Matt Hennie
Audio By Carbonatix
It’s easy to shit on Arizona State University. The school, with its “accept everyone” mentality and party school reputation, is constantly the butt of jokes, punchlines and putdowns. With its silly “No. 1 in Innovation” war cry, ASU is easy to brush aside as just a mediocre school with an absurdly high acceptance rate. Last year, U.S. News and World Report pegged ASU as the 117th-best university in the country — nothing to write home about.
Yet maybe that reputation is a bit outdated. Last week, TIME Magazine ranked the top 500 universities in the world, and ASU finished a more-than-respectable 91st. In fact, ASU finished ahead of some very well-regarded private schools, including Northwestern (No. 98) and Georgetown (No. 117). The University of Arizona also ranked fairly high, coming in 103rd.
To be included in TIME Magazine’s rankings, schools had to be at least three years old, offer bachelor’s degrees and enroll more than 2,000 students. ASU clears that last bar by, well, a lot.
When evaluating quality, many university rankings often prioritize a school’s prestige, weighing factors like a tiny acceptance rate. But TIME’s rankings flipped that on its head, instead choosing to focus on factors like academic performance, innovation — which is ASU President Michael Crow’s favorite word — and global engagement.
“Today’s debate over the future of higher education is often framed as a choice between diversity and meritocracy,” the TIME article reads. “As if universities must choose between the identity and the quality of their students.”
TIME Magazine’s rankings cited a study by its own researchers that found that “fewer than 1% of Americans attended the 12 ‘Ivy-Plus’ colleges,” yet “they account for over 13% of those in the top 0.1% of earners.” But these schools are unattainable for many students and families, as students from wealthier backgrounds are overrepresented at them, which costs an arm and a leg for just one semester’s tuition.
“A child’s opportunities should not depend on their family background, income, or ZIP code,” TIME wrote.
TIME evaluated factors in three pillars, which were weighted to produce a score from 0 to 100. Sixty percent of a university’s score came from its academic capacity and performance, which was determined by looking at the resources the university devotes to teaching and the results it achieves in terms of scholarly output. Thirty percent of a university’s score comes from its innovation and economic output, which includes its advancement in science and technology and the influence of its graduates on economic decision-making. Rounding out the scoring, 10% came from a university’s global engagement, which measured the extent to which it attracts international students and attention.
The top of TIME’s list is still dominated by prestigious, hard-to-get-into schools like Oxford, Yale, Stanford, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Chicago and Harvard. But ASU’s place among the top 100 is a testament to Michael Crow’s mindset.
Unsurprisingly, ASU’s highest “pillar” was its score for “innovation and economic impact;” the school’s score of 84.44 out of 100 in that metric was the 22nd-highest of the schools on the list. Its academic performance grade of 54.71 ranked 195th, while its global engagement score of 48.55 ranked 212th.
ASU still has the ability to generate the wrong kind of headlines, like when one of its fraternities keeps winding up in court. It may not be as wild in Tempe as it used to be, but ASU is not not a party school these days.
So, the next time you have to veer around a drunken coed on Mill Avenue, just remember: According to Time, that person attends one of the world’s elite academic institutions.
