大學排名是否違背常識 College Rankings Fail to Measure the Influence of the Institution

Students, parents and educators increasingly obsessed with college rankings have a new tool: the Obama administration’s College Scorecard. The new database focuses on a college’s graduation rate, graduates’ median earnings 10 years after graduation and the percentage of students paying back their college loans.

如今的學生、家長和教育者越來越關注大學排名。現在，他們有了一個新工具：奧巴馬政府的高校記分卡(College Scorecard)。這個新數據庫重點關注高校畢業率、學生畢業十年後的收入中值以及學生償還大學貸款的比例。

While Scorecard adds potentially valuable information to the dizzying array that is already available, it suffers from many of the same flaws that afflict nearly every other college ranking system: There is no way to know what, if any, impact a particular college has on its graduates’ earnings, or life for that matter.

雖然高校記分卡在原本已經令人眼花繚亂的參考系數中增加了一些可能很有價值的信息，但它也有幾乎所有其他大學排名系統都存在的缺陷：無法得知大學對畢業生收入（以及因此導致的生活質量）的影響到底有多大。

“It’s a classic example of confusing causation and correlation,” said Frank Bruni, the author of “Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be,” a book about the college admissions process, and an op-ed columnist for The New York Times. “Anyone who has taken statistics should know better, but when it comes to colleges, that’s what people do. They throw common sense out the window.”

“這是個典型的把因果關係和相互關係搞混的例子，”《Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be》的作者、《紐約時報》專欄作家弗蘭克·布魯尼(Frank Bruni)說，“學過統計學的人應該更清楚這一點，但是一提到大學，人們就忘了常識。”

Of course graduates of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (average postgraduate earnings $91,600, according to the Scorecard) and Harvard ($87,200) do well. That’s because the students they admit have some of the highest test scores and high school grade point averages in the country, reflecting high intelligence and a strong work ethic — two factors that cause high future earnings. That is generally true regardless of where such students attend college, as long as they go to a reputable four-year institution, various studies have shown.

當然，麻省理工學院（Massachusetts Institute of Technology，據高校記分卡的統計，該校畢業生的年平均收入爲9.16萬美元）和哈佛大學(Harvard)的畢業生（8.72萬美元）收入較高。那是因爲這兩所大學招收的學生入學考試成績和高中平均成績最高，那反映了他們的高智商和強烈職業道德，這兩個因素會造就未來的高收入。很多研究表明，這樣的學生只要上的是聲譽好的本科院校，不管上哪所，收入都會高。

“It’s absurd,” said Jerry Z. Muller, a professor of history at Catholic University of America and the author of “The Costs of Accountability,” a study of misplaced and misunderstood metrics. “Their graduates have high earnings because they’re incredibly selective about who they let in. And many of them come from privileged backgrounds, which also correlates with high earnings.”

美國天主教大學(Catholic University of America)的史學教授傑裏·Z·穆勒(Jerry Z. Muller)曾出版《The Costs of Accountability》，該書研究的是誤置和誤解的衡量方法。他說，“這很荒謬。他們的畢業生收入高，是因爲他們在招生的時候非常挑剔。很多學生具有特權背景，這與高收入也有關係。”

The College Scorecard does not rank colleges, but anyone can use the data to do so. M.I.T. (No. 6 on Scorecard earnings) and Harvard (No. 8) are the only universities in the Scorecard’s top 10 that are also highly ranked by the influential U.S. News and World Report. The other schools have a narrow focus on highly paid skills. The No. 1 school on Scorecard is MCPHS University, whose graduates earn, on average, $116,400. (MCPHS stands for Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, which is not even ranked by U.S. News.)

高校記分卡不給大學排名，但是任何人都能用那個數據來排名。在高校記分卡的前十名中，只有麻省理工學院（在高校記分卡的收入榜上排名第六）和哈佛大學（排名第八）擠入了具有影響力的《美國新聞和世界報道》(U.S. News and World Report)的排行榜的前列。前十名的其他院校都只關注能獲得高收入的技能。高校記分卡上的第一名是麻省醫藥與健康科學學院（Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences，《美國新聞》甚至沒有收錄這所大學），該校畢業生的年平均收入是11.64萬美元。

But pay, of course, says nothing about the relative quality of different colleges. “If you go to M.I.T. and earn a degree in engineering, you’re going to make more than if you go to Oberlin and major in music performance,” Professor Muller said. “But you already know this. To rank the value of colleges based on the ultimate earnings of their graduates radically narrows the concept of what college is supposed to be for.”

不過，當然，收入與不同院校的相對質量沒有關係。“一般來說，考上麻省理工學院，獲得工程學學位，比考上奧伯林學院(Oberlin)，學音樂表演，更能賺錢，”穆勒教授說，“不過這一點你本來就知道。根據畢業生的最終收入評判大學的價值會從根本上把大學的目標變得狹隘。”

Andrew Delbanco, a professor at Columbia University and author of the book “College: What It Was, Is, and Should Be,” agreed. “Holding colleges accountable for how well they prepare students for postcollege life is a good thing in principle,” he said. “But measuring that preparation in purely monetary terms raises many dangers. Should colleges be encouraged first and foremost to maximize the net worth of their graduates? I don’t think so.”

