Better Matching of Students and Colleges?

In this week’s Pope Center Clarion Call, I write about a company, ConnectEdu, that is bringing the same sort of matching that’s used in online dating services to college applications. It seems promising to me and may diminish the prevalence of students enrolling at schools where they are poorly matched. Unfortunately, we still have an informational asymmetry. College officials know a lot about prospective students, but the students will don’t know much about the school. Will a more prestigious, highly-ranked institution mean a better education? Not necessarily. Finding out about the academic culture of colleges, which ranges from Animal House to scholarly monasticism, is crucial, but that takes a lot of digging.