HBCU's Get Exclusive Rankings...

As a product of an HBCU (shouts to Morgan State University), I felt compelled to deliver the good news....

For the first time EVER U.S. News & World Report has put out an exclusive ranking of the nation's 81 historically black colleges and universities.

Critics say the list is superficial and just another way for the magazine to make money. What's worse, they say it undercuts HBCU's and discourages students from enrolling in lower ranked schools."The message that (U.S. News) gives is that we see a value in making Black rankings, we can profit from it," Dr. Walter Kimbrough, president of Philander Smith College in Arkansas, told Diverse Magazine. His school was unranked because it did not use standardized tests in selecting students."It's about profit, not a service to African-Americans," he says. Spelman College, in Atlanta, took top honors followed by Howard University in Washington, D.C., Hampton University in Virginia and Morehouse College in Atlanta.Dr. Michael Lomax, president and CEO of the United Negro College Fund, says that it's great for all HBCU's "The high ranking of these UNCF member colleges validates for a national audience what the statistics have long proven," Lomax told Diverse.

After all, most of these HBCUs have always been respected institutions, but they just can't compete with big schools that have massive endowments to make it into U.S. News' traditional ranking.The rankings are given through the same criteria the magazine uses annually for the rest of the nation's top colleges, including peer assessment, graduation and retention rates, faculty resources, student selectivity, financial resources and alumni giving rates.

What do you think about the rankings?