IHTFP but it does have some redeeming social value

4 September 2009

I must congratulate my alma mater on reaching 12th place in the Washington Monthly’s national university rankings. (This is the ranking system that asks not what colleges do for their alumni’s reputations, but what all these well-endowed tax-exempt institutions are doing for their country.) Surely it is a mere statistical fluke, perhaps a slip of an editor’s pen, that led another well-known Cambridge educational institution to reach 11th place.

Next year, try to beat Texas A&M, OK?

• Later: The Gordian solution to poverty
• Earlier: Dept. of “oh, no, not again”