https://www.presstelegram.com/2023/01/20/inside-cal-state-long-beach-college-rankings-what-they-mean-and-what-theyre-worth/

Long Beach

Rankings, rankings, rankings…

Readers may have noted that several top law schools have abandoned the U.S. News and World Report higher education rankings. It’s hard to know if this predicts that U.S. News college rankings will cease to exist, but it does raise a question about the proliferation of college ranking systems and why or if they matter.

U.S. higher education is a vast and somewhat confusing landscape to navigate. Rankings may help prospective students and their families get a sense of how a particular university matches their dreams and circumstances. Schools are ranked for rejection rates, diversity, amount of partying, size of endowments, success of athletic programs, and many other variables.

Let’s be clear: We are proud of the numerous rankings, surveys and reports that highlight CSULB, including U.S. News & World Report. We appreciate the recognition and are encouraged by it. But: It’s the lives we change and the communities we impact that drive us. The rankings I care about the most measure how effectively we increase our graduates’ social mobility. This means how likely is it that students enrolling from low-income circumstances achieve middle- and high-income status soon after graduation. The Beach has been ranked by multiple organizations in the top 5 nationally for several years. If a student is looking for good return on investment, CSULB is an excellent choice.

Other students may be looking for additional information to determine the best fit. For example, a student who has aspirations to do basic research may want to find universities that offer opportunities to be mentored by many active researchers. A 50-year-old classification system (and still a basis for ranking systems) is from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. This system classifies universities according to a variety of dimensions including on their number of doctoral graduates and their level of research activity. For example, Carnegie classifies universities as Research I (R I) and Research II (R II). Research I universities graduate many doctoral students and produce a highly significant amount of federally funded research. Research II universities graduate at least 20 doctoral students each year and have high levels of research activity.

Until recently, CSULB was ranked by Carnegie as a regional, masters level, comprehensive university, but much to our delight we’ve earned Research II status based on the number of doctoral graduates from our programs in Nursing Practice, Education, Physical Therapy, and Engineering and Computational Mathematics. Each of these programs develop the highest-level scholars and practitioners in fields that are in great need of talented leadership.

We’ve also increased our funded research portfolio. It now averages almost $50 million annually in awards.

Does this new classification mean a change in our student success mission? Absolutely not! In fact, we see the upgraded classification as adding value to a Beach degree. R II status is correlated to getting more financial support that, for us, most often translates into our ability to involve more undergraduates in funded research. Our data and national data indicate that such involvement predicts timely graduation rates and better career opportunities. R II status is also a faculty recruitment advantage as we seek to hire the best and most student-centered faculty in the galaxy.

Of course, being a national, rather than a regional university, brings the usual challenges of a bigger pond of comparators, but our local community engagement strategies are actually increasing. Our commitment to the Long Beach College Promise is stronger than ever. The number of university partnerships with regional governments, nonprofits, and business and industry are at an all-time high. Of note is our recent collaboration with Long Beach Memorial Medical Center to open a medical clinic on our campus that will offer unmatched clinical education to our students specializing in health care while increasing community access to medical services focused on primary care, executive/concierge health, geriatric assessment, back pain treatment, and sports medicine.

While we’re proud of the recognition from the Carnegie Foundation reflecting the great work of our faculty and staff, we remain faithful to building a campus environment that promotes everyone’s academic, social, and personal success. I think that’s why we’re ranked number one in the CSU and number nine nationally for the number of applications we receive for our undergraduate programs.

Go Beach!