The editors of the Washington Monthly magazine have produced a new set of college rankings that poses the question of what the American public needs from its universities and then evaluates them on that basis.

"While other guides ask what colleges can do for students, we ask what colleges are doing for the country," the editors write. "The first question we asked was, what does America need from its universities? From this starting point, we came up with three central criteria: Universities should be engines of social mobility, they should produce the academic minds and scientific research that advance knowledge and drive economic growth, and they should inculcate and encourage an ethic of service. We designed our evaluation system accordingly."

In the rankings, four University of California campuses were represented in the top 20:
- UCLA, #2
- UC Berkeley, #3
- UC San Diego, #8
- UC Davis, #17

The rankings, the first such college rankings produced by the magazine, are available at http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2005/0509.collegeguide.html.