Washington Monthly - September/October 2020 - 25

Another worthy but financially stressed institution
is Canisius College, a private Jesuit school in Buffalo, New
York. Canisius ranks in the top fifth of our list of master's
universities because its graduation rate is far higher than
student demographics would predict, and its students go
on to get PhDs at high rates. But COVID-19 has forced the
college, which was already struggling, to announce layoffs
and eliminate several majors.
The pandemic may be hastening what some have
long predicted: the eventual demise of many private nonprofit colleges. The vulnerable ones are those that serve
ordinary rather than elite students. Open-access public
colleges and universities are also at risk, not of extinction so much as of being further hollowed out by cuts to
their funding from state governments whose tax revenues
are plummeting.
An influx of federal money may stave off immediate
disaster. But it won't slow the overall trend of a higher
education system in which schools that attract the welloff grow richer while those that serve everyone else grow
poorer-forcing non-affluent students to pay ever-higher
tuition, take on ever-growing amounts of debt, and mortgage their futures.
What America needs is a New Deal for higher education-one that will reverse this trend while maintaining the institutional diversity and autonomy that has long
made this country's higher education system the envy of
the world. In this issue, the longtime Washington Monthly
writer and guest editor Kevin Carey proposes such a plan
("How to Save Higher Education," page 30). We think it's
brilliant and pragmatic, and we hope you will, too.

hange can't come quickly enough, especially for students of color, who are hurt the most by the inequities baked into the current system. We know, for
instance, that Black students disproportionately attend
under-resourced community and four-year colleges; have
to take on higher levels of debt than white students to pay
for it, on average; graduate at far lower rates; and, even
when they do graduate, earn less in the workforce.
What we don't know is how individual colleges contribute, for better or worse, to these outcomes. That's because little of the federal data that researchers-and this
magazine-use to assess college performance is broken
down by race. Until that changes, imperfect workarounds
are the best we can do. We gave it a shot in this issue by
tapping a new data set from the U.S. Department of Education to create a first-ever list of colleges where majors
popular with Black students lead to decent-paying jobs.
Elsewhere in this issue, Daniel Block examines some
new thinking among Black academics about how to help
more students of color enter and succeed in STEM fields
("Why STEM Needs to Focus on Social Justice," page 26).
Jamaal Abdul-Alim looks at a program that was wildly
successful at boosting completion rates at two-year

TOP 30

LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGES
1. AMHERST COLLEGE (MA)
2. Wesleyan University (CT)
3. Berea College (KY)
4. Washington and Lee University (VA)
5. Harvey Mudd College (CA)
6. Pomona College (CA)
7. Vassar College (NY)
8. Middlebury College (VT)
9. Claremont McKenna College (CA)
10. Williams College (MA)
11. Bowdoin College (ME)
12. Haverford College (PA)
13. Wellesley College (MA)
14. Grinnell College (IA)
15. Swarthmore College (PA)
16. Hamilton College (NY)
17. Bryn Mawr College (PA)
18. College of the Holy Cross (MA)
19. Carleton College (MN)
20. Trinity College (CT)
21. Bates College (ME)
22. Colgate University (NY)
23. Smith College (MA)
24. Barnard College (NY)
25. Franklin and Marshall College (PA)
26. Lafayette College (PA)
27. Connecticut College (CT)
28. Dickinson College (PA)
29. St. Mary's College of Maryland (MD)*
30. Beloit College (WI)
*Public institution

RANK IN U.S.
NEWS (2019)

2
17
46
10
23
5
14
7
7
1
6
11
3
14
3
14
27
27
7
46
21
17
11
25
38
39
46
46
92
82

The 2020 U.S. News rankings were released in September 2019.

schools, and why policymakers let it wither away ("Higher
Ed's Most Successful Failure," page 36). And Anne Kim reports on a technical training program that employers are
actually willing to pay for-one that focuses on soft skills
("Why Apprenticeships Should Go Soft," page 40).
Since we began publishing our annual college rankings in 2005, we've been warning that America's higher
education system is an inequitable, unsustainable mess
that rips off too many of the students it is meant to help.
Now, with that system teetering on the brink, we may be
at an opportune moment to fundamentally change it. And
the current generation of students, the most screwed yet,
may be the ones to push us to finally act.
Grace Gedye is an editor at the Washington Monthly. Paul Glastris
is the magazine's editor in chief.
Washington Monthly 25

Washington Monthly - September/October 2020

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