Washington Monthly - September/October 2014 - 37

It's not so simple on the other end. Some nonselective colleges produce admirable graduation rates at
an affordable price to students. Others are lucky to see
one-fifth of starting students on through to graduation. Some charge sky-high prices and graduate students with large amounts of debt while others may be
quite cheap.
Creating a list of the worst colleges also requires
making judgments about the importance of different
problems in higher education. For example, a worst
colleges list has to decide whether a high-student-debt
college with a so-so graduation rate should be ranked
higher or lower than a cheaper option with minimal
debt but even fewer completers. The Obama administration is currently grappling with exactly these problems as it works to create a credible federal college ratings system that could potentially identify colleges so
bad that they lose eligibility for financial aid.
To better understand the challenge the administration has taken on, and further the cause of helping students in dire need of good advice about where
not to enroll, the Washington Monthly examined 1,700
four-year colleges and universities and used a different
rankings methodology to identify the twenty worst colleges in America. Here's what we found.

Worst Colleges Ranking #1:

Four factors (net price, average student debt,
default rate, graduation rate) weighted equally
1.

NEW ENGLAND INST. OF ART (MA)

Private for-profit

2. Columbia College-Hollywood (CA)
3.

Private nonprofit

Fountainhead College of Tech. (TN)

4. Saint Augustine's Univ. (NC)

Private for-profit
Private nonprofit (HBCU)

5. Platt College-Aurora (CO)

Private for-profit

6. Becker College (MA)

Private nonprofit

7.

Private for-profit

Brooks Institute (CA)

8. Mt. Sierra College (CA)

Private for-profit

9. Menlo College (CA)

Private nonprofit

10. Univ. of Advancing Technology (AZ)

Private for-profit

11. Columbia College-Chicago (IL)

Private nonprofit

12. Cornish College of the Arts (WA)

Private nonprofit

13. DeVry University (IL)
14. Clark Atlanta University (GA)

Private for-profit
Private nonprofit (HBCU)

15. Midstate College (IL)

Private for-profit

16. Shimer College (IL)

Private nonprofit

17. Miami Intl. Univ. of Art and Design (FL)

Private for-profit

18. Art Institute of Colorado (CO)

Private for-profit

The simplest way to define a bad college is as a place that
charges students large amounts of money, probably financed by debt they cannot afford, to receive an education so terrible that most students drop out before graduation. Translated in the parlance of federal statistics,
that means a high "net price" (tuition minus grants and
scholarships), high average student debt, a high "cohort
default rate" (a federal measure that tracks the percentage of each college's freshman class that defaults on their
student loans within three years of beginning to repay
them), and a low graduation rate.
Taking those four measures and weighting them
equally shows that students would be well served to avoid
the New England Institute of Art, a private for-profit college, where the typical net price is $29,700, median debt is
$30,600, 16 percent of borrowers default on their loans,
and just 36 percent of students graduate. Though onefourth of the colleges in Ranking #1 are in Illinois, they
also include colleges across the country, from California
to Massachusetts and Florida to Washington. But there's
little diversity in terms of college type. The list features
eleven private for-profit colleges and nine private nonprofit institutions. No public universities are represented.

Private for-profit

20. Kansas City Art Institute (KS)

Ranking #1:
The Basics

19. Intl. Acad. of Design and Tech.-Chi. (IL)

Private nonprofit

This raises some questions. Is a low graduation
rate exactly as bad as a high net price? Is it fair to look
just at cohort default rates and borrowing amounts
without considering the frequency with which students
turn to debt?

Ranking #2:
Completion Matters
While it's certainly possible to pay too much money for
a bachelor's degree, degree holders are still, on average,
much better off economically than other workers. The
second version of our worst colleges list makes completion worth 45 percent of a college's score, instead of 25
percent. It uses two measures of completion: the bachelor's degree graduation rate and the number of degrees
awarded for every 100 full-time equivalent students.
The second measure addresses concerns about students
who may be left out of the federal graduation rate formula, which only includes students who have never enrolled in college before and are doing so as full-time
students. It's also important to examine how many students borrow to finance their bad educations. RankWashington Monthly

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Washington Monthly - September/October 2014

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