, am I being lead to believe those are conservative schools?

[Extra Stout]

Can someone name a top flight school that isnt supposedly liberal?

I dont see Harvard or Yale on there, am I being lead to believe those are conservative schools?

Re-read WM's criteria and answer your own question about Harvard and Yale.

[DarkReign]

Re-read WM's criteria and answer your own question about Harvard and Yale.

Good point. Total failure of #1.

[JoeChalupa]

How 'bout them Buckeyes!!!

[DarkReign]

How 'bout them Buckeyes!!!

w00t, Maurice Clarret!

[Phenomanul]

MIT Rocks!!!!

Seriously though, that school is the quintessential definition for what an educational facility should strive to be.