Editorial: How to make the grade

Tuesday, Aug. 22, 2006 | 7:14 a.m.

UNLV landed in the unenviable fourth tier in the latest ranking of American colleges by U.S. News & World Report. UNR was rated in the third tier, a step up from UNLV yet still dismal.

An important measure of tiers is the quality of students the colleges are able to attract. While fourth- and third-tier schools are not devoid of outstanding students, the academic background overall of the student body is unimpressive when compared with students at second- and first-tier schools.

When schools are ranked in the third and fourth tiers, the general impression is that their curricula are not very challenging. Professors at the lower-tiered schools often spend more time on basic material that a higher-tiered school would assume students already know.

While all college rankings are subjective to some degree, they carry a lot of weight. When U.S. News & World Report, for example, in 1990 described UNLV as a "rising star in American higher education," the university heavily used the blurb in its recruitment efforts and advertising campaigns.

And when a school such as UNLV is rated so low that it is not even numerically ranked, it's a cause for great concern among its top officials. Other public schools, such as the University of California, Berkeley, are consistently ranked in the top tier (No. 21 on the current U.S. News list, released Thursday). What does UNLV have to do to make the grade?

Jane Nichols, vice chancellor of student and academic affairs for the Nevada System of Higher Education, last week briefed members of the Board of Regents on that very question. The university needs to raise its admission standards, she said, and rely more on full-time professors than part-time instructors to teach courses. Professors need to attend more higher education conferences and otherwise raise the university's national profile. More renowned scholars need to be recruited. Alumni giving needs to be improved.

She also called upon the state to increase its per-pupil funding, so that class sizes can be reduced and the above-stated goals have a chance of being accomplished.

The regents, with the blessing of Chancellor Jim Rogers, are preparing a budget that would substantially increase funding for Nevada's colleges and universities.

We hope members of the 2007 Legislature approve most if not all of the requested increase, and we challenge our universities to prove that, with the proper resources, they can move up in the national rankings.