Dive Brief:
- In the third story of a three-part series about elite college admissions in The Atlantic, Alia Wong outlines the history of rankings and their pernicious impact on higher education, forcing colleges to compete in selling their value to students.
- Among other things, the rankings have encouraged colleges to recruit aggressively to foster an image of selectivity and couple admissions and financial aid in a bid to entice high-performing, wealthy students with “merit” aid.
- While college leaders have recognized the danger of the rankings since their inception and alternatives to U.S. News & World Report that prioritize different metrics have provided some new direction in the market, the vast majority of students still consider rankings very important to their application decisions — and U.S. News is at the top of their lists.
Dive Insight:
Almost a quarter of a school’s U.S. News & World Report rank is based on school reputation, determined based on surveys of peer schools and high school counselors. Another 12.5% comes down to selectivity, and 5% depends on the alumni giving rate. The magazine also factors in retention, faculty resources, financial resources, and graduation rate performance. Alternative ranking systems have focused on the value proposition of a college, balancing cost of tuition with mid-career earnings or factored in campus diversity in deciding how well a college is doing.
The recent controversy at Mount St. Mary’s University centered on now-former President Simon Newman’s plan to improve the school’s standing in the rankings. He wanted to assess students early in their freshman year and then encourage students who were most at risk of failure to drop out before they hurt the college’s retention numbers. The incident has only fueled the fire of anti-rankings sentiment.