哥倫比亞大學(Columbia University)教授、《大學：過去、現在和未來》(College: What It Was, Is, and Should Be)的作者安德魯·德爾班科(Andrew Delbanco)贊同這一觀點。他說，“從原則上講，認爲大學有責任爲學生畢業後的生活做好準備是件好事。但是，純粹從金錢角度衡量準備得是否夠好，會衍生出很多問題。應該鼓勵大學把增加畢業生淨資產作爲首要目標嗎？我覺得不應該。”

And that is assuming the earnings data is reliable. Scorecard draws from a substantial database of tax returns, but measures the postgraduate incomes only of students who received federal loans or grants, which excludes most students from high-income families. And high family income is a factor that correlates strongly with postgraduate earnings.

所有這些都是假定收入數據可信。高校記分卡依據的是龐大的納稅申報數據庫，但是它只衡量接受聯邦貸款或助學金的學生的收入，排除了大多數來自高收入家庭的學生的收入。家庭高收入與畢業生的收入有很大關係。

PayScale, which ranks colleges based on postgraduate earnings reported by users of its web services, produces numbers that in many cases are substantially different from Scorecard’s. PayScale’s “midcareer” earnings for graduates of Harvard (ranked third at $126,000) and M.I.T., (No. 6, at $124,000) are much higher than Scorecard’s figures.

PayScale根據其網站用戶報告的畢業收入給大學排名，它得出的數據在很多方面與高校記分卡大不相同。PayScale算出的哈佛大學（12.6萬美元，排名第三）和麻省理工學院（12.4萬美元，排名第六）畢業生在“事業中期”的平均收入比高校記分卡的高很多。

As with Scorecard, PayScale’s top-ranked institutions, SUNY-Maritime College in the Bronx ($134,000) and Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, Calif. ($133,000), train students for specialized, high-paying fields.

和高校記分卡一樣，PayScale上排名最高的院校——布朗克斯的紐約州立大學海事學院（13.4萬美元）和加利福尼亞州克萊爾蒙特的哈維馬德學院（Harvey Mudd College，13.3萬美元）——都是培養學生進入專業化的高收入行業。

U.S. News does not even include earnings data in its ranking formula, although it said it might do so. “The federal data is a large and new data set, and we’re studying it,” said Brian Kelly, editor and chief content officer for U.S. News. “It represents a subset of students, and we’re looking closely to determine if it in fact tells us what it claims to.”

《美國新聞》甚至沒有把收入數據納入自己的排名系統，不過它說將來可能會納入。“聯邦政府的數據庫又大又新，我們正在研究它，”《美國新聞》的主編、首席內容官布賴恩·凱利(Brian Kelly)說，“它僅代表一部分學生，我們在仔細斟酌它是否真能告訴我們它聲稱能告知的東西。”

Some schools highly ranked by U.S. News — Grinnell, Smith and Wellesley, for example — have low rankings on PayScale and low earnings results on Scorecard. Mr. Kelly said U.S. News was examining these “anomalies.”

《美國新聞》排名最高的一些院校——比如格林內爾學院(Grinnell)、史密斯學院(Smith)和韋爾斯利學院(Wellesley)——在PayScale上的排名較低，在高校記分卡上的收入水平也較低。凱利說，《美國新聞》正在研究這些“反常現象”。

This year, the Brookings Institution published its own ambitious college rankings that try to improve upon what it sees as flaws in the other lists. It calculates the “value added” of each college by comparing what graduates would be expected to earn given their entering characteristics to what they do earn after graduating.

今年，布魯金斯學會(Brookings Institution)發佈了自己雄心勃勃的大學排行榜，努力彌補它所認爲的其他排行榜的缺陷。它通過比較預估收入（根據學生入學時的品質）與畢業後實際收入之間的差距，計算每所院校的“增加值”。

Because of their high test scores and other factors, students entering Harvard would be expected to do well in postgraduate earnings (a projected $85,950, according to Brookings). That they actually earned $118,200 is a measure of what a Harvard education added to their potential earnings.

考上哈佛的學生學習成績好，再加上其他因素，他們的預估收入比較高（布魯金斯學會估計是8.595萬美元），而他們的實際年平均收入爲11.82萬美元，這樣就能衡量接受哈佛的教育後，學生們的賺錢能力增強了多少。

The Brookings rankings factor in the nature of a college’s curriculum, the career choices of its graduates and the percentage of graduates prepared for so-called STEM occupations (science, technology, engineering and math), so like Scorecard and PayScale results, its rankings are dominated by schools with narrow focuses on those high-paying areas.

布魯金斯學會的排名把大學課程、畢業生的職業選擇和準備進入所謂的STEM行業（科學、技術、工程和數學）的學生比例納入考慮因素，所以與高校記分卡和PayScale一樣，它的榜單主要由只關注這些高收入行業的學校佔據。

Of the eight schools earning perfect scores of 100 in its rankings, five have technology-focused curriculums: California Institute of Technology; M.I.T.; Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Ind.; SUNY-Maritime; and Clarkson University in Potsdam, N.Y. (Brookings draws its data from PayScale, LinkedIn and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.)

