The Obama Administration addressed criticism of its college rating system by taking out the feature for which the plan was widely known.
The U.S. Education Department (ED) announced Wednesday they still plan to deliver a trove of information for prospective students sans the rating system, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported.
President Obama introduced a plan nearly two years ago to reform higher education by appropriating funds to institutions with better all-around performance. Taking a deliberate, calculated approach, the White House has not named the plan and have been stressing patience in its development.
However, the main feature of the plan was a uniform rating system that would determine which schools would receive more federal funding. Jamienne S. Studley, deputy under secretary of education, wrote in a blog post the ED plans to launch "easy-to-use tools... to help students to reach their own conclusions about a college's value."
Studley wrote in her post that these "tools" will be available "later this summer."
Shortly after Obama revealed plans for the rating system in Aug. 2013, college leadership and other higher education officials were publicly critical of it. The Obama Administration emphasized the proposal was far from a finished product and ED Undersecretary Ted Mitchell reinforced that sentiment earlier this year.
"This is not aimed to be a punitive rating system," he told the Wall Street Journal in Feb. "We hope that we will have a ratings system that is also not a ranking system and whose chief goal it is to shine a spotlight on the highest-performing institutions."
The ED's goal appears to be making college selection a highly individual experience by helping prospective students find the school that makes the most sense for them academically while also offering the best value financially.
"We're going to be focusing on the consumer-focused tool for this year's project," Mitchell told the Chronicle of the decision to alter the rating system. "This is the exact opposite of a collapse.
"This is a sprint forward."
