DIAGNOSE THIS. The Cranky Professor links to a Jay Mathews column that parses Robert Samuelson's praise for Old Media's collegiate rankings.

One reason the Ivies have lost some luster, Samuelson says, is that college by itself is not so important any more. "More Americans now go to graduate school -- and graduate degrees count heavily in the job market and the status derby," he says. "Consider: in 1960, 392,000 Americans got bachelor's degrees and about 100,000 got graduate and professional degrees. By 2001 the numbers were 1.2 million and 600,000. So, if you go to Podunk and then to Harvard for graduate work, your Podunk degree is enhanced. Conversely, Harvard grads attending Podunk for graduate school may find their college degrees diminished. Of course, many Harvard alumni got to fine graduate schools, but there's much mixing. In 2003 only 15 percent of the incoming class at Harvard Law had been Harvard undergraduates."

But an even more intriguing trend is underway. Three decades ago, Samuelson says, we only had a few luxury cars, like Cadillac, Lincoln and Mercedes. Now rising demand for plush upholstery and dashboard gizmos has led to several more high-priced brands, like Lexus, Acura and Infiniti. The same thing is happening to colleges. "Frustrated at not getting their children into elite schools," he says, "Americans are creating more elite schools."

Look at the rise of certain colleges on the U.S. News list. Duke didn't even make the first rankings in 1983, but it invested heavily in faculty salaries, new buildings and promotion (Samuelson reveals that 70 percent of private colleges like Duke spend $1,000 or more on every recruited freshman). This year Duke is tied for fifth.

There is an element of price competition in this, and, to be sure, profits attract entry.

I think there are many more schools that do not make the U.S. News list but provide just as fine an education for students whose needs fit those schools' particular strengths. Samuelson's piece shows, from a historical viewpoint, how mushy and variable the rankings can be, making it clear that even by the U.S. News standards there are more schools than ever that can compete with Yale and that ilk in faculty salaries, test scores and grad school acceptance rates.

Samuelson and I discovered this two years ago when our high school senior daughters were attracted to several schools that our neighbors in the Ivy-obsessed suburbs of Washington, D.C., would not have put at the top of their lists. I gathered from my conversations with Samuelson at that time that he had some differences with his daughter on exactly which school might be the best for her, but we are both old enough to realize who is in charge. Ruthie Samuelson and Katie Mathews choose great, if lesser known, Sun Belt schools that are part of the expansion of quality Samuelson's piece reveals.

"There's a convergence of interests," he says. "Ambitious schools crave better students, while more students who once might have attended the old elite can't. They, and their parents, then become a social force to broaden the elite. Their cheering and careers confer new respectability or formerly 'second tier' schools. What makes new Harvards is envy and emulation of the old."

Yes, and twenty years out it makes no difference what diploma is gathering dust on your mantel. But let's read between the lines a little. "Graduate degrees count heavily?" Why? Has first high school and then college been so devalued that the real certification is being done in graduate school? One wonders whether the pushers of the various P-20 initiatives (preschool to graduate school) are contemplating that possibility.