College rankings continue to proliferate, and in many cases muddy the waters for prospective students and their families.

Most of the leading rankings of institutions use an in-house algorithm that utilizes certain data points to create a score. Many of those data points are meaningful measures of institutional health and how selective they are, but these do not necessarily correlate with students’ academic experiences.

U.S. News, the most prominent of undergraduate rankings, continues to adjust their formula. They report that they currently use the following data to build their scoring:

• Outcomes (40%)
  • First-year retention
  • Graduation rates and deviation from predicted grad rate
  • Social mobility (graduating more lower-income students)
  • Student debt
• Faculty resources (20%)
  • Percentage of classes with fewer than 20 students
  • Percentage of classes with more than 50 students
  • Student faculty ratio
  • Percentage of faculty who are full-time
• Expert opinion (20%)
• Financial resources (10%)
• Student excellence (7%)
  • Acceptance rate
  • 25^th-75^th percentile SAT or ACT scores
  • Percentage of first years who were in the top 10% of their H.S. class
• Alumni giving rate (3%)

Most of these are meaningful measures, but not all are linked to quality. Just because many more prospective students apply to an elite institution than will be accepted doesn’t mean they will have a better experience.

The “expert opinion” category is especially problematic. Each year, U.S. News sends a questionnaire to the President, Provost, and Chief Enrollment Officer of each college with a list of all the institutions in their cohort. At Susquehanna, we receive a list of 222 “national liberal arts colleges.” We are asked to rate them on a five-point scale from “marginal” to “distinguished.” In recent years the highest composite score any institution inn our cohort has received in this category is 4.7.

Only about one third of those who receive the questionnaire, complete and submit it.

A number of years ago, a significant portion of an Annapolis Group meeting was spent debating whether the leaders of those member institutions should boycott the questionnaire. We discussed the absurdity of any of us having a meaningful understanding of that many institutions. We also noted that it was not a helpful measure for prospective students, but many of us recognized that if we did not report, our own institutions would lose the benefit of our “vote.” There has been at least one news story of a leaked copy of the questionnaire in which all schools were ranked at the lowest level except for the home institution of the completer.

When the “expert opinion” component was initially added, high school guidance counselors also completed a ranking questionnaire. This has recently been removed from their process.

Other national rankings use different combinations of data and balance each element differently. Some, like Wall Street Journal/THE assess all institutions together rather than separating liberal arts colleges from large universities or institutions that recruit regionally versus nationally. This creates comparisons between remarkably heterogeneous schools. Putting a small residential private liberal arts college on the same scale as a large state university does not yield much meaning.

I must confess that I celebrate when Susquehanna climbs in a ranking, and I complete the reputation survey to be sure that we receive one more distinguished ballot. I give that same rating for a number of other institutions that deserve it, and I don’t provide ratings for schools about which I am uninformed. I don’t find ratings to be of value, but they are an influential reality.

The National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) was developed in the late 1990s as a measure of the student experience and a scholarly counterpoint to the ratings system. This survey of currently enrolled students (usually first years and seniors) measures student engagement including academic rigor, learning with peers, engagement with faculty, and the campus environment.

The NSSE survey also measures how much students are engaged in selected high-impact practices including: a learning community, service learning, independent research with a faculty member, internships, study abroad, and a capstone project.

Early in NSSE’s history, they reported that among the surveyed institutions, there were four schools in the top quintile in all categories they measured. None of those institutions were in the U.S. News top 50. NSSE’s leadership encouraged prospective students to focus on the experiences they would have in college as the driver for choosing an alma mater.

Students who are selecting an institution should look at graduation rates and placement in jobs and graduate schools. These are important measures of outcomes. Families may also be buoyed in their confidence by consulting the recent Georgetown University study on the return on investment of a degree, which provides lifetime earnings data. Those data are most meaningful when comparing otherwise similar institutions. Comparing earnings between graduates of schools that mostly educate teachers and social workers with schools focused on engineering and business is not revealing.

Abstract rankings do not provide meaningful discernment for which school will be best for a given student. Understanding the student experience is a much better evaluation.

Prospective students should find out how many of their classes will be taught by faculty vs. graduate students. They should ask how big those classes will be. Small classes aren’t a guarantee of quality, but they increase the possibilities of individualized learning opportunities. Lastly, students should ask how many of those high impact practices are built into the curriculum and co-curriculum of the institution. If these aspects of an institution are favorable, there is a quality program in their chosen field of study, and they have a positive campus visit, that institution should move to the top of their list.

This weekend, Susquehanna University announced the public phase of our Give Rise capital campaign.

After years of careful planning and “quiet” fundraising, we announced that we have already raised $140,529,670 toward a goal of $160 million. That goal is more than twice what has been raised in any previous campaign, and going public with nearly 88% of that goal completed is a testament to the hard work of my colleagues and an affirmation of the commitment alumni and friends of the university have for this great university.

Susquehanna University is truly a manifestation of philanthropy, which comes from the Greek, meaning “love of man.” It is gifts for the betterment of others. Each year, we welcome hundreds of talented young people to our campus (itself a gift) who are able to be here because of the generosity of strangers.

Our students come here to figure out who they are and how they make our world better. As a university, we make good citizens and good neighbors who give back to their communities many times what we have invested in them. Much of our campaign’s success is a reflection of their gratitude for what a Susquehanna education has made possible in their lives.

