Which colleges are best amid coronavirus? Here’s how Columbus State and others rank
Columbus State University shines in a new ranking designed to measure how well colleges can serve students amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Educate To Career, a nonprofit organization based in Michigan, put CSU in the top tier of its 2020 rankings, along with 18 other colleges in Georgia out of the 35 ranked in the state.
ETC offers personalized education and employment data for free online to help people choose their options for higher education and career paths.
Since 2014, ETC’s rankings have tried to determine the economic value colleges give their students. The metrics have included the ability to graduate students at a reasonable total cost and to get them high-paying jobs.
After colleges closed their campuses in March due to the deadly virus, ETC developed a new analysis to reflect the new education environment.
So this year’s ranking includes criteria about distance learning and in-person instruction as colleges try to decide whether and how to reopen their campuses for the fall 2020 semester. Colleges that excel at both forms of teaching and deliver them relatively inexpensively fare well in the new formula, according to ETC.
“This system revision of our 2020 ETC College Rankings provides you with over 1,200 colleges which are sorted by state and then ranked by their ability to offer a quality education under any conceivable scenario: in-classroom, online and a blend of each format,” ETC says on its website.
This year’s ranking comprises:
- In-classroom instruction available if authorities allow campuses to reopen.
- Robust software and systems to support distance learning.
- Faculty experience in teaching online.
- Relatively reasonable tuition and fees.
Colleges such as CSU that rank in ETC’s Tier 1 must have their full curriculum available online and on campus. They also must have three years of experience delivering online curriculum.
“We are honored to receive this special recognition,” CSU president Chris Markwood said in the university’s news release. “Preparing students for real jobs through affordable online and in-person classes is what we aim to do every year at CSU.
“Now more than ever, students are looking to find pandemic-proof careers without taking on a substantial amount of debt. We are proud to offer students that opportunity to create themselves and to have the experience in online learning to quickly adapt to these uncertain times.”
Tier 2 colleges have “the systems required to deliver curriculum online and in-classroom,” ETC says. “However, college faculty has less experience in delivering online curriculum than Tier 1 colleges.”
Tier 3 colleges strongly emphasize in-classroom education over online teaching and might not offer their full curriculum online, ETC says.
Tier 4 colleges have “limited systems and experience in delivering online curriculum,” ETC says.
Out of the 35 four-year Georgia colleges ETC ranked this year, 19 are in Tier 1, three are in Tier 2, one (University of Georgia) is in Tier 3, and 12 (including Georgia Tech) are in Tier 4.
Out of the 22 four-year Alabama colleges ETC ranked this year, 14 (including Auburn University, University of Alabama and Troy University) are in Tier 1, four are in Tier 2, one is in Tier 3, and three are in Tier 4.
ETC doesn’t rank two-year colleges, but it does list the ones providing online and on-campus instruction. Columbus Technical College and Chattahoochee Valley Community College are among them.
