Unhappy ranking has Rolla laughing

ROLLA, Mo. -- Engineering student R.J. Agee is a happy guy -- an odd thing, given that since he's attending the University of Missouri-Rolla, he ought to be crying right about now.

After all, The Princeton Review, a New York publisher of college information and test guides, released rankings this week saying Agee and his 4,100 classmates at the south-central Missouri school are the least happy in the nation.

Students and administrators at this university about 100 miles southwest of St. Louis are enjoying their notoriety for superlative sadness in the annual book, "The Best 345 Colleges," the guide used by prospective students and parents as a starting point on their college searches.

The students in Rolla simply don't believe it.

"A lot of people don't understand it. The facts have no basis. It's a joke," said Agee, student council president and an engineering senior from St. Joseph.

Most students at this technological university, where 70 percent of the students study engineering, are having a good laugh. They're earning degrees that routinely lead to high-paying jobs -- within three months of graduation, nearly all students have jobs and earn an average salary of $47,000.

Others claim the findings are as scientifically invalid as they are untrue, criticizing what they say is the study's unclear method and measurements. The study's author says he's open to criticism, but counters that the review reveals students' honest opinions of their schools.

Out of 63 categories, Missouri-Rolla was cited for inaccessible professors, "dungeon dorms," political apathy and strained relations with the community. The school also took lumps for its tiny size and bad food -- the school ranked 20th in the food ranking, making it the best of the bad.

Still others might draw different conclusions by visiting Rolla, once ranked by Yahoo! as one of the nation's most wired campuses. Students have free cable inside each dorm room, access to free wireless Internet connections and can use DVD and video game players by simply showing their student identification card.

Rolla wasn't the only Missouri school mentioned.

While Indiana was named the nation's top "party school", students at College of the Ozarks in Point Lookout ranked themselves as "stone-cold sober" with a homogeneous student population.

In a jab at schools whose students are least likely to embody college liberalism, Truman State University in Kirksville placed seventh for "Future Rotarians and Daughters of the American Revolution."

Saint Louis University scored in the top 10 for "Is it food?"

The good news: The best college food in the nation can be found at Washington University in St. Louis, though students there said they were dissatisfied with financial aid.