Measuring Real

In a report from the Center for American Progress, four authors propose a new way to think about measuring institutional success: the quality-value index formula. 

The "quality-value index formula," as they call it, would rate an institution on four measures:

• Its 90-day job-placement or school-placement rate.
• A ratio determined through dividing the increase in its students' salaries over a period of time after leaving the college by a measure of students' cost (such as the total cost of attendance or revenue per student).
• An alumni satisfaction rating ("would you repeat your experience at X university?").
• Its cohort default rate.

This model provides a novel way of thinking about how prepared students are to put what they learn to work.  It makes no distinction between technical, liberal arts or professional fields, and provides a way of measuring the creativitity of graduates in building their careers.  

Measured against these standards, professors would be encouraged to teach students in a manner that is relevant to the real world while avoiding very narrow, idiosyncratic courses and methods.  Could this measurement be applicable to philosophy majors?  Art history majors?  Nursing majors?  One would certainly hope that faculties in every department give this question serious consideration.