布魯金斯學會排行榜上獲得滿分的八所學校裏有五所提供以技術爲主的課程：加州理工學院(California Institute of Technology)；麻省理工學院；印第安納州特雷霍特的羅斯-哈爾曼理工學院(Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology)；紐約州立大學海事學院；紐約州波茨坦的克拉克森大學(Clarkson University)。布魯金斯學會參考的是PayScale、LinkedIn和勞工統計局(Bureau of Labor Statistics)的數據。

Jonathan Rothwell, a fellow at Brookings and an author of the study, said that many educators applauded this approach but it had drawn criticism from the liberal arts community, which says it unduly weights a narrow focus on high-paying STEM fields. Mr. Rothwell defended that approach, noting that a college’s curriculum and what field a student studies were “hugely relevant to graduate success.”

布魯金斯學會成員、這項研究的作者喬納森·羅思韋爾(Jonathan Rothwell)說，很多教育者讚賞這種方法，但它也遭到文科院校的批評，後者認爲這種方法過於倚重高收入的STEM專業。羅思韋爾爲這種方法辯護，指出大學課程和專業“與畢業後的成功有很大關係”。

But he acknowledged that liberal arts programs and programs that train students for lower-paying fields were valuable to both individuals and society. “If your only goal is to make as much money as possible, you should study engineering, computer science, biology or business,” he said. “But most people are interested in more than just making money.”

不過，他承認，文科和低收入專業對個人和社會都很重要。“如果你的目標只是儘可能地多掙錢，那麼你應該學工程學、計算機科學、生物或商科，”他說，“但是大部分人感興趣的不只是掙錢。”

So, for the benefit of those people, I asked Mr. Rothwell to do a ranking that deleted the curriculum component and identified the highest “value added” colleges regardless of major. I’m calling this the Brookings-Common Sense ranking. Here’s the top 10:

所以，爲了這部分人，我讓羅思韋爾刪除課程內容，不考慮專業，找出“增加值”最高的院校。我稱之爲布魯金斯常識大學排行榜。下面是這個排行榜的前十名：

1. Colgate University

1. 科爾蓋特大學(Colgate University)

2. Carleton College

2. 卡爾頓學院(Carleton College)

3. Washington and Lee University

3. 華盛頓-李大學(Washington and Lee University)

4. Westmont College

4. 韋斯特蒙特學院(Westmont College)

5. Kenyon College

5. 凱尼恩學院 (Kenyon College)

6. Wagner College

6. 瓦格納學院(Wagner College)

7. Marietta College

7. 馬麗埃塔學院(Marietta College)

8. Manhattan College

8. 曼哈頓學院(Manhattan College)

9. St. Mary’s University

9. 聖瑪麗神學院(St. Mary’s University)

10. Pacific Lutheran University

10. 太平洋路德大學(Pacific Lutheran University)

Under this methodology, liberal arts schools like Colgate and Carleton shot up the rankings. No Ivy League schools made the top 20 on this list, suggesting that many of those students have an edge heading into college. The highest-ranked Ivy was Brown, at No. 45. And most of the engineering and technical schools, even M.I.T. and Caltech, stripped of their curricular weighting, plummeted. (I studied history and French at DePauw University, a liberal arts college, which ranked No. 19.)

按照這種方法，文科院校——比如科爾蓋特大學和卡爾頓學院——在排行榜上的名次快速上升。沒有一所常春藤盟校(Ivy League)進入前20名，這表明，很多那種學生具有考大學的優勢。排名最高的常春藤盟校是布朗大學(Brown)，排在第45名。去除課程比重後，大部分工程技術院校，甚至包括麻省理工學院和加州理工學院，名次急速下降（我曾在德波大學[DePauw University]學習歷史和法語，那是一個文科院校，排名第19）。

The bottom line is that no ranking system or formula can really answer the question of what college a student should attend. Getting into a highly selective, top-ranked college may confer bragging rights, status and connections, but it doesn’t necessarily contribute to a good education or lifelong success, financial or otherwise.

最重要的是，沒有哪個排名體系或公式能真正回答應該上哪所大學的問題。考上十分挑剔的頂級大學也許能讓你擁有吹噓的資本、社會地位和關係網，但不一定能保證你獲得良好的教育或終生成功，不管是收入還是其他方面。

The obsession with college rankings and graduates’ earnings “is just the most recent example of a larger phenomenon, which is that the gathering of numerical information acts as a kind of wish fulfillment,” Professor Muller said. “If you have enough metrics and benchmarks, somehow people believe that’s going to solve a major problem. It rarely does.”

穆勒教授說，對大學排名和畢業生收入的癡迷“只是最新的例子，表明人們以爲，收集數據信息就能幫助實現某種願望。不知爲何，人們以爲，如果你有足夠的數據和標準，就能解決一個大問題。實際上很少能真正解決”。