The College Scorecard -- a recent White House effort to help Americans find the best value for their education dollars -- doesn't do enough to help the disturbing number of people for whom college continues to be unattainable.

Although it provides college-bound students with some useful information, it misleads them about institutional performance by focusing on the six-year graduation rate to "score" colleges and universities. Use of the six-year rate is misleading for two primary reasons.

The Department of Education raises legitimate concerns about sticker price. The American public needs to be better educated about what this means for them. Higher education leadership must be prepared to address consumer concerns.

With the College Scorecard, students have a service that wouldn't be provided elsewhere. Even if students research colleges on their own, they are more likely to find information that is skewed, biased or disorganized.

Nowhere in the recently released White House "college scorecard" can I find a section about a school's worth in inspiring careers in public service, working for social justice, living simply, not exalting money as the only benchmark worth talking about. Instead, it equates excellence with salaries.

Is education principally about the best deal out there? Is it really a transaction that can be reduced to metrics whose applicability and level of appropriateness varies widely within a diverse higher education system?

Making a list of colleges is one of the indicators for successfully enrolling in a university after high school. The online scorecard will help prospective students assess the cost and value of attending individual colleges and universities.