Washington Monthly editor-in-chief Paul Glastris joins the Chuck ToddCast to make the case that the entire college rankings industry is measuring the wrong thing. U.S. News rewards wealth, prestige, and exclusivity — guaranteeing the same 20 or 30 schools top the list every year, institutions 95% of students can’t get into anyway. The Monthly ranks on what colleges actually do for the country, and this year debuted the first-ever Best Colleges for Rural America list. Number one is the University of West Alabama in Livingston, population 3,436, where students earn a median $64,122 four years out — roughly $26,500 more than a typical college would have produced. Glastris warns that rural nonprofit closures are creating genuine education deserts, that restrictions on foreign students have gutted school finances, and that fixing higher ed would fix a great deal of what ails the country. 

Timeline:

00:00 Paul Glastris joins The Chuck ToddCast

02:00 Why the rankings always crown the same elite schools

05:30 What taxpayers spend, and what the rankings should measure

10:30 Endowments, foreign students, and schools in financial trouble

15:30 Education deserts and the first rural college ranking

20:30 The University of West Alabama and the returns nobody talks about

25:15 Higher ed as a political wedge issue

30:00 Advice for policymakers and the biggest obstacles to reform

36:00 What AI actually does to the value of a degree

41:15 How UT Rio Grande Valley outranks Yale

46:30 The standout state systems and what makes them work