The Three Crucial Relationships to Get Right at College

In another endless season of rankings and scorecards, I continue to marvel at how often we measure everything except the things that seem to matter most for student learning. Too often, debates about education focus on the components: courses, books, majors, co-curricular activities, and strategic plans. But it would be a mistake to reduce colleges to these parts.

In truth, at their core, colleges are bundles of people. The quality of an education is driven by the relationships that form, (o...