Presidents Are Divided on Best Ways to Measure Quality

Abstract

More than a quarter of the presidents in the Pew Research Center survey, done in association with The Chronicle, said they worried that their faculty members were grading too leniently. More than half said students spent less time studying than they did a decade ago. And when asked how the public should assess a college's quality, the presidents did not show much faith in the student-engagement surveys and student-learning examinations that have come to prominence in the last decade. Instead, the yardsticks that got the most support were measures whose reliability is often questioned: graduation rates and accreditation.