Gerontology is a newer field so locating program rankings is no easy task. But this can be seen as a positive thing. Gerontology program rankings alert the masses to the best gerontology programs and allow these programs to cash in on their educational fame. If you can find the best gerontology programs yourself before anyone else knows about them, you can reap the benefits.
What Do Rankings Do?
Program rankings, first and foremost, show anyone who’s interested what the best programs are. They do so by selecting criteria by which to rank programs and giving all the criteria a certain amount of weight in making the final decision. Basically, program rankings rank the programs.
Beyond this, program rankings give a certain amount of prestige to the programs that make the list and more prestige to those that secure higher rankings. This means that, depending upon the popularity of the lists, these programs that secure high rankings can afford to be more selective about students and can charge more for their programs. Better programs are worth paying for and everyone knows that.
Without Rankings
Gerontology is a relatively new field so it exists without established rankings at the moment. You may stumble upon rankings here and there but they are not well known. This means that even the better programs do not have this advantage over lesser programs which means that they cannot raise their admissions standards or their cost on this basis. You can only make money off of being better if people know it. Like any business, if no one knows that you are better than another business then you cannot benefit from this fact.
What This Means For You
This means that you may have to put in some extra effort to figure out which programs are better than others but once you do you may be able to save money. At some point, the field of gerontology will be on the world’s radar and the best programs will be able to charge significantly more for their quality but that time has not come yet. You could get the best education out there without paying that much more that you would pay for a merely adequate education.
Gerontology program rankings barely exist at the moment but this can help you. Prestige brings the ability to charge more. Get into this field before programs gain prestige and you can get a great deal on your education.
