In just a few days, a fresh group of teenagers will descend upon America’s college and university campuses, eager to sip from the cup of knowledge and to take their place among the next generation of leaders.

At least that’s the hope.

But a new report from the editors of “Choosing the Right College” and the Intercollegiate Studies Institute finds that students need to be careful about choosing where to study. A poor decision could leave graduates with more debt than knowledge, and a place in the unemployment line instead of on the fast track to success.

CollegeGuideReport–Final–08.05.2011

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The report is titled “Rating America’s Colleges: A Ranking of Academic Excellence and Intellectual Freedom on Campus.” In it, the authors make the case a new approach is needed for assessing the quality of our institutions of higher learning.

They cite a study which finds that corporate leaders are increasingly dissatisfied “with the quality of U.S undergraduate education.” Ninety percent of employers want employees who are skilled in written communication, critical thinking and problem solving, but fewer than 30 percent of applicants meet those expectations.

The authors argue that part of the problem is found in the way the nation’s colleges are evaluated. They take aim at U.S. News and World Report’s popular college rankings, and suggest that schools are evaluated by meaningless criteria such as “peer assessment,” “freshman retention and graduation rates,” and “per-student spending.” Those measurements don’t reveal much about what goes on inside the classroom.

The authors of “Rating America’s Colleges” do something radically different: they assess “how well (or badly) a school does at providing the classic ‘liberal education’ suited to a free citizen and a well-rounded adult.”

The authors ask:

“Are (students) being challenged to stretch their cognitive abilities in different fields, so they’ll be intellectually and professionally versatile adults? Are they learning the basics of core disciplines such as American history, democratic government, English literature, and the market economy? Are they engaging with a wide range of freely expressed opinions on key ethical and political issues they will face as individuals and as citizens? Are they living in safe and sober residences where academic work is encouraged, not inhibited?”

For their report, the authors examined “140 American schools that run the educational gamut” from the Ivy League to small, “Great Books” schools. To determine each school’s ranking, they considered its intellectual and civic discourse, quality of instruction, student life, and real cost.

Using those results, “Rating America’s Colleges” determined the nation’s “10 Exceptional Schools,” and the “10 Train Wrecks.” The results are a little surprising.

According to the report, here are the nation’s 10 exceptional schools:

  1. Princeton University (Princeton, NJ)

  2. University of Chicago (Chicago, IL)

  3. The University of the South (Sewanee, TN)

  4. The United States Military Academy (West Point, NY)

  5. Pepperdine University (Malibu, CA)

  6. Baylor University (Waco, TX)

  7. Providence College (Providence, RI)

  8. Texas A&M (College Station, TX)

  9. Gordon College (Wenham, MA)

  10. Christendom College (Front Royal, VA)

The 10 train wrecks include:

  1. Wesleyan University (Middletown, CT)

  2. Bard College (Annandale-on-Hudson, NY)

  3. College of Holy Cross (Worcester, MA)

  4. Amherst College (Amherst, MA)

  5. Barnard College (New York, NY)

  6. University of California at Santa Cruz (Santa Cruz, CA)

  7. Duke University (Durham, NC)

  8. Bryn Mawr College (Bryn Mawr, PA)

  9. Occidental College (Los Angeles, CA)

  10. Macalester College (St. Paul, MN)

Despite the provocative language, this is not some hit-and-run report. The authors back up their rankings with plenty of details.

For example, the authors find that at Wesleyan University (the #1 train wreck), “Shakespeare is optional for English majors, as is study of the American founding and Civil War for history majors.” The only thing not optional seems to be the $29,274 of debt with which the average student graduates.

On the other side of the ledger, Princeton (the #1 exceptional school) offers academics that are “rigorous and demanding” without grade inflation, and “the least politicized” atmosphere of all the elite colleges.

The authors conclude that “No college is perfect, and few are entirely worthless.” Even the exceptional schools have a few weaknesses, and the train wrecks may even have one or two worthwhile programs.

Nevertheless, parents and students would be well advised to pick up a copy of “Choosing the Right School” to see just what they are getting themselves into – before they load up the U-Haul and head for the ivory towers.