One of the most important arguments for a college education is that it increases the earnings potential for the graduate.

However, in the academic world of “unfair” practices, the new University of California- Berkeley chancellor has just added actually rating schools on post-graduate earnings…based on a new Obama administration plan.

A year ago California voters faced a choice: Would they approve a tax increase to help fund a public higher education system that had been the envy of the world? The passage of Proposition 30 on the November 2012 ballot was seen as a resounding affirmative.

And it cemented a decision Nicholas B. Dirks was contemplating, to leave a senior executive post at Columbia University to become chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley. On the day after the vote, he knew it was the right move.

“I said, ‘This is good news. It’s auspicious,’ ” Dirks recalled in a recent visit to The Washington Post. “I signed my contract and faxed it in.”

…What brought him to Washington, among other business, was a meeting with top U.S. Education Department officials to discuss President Obama’s plan for the federal government to rate colleges on value by the start of the 2015-16 school year. Obama announced the plan in August, part of what was billed as an effort to increase college affordability.

The rating system is still under design. Obama proposed that ratings should be based on measures such as the percentage of students receiving Pell grants; the average tuition, scholarships, and loan debt at a college; and outcomes, including graduation and transfer rates, graduate earnings and the number of advanced degrees earned by a given college’s graduates.

Many higher education leaders have mixed feelings about Obama’s initiative. Dirks is no exception. But he said that it’s better for universities to participate in the discussion than to boycott it. “We don’t have an option but to engage,” he said.

One of his bottom lines: Dirks is adamant that schools should not be rated based on the earnings of their graduates. “No. No prevarication. Just n-o,” Dirks said when asked whether it would be a good idea to factor earnings into a college rating system. He said that focusing on salaries would give short shrift to schools that prepare students for lower-paying but vital public service positions such as those in the Peace Corps or public education.