People love rating things. I spend a lot of time outdoors putting various bits of gear through their paces, and when something impresses–or spooks–me, I review the product like a maniac. When it’s time to buy new gear, I tear through customer reviews, blogs, and discussion groups to find out all I can about the product I’m considering. I feel that these actions make a responsible consumer. Education is not cheap, no matter your route, and Unigo.com is letting people rate institutions of higher learning. It’s about time somebody organized this!

Great Idea with Great Execution
Unigo.com isn’t just providing your standard blurb about stats, costs, programs, and community. Those are everywhere and seem to give you about as much of an idea about the actual school as the back of a DVD tells you about a movie.  On this site you can find out first-hand information about all aspects of life at a given school. Learn about activities on and off campus; learn about programs and professors; and–perhaps most importantly–find out about aspects of life at a given school that the admissions committees and campus guides might leave out.

I’ve seen college-specific professor- and class-rating sites that give students the low down on the best and worst classes, but this is a step beyond–and it’s free. It’s a great idea, in my opinion. No longer can a tenured professor get away with providing low-quality education and still fill classes. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard students and graduates complaining about the reality of the program they’ve chosen and their dissatisfaction with it. This information should be available to everyone concerned. It could very well prevent students from falling through the cracks by helping them choose programs that are appropriate for them.

Expanding the Scope
This site doesn’t yet  have a section for online education programs, which will hopefully come in time.This site is another great example of Web 2.0, which means that it’s composed primarily of user-generated content, which–in turn–means that everyone needs to pitch in to make this service the best that it can be.