The Chronicle recently ran an article, entitled “Boeing to Rank Colleges by Measuring Graduates’ Job Success.” In it, they explore what Boeing (the aviation company) is doing to help colleges and themselves have more successful and engineering-savvy individuals.

Boeing plans to look up the educational histories of its employees and match their college trends to their level of success in the workplace. Traditionally, Boeing says that they have gotten students from top schools and think that they can create their own ranking system for engineering colleges.

It does make sense because Boeing wants to foster a strong relationship with the colleges they get their students from and perhaps have a positive influence on their curriculum. After all, Boeing says of colleges, “their students become our employees.” Boeing goes to the same schools to recruit students annually and really just wants to have the best and solid information available to them.

However, Boeing’s plan is met with some resistance. Some claim that another ranking system (similar to U.S. News and World Report) will drive schools to make solely cosmetic changes and won’t be beneficial whatsoever. This gives a false impression to students and employers on what the school has actually done for its students. Others don’t want the rankings to be revealed at all (which is the current plan) because it is more to help engineering colleges with their curriculum and Boeing with their recruitment.

There are some schools that train their students for specific companies, but in an uncertain economy (and one with ever-expanding technology) there needs to be more of a balance to take on a wide spectrum of issues. If Boeing goes ahead and completes their ranking system, there should be many factors considered, including length of program, curriculum, course intensity, and more.

Boeing wants to help themselves by first helping others in their engineering field. Whether another ranking system will help or hurt is still TBD. What do you think?

-Amanda Fornecker