Name a factoid about a college — best party school, most military-friendly, et cetera — and a magazine or website somewhere is probably ranking it.
The implication of those measures is usually some publicity.
But a new ratings system proposed by President Barack Obama would put more than a college’s reputation at stake.
The nation’s colleges would be pitted against one another on measures such as graduation rates, student debt and cost of attendance under the president’s proposed system, aimed at putting a rating to the value colleges provide for their tuition dollars.
Obama said the plan is intended to hold down the cost of college and steer federal loans and grants toward those schools that rate the best. The schools that come out on top could eventually be rewarded with a bigger piece of the federal funding pie.