Can a College ‘Rating’ — Instead of a Ranking — Really Work?

Amid widespread questioning of the validity of college rankings last year, Money magazine tried something different — changing its 33-year-old ranking into a rating system. Gone was the one-through-600-something numbered list. Instead, colleges fell into just a handful of buckets: In Money’s latest sorting, out today, college ratings range from two to five stars, in half-star increments. It was just the kind of thing that rankings critics have long said would be a more-helpful way of categorizing colleges than numerical lists.