I can think of no better investment in our collective future. As I said to a gathering of over 500 supporters of Susquehanna at the launch:

I have the best job in the world. I am surrounded by brilliant faculty and talented staff who share a passionate commitment to our wonderful students.

Every day, Lynn and I witness the life-changing things that happen on this campus. Students are truly transformed here. Their seemingly unattainable dreams become reality because of what our collective philanthropy makes possible.

Susquehanna was founded as a gift. Local farmers and business people in Selinsgrove gave land and funds to create this place because they believed in Benjamin Kurtz’s dream that talented young people should have access to higher education no matter what their families’ station in life might be. Those first donors wanted to support those students, and they wanted their own children to join them, and so began our first tradition.

The New York Times ranked Susquehanna as having the 9^th most economically diverse student body in the nation. We are not an institution of students born on third base, Susquehanna is a living and learning community representing the breadth of socio-economic backgrounds and experiences, and yet, according to a recent Georgetown University study, the average lifetime earnings of our graduates is among the top 8% of all colleges and universities in the U.S.

This is why Lynn and I have made Susquehanna our primary philanthropy and why SU is the largest beneficiary of our estate planning. We know first-hand what supporting this university makes possible. It is so rewarding to us see our gifts changing lives every day, and we are so grateful that so many of you join us in that philanthropic vision.

As part of our celebration, we unveiled a new campaign video featuring our students, faculty, and staff that will give you a glimpse of what wonderful things they are doing on campus, and quite literally around the world.

Knowing what philanthropy at Susquehanna has done and will continue to do for the betterment of our world for generations to come makes supporting this campaign immensely satisfying and abundantly consequential.

It was not only colleges and universities that slaked America’s thirst for enlightenment. In 1874, John Heyl Vincent and Lewis Miller founded Chautauqua Institution.

Chautauqua Institution is sited on the western shore of Lake Chautauqua in the county of the same name, the westernmost in New York State. Each year (COVID aside), for nine weeks visitors gather in this idyllic location to attend days filled with lectures, exhibitions, and performances by premiere thinkers, practitioners, artists, theologians, performers, and leaders from around the world.

Vincent was a bishop in the United Methodist Church committed to enhancing adult education. Miller was an inventor and philanthropist who was especially generous to UMC causes. Incidentally, Miller was also father-in-law to Thomas Edison.

They had taken their inspiration from the Lyceum movement that flourished in the earlier decades of the 19^th century. The original function of the Chautauqua Assembly was to provide training for United Methodist Sunday-school teachers. Vincent and Miller recognized that for many adults and older children, Sunday school was the only continuing education available, so from the beginning, their summer sessions included lectures on moral philosophy, the newest scientific developments, literature, artistic performances, and even religion.

What began as a “church camp” for adults, with participants staying in tents on wooden platforms, transformed into a village of Victorian gingerbread cottages and a non-sectarian center of American intellectualism in only a few years.

President Grant appeared during the 1875 season and instantly lent prestige to the fledgling movement. In 1879, Schools of Languages and Music were founded. These included continuing education opportunities for school teachers. Today, the Music School is one of the leading summer festivals for aspiring professionals, as are the Schools of Dance, Theatre, and Art. A School of Theology began in 1881, followed by the School of Liberal Arts in 1885. By that year, the Chautauqua Press had already published 93 titles, and there were “Chautauquas” in more than 30 states.

In addition to these “sons of Chautauqua,” for about fifty years, traveling tent Chautauquas were a staple of American culture, and for many rural communities were their only imported cultural event. There was no direct association between these tent Chautauquas and the Institution, and the traveling shows ranged from very legitimate intellectual revivals to little more than vaudeville shows.

Chautauqua Institution served as the summer home of the New York Symphony. When that group merged with the New York Philharmonic, Chautauqua formed its own symphony in 1929, which provides a summer venue for musicians from many of our nation’s finest orchestras. Also in 1929, the Institution founded one of the longest continuously operating summer opera companies.

An early and important initiative of the original Chautauqua Institution was the founding of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle (C.L.S.C.) during the summer of 1878. The C.L.S.C. was a four-year course of assigned home reading. It was the first organized reading circle in the country — a Victorian MOOC. The Chautauquan was published as an anthology of course readings, old and new.

Its charter states that:

This new organization aims to promote habits of reading and study in nature, art, science, and in secular and sacred literature, in connection with the routine of daily life, (especially among those whose educational advantages have been limited,) so as to secure to them the college student’s general outlook upon the world and life, and, to develop the habit of close, connected, persistent thinking.

The participants received study guides. Regional discussion groups were formed. Initially all participants were expected to return to the Institution for four summers for lectures and discussions of what they had read the previous year. Material was offered in a four-year sequence, and new students could join in at any year. Exams were administered, and at the end of four years, diplomas were awarded.

The C.L.S.C. still exists, and one of its contemporary features is that the authors of each year’s books (which are often best sellers) appear on the Institution’s program and lead additional discussion sessions for the C.L.S.C. students.

The C.L.S.C. inspired the foundation of the Continuing Education program at the University of Chicago, and I am convinced helped prime the pump for the “Great Ideas” project that would begin there soon after.