At a time when college enrollment is shrinking and public faith in higher education is faltering, the question of how we measure college value has never been more urgent. Against this backdrop, the just-released 2025 College Rankings from Washington Monthly offer a way to measure higher education’s value.
In an introduction to the issue, editor in chief Paul Glastris and editor Rob Wolfe write: “Instead of rewarding colleges for their wealth, prestige, and exclusivity, we measure how much they help ordinary middle- and working-class students get ahead, encourage democratic participation and service to the country, and produce the scholars and scholarship that drive economic growth and human flourishing. These, we think, are what most Americans want from their investments in the higher ed system.”
